Hello!

“With my kids, and with myself as a parent, I aim at preventing violence. And LOVING aggression.

Loving aggression, are you crazy? – you might say. Why, and how can you do that??

But yes, that is what I believe is helpful for all of us.

 

Because aggression is there for a reason. 

A reason that probably my child hasn’t had a say in. His body and soul reacts in the way it was designed to react in such circumstances. 

A child who knows that hitting or scratching hurt, because we have told him a thousand times, might become aggressive if he has unmet needs or painful feelings that he didn’t get to meet and didn’t get to express in healthy ways.

Perhaps because he doesn’t have a say in the things that are happening to him. He didn’t choose to have a sibling… every single day! Or we seem to dedicate more attention to his brother, or to our phone!

Or because he has big fears. I have found that my son’s aggression (and attempted violence) often comes right after talking of a topic that seems to scare him, e.g. starting kindergarten.

Or he experienced stress or trauma while in the womb. Or he has picked up on unspoken pain in the family, such as having lost a previous child in the pregnancy.
 

He might feel unsafe to cry when he is upset, because his crying could have been distracted, repressed, ignored or punished – and so all those feelings accumulate…

 

We might not be aware of the reason – but there is always a valid reason!

 

If his most important needs were met, and he got to release his painful feelings with our loving attention, he would naturally be loving and cooperative. Because contribution and cooperation with our beloved ones and with our community is also a basic human need that we all seek to fulfil.

 

Hating or punishing aggression in my child probably means to him that he is hated or punished when he is in the biggest pain himself. 

Yes, we can say that we only react to his BEHAVIOUR, and we do not talk about his PERSON when we reject that behaviour. But in fact, when I react harshly to my son’s behaviour (either within my heart, or in my words or acting), I cannot separate the two!

I see him differently, I cannot in fact LOVE him in that very moment when I HATE or FEAR his behaviour!

 

This rejection of “misbehaviour” is so deeply rooted in our culture that it is really hard to even become aware of it, not to mention change it in our minds! 

But it is still true that if we reject an aggressive child’s “behaviour”, we are punishing him in his most powerless, vulnerable, painful life situations! Sounds unfair? To me, definitely!

 

Wouldn’t it be so much more helpful to give him MORE LOVE when he is in there, and set a LOVING limit to his behaviour, with full understanding and acceptance? 

To meet him where he is, to try to find out about his needs and meet them as best as we can? 

To listen to his painful feelings that had caused the aggressive behaviour in the first place? 

To embrace his tears and harmless raging? 

To deeply and lovingly connect to him even if there are no visible results of our connection in that moment?

But a word of compassion here: how could I be loving to my child (including in his aggression) and set a LOVING limit to that behaviour and listen to his feelings, if I was well taught to reject aggression in me, as well as in others? 

If I suffered verbal or physical aggression myself in those vulnerable years of growing up, as pretty much all of us did?

If I am sitting on a pile of repressed rageful emotions, having accumulated them for decades? If I get hurt in his aggressive outbursts today, or see his brother suffer from it? 

How can I be with feelings in him that I cannot be with in myself, or if I am actually scared?

How can I lovingly be with his aggression, if I haven’t yet grieved all those event in my life when I suffered from aggression, or when I was rejected in my own aggression?

 

Well, in the past year or so, I have been working intensely around accepting my own fear, rage and aggression. I have definitely not solved it yet! But I have made a couple of experiences when I could lovingly accept these feelings in me, and ask myself, “so what do you need, sweetheart?” 

Sometime ago it even occurred to me to tell myself, “I’m here with you and I love you the most when you feel like this!” – and I made a recording of it. And I kept on sharing and sharing all those difficulties and feelings in our supportive aware parenting communities!

 

Every bit of this inner work leads usually to a flood of tears, and something that feels like a complete reset of a part of my brain! Some little step to enlightenment almost. 🙂 It is so very transformative to be loved unconditionally in those places.

 

So through this inner healing work, I have found that I can be with more and more portions of my son’s painful feelings when he acts aggressively. 

There have been occasions when I could fully understand and love him – it was almost like tangibly feeling the fear and the tension in his little chest and just BEING with it, STAYING with it.

Getting close both physically and emotionally. Being in the TRUST that with my loving presence he knows how to let go of it. Just being delighted that I could be with him and I could be his precious support while he was in that difficult inner process!

So there comes the raging, and sometimes the tears.

The more truly loving I can be (after having experienced that rage and the love from inside), the more tears are flowing, and the more he makes eye contact in the process. And I have found that after such occasions he just becomes his natural, calm and loving himself.

The day before I spent a whole morning, trying to be with both of my children’s feelings this way, one after the other.

Then we went to the playground. I have suddenly found them standing at the bottom of a slide, hugging each other closely. Little one leaned his head on the chest of his elder brother. They just stood there for several minutes in this loving cuddle.
 

So yes, I aim at preventing violence, and LOVE those hurt parts in us that come to be aggressive from time to time.
 

By the way some people love to tell me how I should do this differently.

They all focus on my child’s needs, with all the best intentions! E.g. that I should “love him more”. But you know what, my needs are first!! 

I need compassion and support, and this includes letting go of what “should be”. In the TRUST that I also want to contribute and cooperate, and I am peaceful and loving deep in my heart. By nature. 

And if it is not happening, then the last thing I need and deserve is judgment or shoulding. I need exactly the same things as my children in those places: unconditional love, compassion and support.”
 

Don’t you just LOVE this! I really love the way that Kata has expressed this! And if you want to know more about her work, she doesn’t yet have a newsletter or website, but I’ll let you know when she has a way that you can read more of her beautiful words!

I love how she has been diving in deeply to the topic of aggression, and has so much to share about it.

I’d love to hear what you find challenging when your child is aggressive.

 

And what do I have for sharing today?

Well, it’s very apt, because my free introductory course on Making Friends with Children’s Feelings is still available – you can access it by CLICKING HERE or on the image below.

 

If you have friends whom you think might like to hear about it, please share it with them!

 

And the paid version of the course is also open! You can have a look at it HERE or by clicking on the image below.
 

 

I made another video, this time about this new course. You can watch it by clicking on the video.