I was reading back over the questions that you posted me and there was a common theme emerging…
“What is the best way to deal with my child when they are feeling upset, frustrated, annoyed, disappointed?”
I am pleased that this topic was raised because it is an area of treatment that I get quite passionate about and I would like to share my thoughts with you…
So often we are happy to engage with children (not just special needs kids!) when they are happy and joyous, but we tend to disconnect with them when they are experiencing more challenging emotions.
But why do we do this?
Feelings of frustration, sadness annoyance etc are all basic (and completely normal) human emotions that we all encounter on a regular basis. But when this happens to our own child we are naturally driven to find a way of making them feel ‘happy’ again by saying things like “Stop crying”, “You’re okay”, “Where’s your happy face?”, “It’s ok, how about we have something to eat”.
But all this actually does is disconnects us from what they are really experiencing and feeling, and we miss an important opportunity to ‘connect’ with our child and to help them learn and grow from the experience. Read more …
