by Shifan Hu-Couble

Parenting Coach / Counsellor / Psychotherapist

One Sunday afternoon, as I walked past the ToyRus in my neighbourhood mall, I saw a child screaming at her dad demanding a particular toy. The father was unmoved. In the absence of any response, the child started to stomp her feet and grab her father’s arm violently. The father freed himself from the child and walked off. This triggered a panic response from the child. Her scream got even louder, and she collapsed onto the floor, kicking her feet uncontrollably. As time went by, the child’s howling slowly turned into sobbing and finally quieted down. The father returned from the far corner and took her with him. The father seemed satisfied as his walk-away technique worked to stop the tantrum. There was no expression on the child’s face as they walked past me.

It was painful to witness how a child’s cry for help was utterly dismissed by her caregiver and how she was left alone to defend herself, which led to a total emotional shutdown.

In my parenting workshop, I often receive questions from parents on how to make their child behave: how to stop my child from acting out? How to stop my child from being angry? How to make my child more compliant? Parents are overly concerned with making their children behave, instead of meeting their children’s needs.

Before we start to ponder on how to stop a child from acting out, let’s take a step back: what makes a child act out? Imagine you are in a foreign country and looking for a café, unable to speak the foreign language, you would probably act out the need for a coffee to a passerby, hoping to be directed to a café. We act out because we are incapable of expressing our needs in words. The same explanation goes for a child. A child acts out because he does not have the language to express his emotional needs and frustrations. Children are acting out their unmet needs in desperation hoping their parents could somehow get their message in their act. Unfortunately, such attempts often result in punishment, reprimand, rejection, and disapproval. Left with their unmet needs and withdrawal of parental love, children are forced to learn some most painful lessons of their lives: my needs are not important. I am not important, I deserve the punishment, I am bad, my emotions are useless, I am alone, and no one would understand, and the list is endless. These lessons morph into a life script which would subconsciously direct the thoughts, emotions, and behaviours of the person.

When we think of childhood trauma, we think of physical abuse, verbal abuse, or other acts of commission, not realizing that an omission of a necessary act can be equally if not more traumatizing for a child. What are some non-negotiable needs of a child?

Need 1: Secure Attachment

First and foremost: secure attachment. We are mammals and our brains are wired with a powerful attachment circuit. We are wired for being taken care of and caring for others. The more immature a child is, the more helpless and dependent he is, the greater his attachment needs. How to create a secure attachment? The answer lies in emotional attunement.  As an attachment figure, you need to feel what the child feels and help him to co-regulate his emotions when it gets too overwhelming.

Need 2: Rest

Secondly, in a parent-child relationship, the child gets to rest. This means that the child is not required to work on the relationship: love is given, not earned. The child does not have to behave, perform, or submit to gain parental love and approval. In this case, the child feels safe relating to the parents and being himself. He does not need to choose between attachment and authenticity which is often not the case in reality. When faced with such a choice, the child will almost certainly choose attachment at the expense of himself because, for a child, attachment means survival.

Need 3: Emotions

Thirdly, a child needs to experience the full spectrum of emotions from anger, sadness, envy, and disappointment to joy, excitement, and happiness. Faced with an angry child, a parent will usually reprimand the child – “good kids do not get angry, stop being angry”; or ignore the child – walk away from the child; or distract the child – offer food or screens to distract the child from feeling his emotions. Parents resort to these tactics not understanding the function of anger as an emotion. Anger is here to tell us that our values have been breached. Anger prompts us to defend what is important to us. For example, if someone steps on your feet on the bus, you will naturally feel angry as your physical boundary has been crossed. It is the same with emotional boundaries and value boundaries. For example, if you notice someone at work has taken credit for the work you have done, you will feel angry because fairness as a value is important to you. Evolutionarily speaking, every emotion is here to send us a vital message. Sadly, our society assigns moral values to emotions: anger is destructive, sadness is weakness, jealousy is immoral, etc. Consequently, we learn to suppress our emotions from an early age. However, it is an essential need for a child to feel emotions. The task for the parents is not to prevent these emotions from arising, instead, the task is to co-regulate these emotions with the child.

Need 4: Play

Last but not least, a child needs to play in the nature. Play without agenda. Free play is not a good-to-have, but a must-have for the healthy development of a child. Connection to nature brings us closer to our mother earth, our humanness, and our core.

Conclusion

When these four needs are fulfilled for a child, the child will grow and learn at his own pace. He will not only survive but thrive in a conducive environment. Parenting is no longer a job to do or a role to play. Parenting is accompanying the child on his journey of becoming a person. Let me accompany you in this parenting journey as your Parenting Coach. Book a session with me now.