The emotional cup will either help a child be calm, regulated, present and feeling safe; or the emotional cup can cause a child to feel unsafe, to flip their lids, to meltdown, become aggressive or hide away, or to have any challenging behavior that signals distress.
It becomes either a child managing their emotional regulation and using the top down approach to problem solving, frustration tolerance or ability to adapt to a situation. In other words they are able to use their “thinking brain”. Or the child is in their downstairs brain, using the bottom up approach to these struggles. This usually results in tantrums, meltdowns, distress and many other acts that are seen as “misbehaving”.
The child who is in their downstairs brain is less likely to be able to regulate their emotions and control their bodies . They can quickly lose control and their nervous system takes over and that is when we see the fight, flight, freeze or collapse responses. These are stress responses that the child has no control over and is the signal they need our help and support. This is through a calm, present, connected caregiver that lends their calm through co regulation.
Some of our kids struggle to maintain self regulation. Especially our kids with developmental delays. As parents, we have choices when we see our children struggling. We can either create further stress for them by yelling, offering consequences, threatening time outs or loss of privilege.
This implies the child is in control of their behavior and choosing to misbehave. But far too often, this is not the case, and the child has moved into their downstairs brain and is having a stress response. Any number of things could be the cause. But right now, the focus is supporting the child. This is the same as an alarm system. However the warning signals that lead up to the alarm bells ringing, were missed and don’t really matter at this point. This is not the time to “teach a lesson” or work on any skill or try to rationalize with them. Being connected, present and providing relational safety is the only thing that will help the child at this point . They are in their downstairs brain and need co regulation to be able to move up the brain ladder and gain some emotional control. That’s it. That is all that should happen in these moments. As hard as it can be for us, the adults, we need to make sure we are calm and able to share our calm.
Now this may seem impossible during heated moments. Oh I know it. It can be hard. This is why self care and self compassion is even more important for us. We can’t lose our calm and then expect our children to be calm. It is really scary from the child’s perspective when the adult has lost their control. This can quickly escalate things.
This creates the cycle of meltdown for everyone. Those are really stressful moments. But we are the adults. It goes without saying we need to be the adults in these situations. Period. And it is hard.
Keeping calm isn’t always easy to maintain in ourselves. I learned an easy way to gain my composure using 3 words I say to myself. Three easy steps to help my child. Stop, drop and breathe!
This can quickly regulate ourselves to then immediately be able to support our child. We all know escalating a situation never helps the situation. If we “react” to our child’s behavior, we are creating a bigger storm.
So even in a moment , we can quickly catch ourselves , by first recognizing to “stop” further reactive response. Then drop, refers to dropping our shoulders. This brings us body awareness that let’s go of tension, brings us back the the present moment and creates a calmer body to share with our child.
Okay, so we have our first thought to stop ourselves from any further reactive response to our child. Then by dropping our shoulders, we let go of tension that was stirring in our body. It brings us back to this critical moment that we need to help our child. And we need to gain calm to share our calm. Third step is to breathe. Take a deep breath in and exhale slowly through our mouth. This is a regulatory practice that focuses our mind and our body to be in a calm brain state, be available to our child and recognize the best way to support our child during this stressful moment for them. We take ourselves out of the chaos and can then bring relational safety and connection to our child, which is what calms them down and brings them back to an emotional regulated brain state through our co regulation.
This is what helps our children when they are having a hard time. When our children are at their worst, we must be at our best. It can be hard for sure. But if we ensure our own emotional cup is full and when it is not, we have self compassion and practice self care to refill our cup so that we can be there for our children when they need us the most.
We can also be proactive in helping our children have a full emotional cup. And when it needs a refill, they most likely will need our help refilling their cup. If we notice a low emotional cup, we can be proactive before any emotional dysregulation causes the downstairs brain to start to take over and through connection such as reading a book together or going for a walk, these together activities bring co regulation to help refill their emotional cup. So does playing with friends, doing art, or participation in their favorite activities. These are some ways to support our children and can help refill their emotional cup to support their own regulated brain state which helps them maintain calm and an organized brain to learn, think and problem solve.
What helps fill your emotional cup?
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