I’d love to hear how you treat yourself after you act in ways with your child/ren that you regret.
If you react, disconnect, get harsh, or loud, and you see the pain in your child’s face, what do you do next?
You probably have an impulse to repair things with them.
And there are many ways that we can do that, and I’d love to talk about them.
And yet, have you ever missed out the first, most essential step?
Self-compassion.
If, after doing something like that, we judge ourselves, or punish ourselves, or feel guilty, we are missing a beautiful opportunity for giving ourselves what we want to give to our children.
The other thing about punishing ourselves is it means that we are probably in our thinking mind. Which isn’t the most effective place to reach out for connection and healing with our child!
I wonder if, instead of judging yourself, you’ve ever spent even a few seconds, just receiving a conscious breath, and given yourself some compassionate empathy, like, “ouch, I was in a lot of pain to do that. I was feeling so frustrated, and really wanting some cooperation.”
Then we are more likely to be connected with our feelings and our heart, and our child is much more likely to be able to connect with us.
I think there are at least two main things that are important to include about the repair process.
1. Letting our child know that it wasn’t her fault that we had big feelings and acted in the way we did.
Children tend to assume causality, unless we let them know otherwise. So, depending on their age, telling them something like, “I’m really sad that I spoke to you like that. It wasn’t your fault. I did it because I was upset. My reaction was nothing to do with you.“
(You can be curious about what you say, because it will give you clues to how you are treating yourself, and how your child will learn to think about themselves when they do something that they regret. If we say things like, “that was bad,” or, “I shouldn’t have done that,” it’s likely we’ll feel shame or guilt, which again will take us away from compassionate connection with ourselves and them too!)
2. Helping them release the feelings about what happened.
That could be through crying, talking, and/or laughter. They might spontaneously start to cry, and we can just listen, and offer empathy, “you’re feeling upset?” “Did you feel scared?” “I understand, sweetheart.” Holding them lovingly and being with them and receiving their feelings.
Depending on their age and character, they might want to talk about what happened. Again, it’s really important to hear their thoughts and feelings, and mirror them back, such as, “You were just really wanting some help with what you were doing. And then I spoke harshly to you, and you felt really scared.”
One of the most effective ways for children to release feelings of fear and powerlessness and confusion, that often arise if we’ve been harsh or angry, is through attachment play.
What kinds of things can we do?
Well, if we said a word with particular veracity, we could do a power-reversal game, and invite them to say that word whilst we pretend to run away from the word, or act mock-shocked, or pretend to jump in the air with fright.
Or perhaps both saying that word over and over again, and making a funny dance about it!
If they are younger, we could ask them to chase us, or scare us with a toy puppet or soft toy, and we run away, pretending to be scared, and then letting them catch us, and acting mock-shocked and scared.
Letting our children feel more powerful, and laughing to release any fear, powerlessness, or confusion, is the way that their bodies let out those feelings.
Another option is to rewind, and do that scenario again, but this time either doing it the way you wanted it to go, or even adding in silly and funny things that bring laughter.
They might need to play these more than once, depending on how we originally reacted.
The key to attachment play is bringing connection and laughter to what happened. Obviously, if our child is crying, then we need to listen to the tears rather than create laughter.
So, what are the keys to repair?
1. Being compassionate with ourselves first!;
2. Going for connection with our child;
3. Apologising, taking responsibility, telling them it wasn’t their fault;
4. Listening to their feelings;
5. Releasing fear and powerlessness through attachment play.
I’d love to hear; how do you treat yourself when you do something you regret, and what are your favourite attachment play games for repair?