Everything is Energy!

Have you noticed that when you're having a bad day, your child is also?  You wonder why your child at least could cut you some slack today of all days, right?  I've been there too.  I've been there so many times that I am convinced that the child is just responding and reacting to my own energy.  If I am tense, distracted and stand-offish, the child will be needy, whiny and clingy - which is not what I wanted to be dealing with in my own upsetness and self-absorption.  When I feel centered and present, then the child is cooperative, calm and loving.

The lesson is - always look within yourself first if you want to change your child's behavior.  Young children are not strong enough and equipped with enough life skills necessary to be free agents in their environment.  You are their reference point to what's going on in the world.  When you are out of whack, their world is out of whack.

The road back to good energy lies within you and begins with what you choose to focus on.   Here are some quick and easy steps you can take immediately to change the energy:

 

1.  Begin changing your focus with taking a deep breath.  You need oxygen to your pre-frontal cortex as much as your child does in order to stimulate the rational part of your brain. 

2.  Focus your attention on what is immediately in front of you at the present moment - the child.  Your child!

3.  Put a smile on your face, no matter how fakey it feels. "Fake it 'til you make it", my partner always says.  Hold onto your hands so they don't get out of control.  Notice how your neck, chest and stomach feel.  Shake your hands in the air so that they flap up and down at the wrists.

4.  If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all!  If you have to make sounds, try singing or humming. My magic song that I use to instantly change the energy between myself and a child is "You are my Sunshine!  My only Sunshine!  You make me happy when clouds are gray.  You'll never know, dear, how much I love you!"   Or "The Barney Song".  Come up with your own magic song. 

5.  If you have to say something - use "I" statements.  Talk about how you feel and how your feeling is manifesting itself in your body.  This is a very instructive exercise.  "Boy, Mommy feels tense today!  Look at my muscles.  See how tight my chin is?  Look at my shoulders.  They keep getting all scrunched up.  I wonder what I can do to feel better.  Do you have any ideas that may help me?"  This kind of language instructs the child in how to become aware of and name a feeling.  It also shows how one can process a feeling and move through it and past it, rather than remain in the emotional state reactively.

Although we  may say we believe it, and no matter how many times we hear it, there is a part of us that cannot bring ourselves to believe that:

                      If you want to change the world, you must change yourself.

Blaming the child will not get you down the road in resolving misbehavior issues with your child and gaining more cooperation, good-will, self-discipline, self-control and harmony in your relationship with your child.

I challenge you to conduct energy experiments.  Notice the relationship between your energy and your child's energy.  Notice yourself as an agent of energy-change.  Share your experiments here.  How did you change the energy?  What worked?  What didn't work?  What was the outcome?

The  next step has to do with language.  Our next discussion with examine the use of "Safe Words" - specific words and phrases that you can always fall back on in situations when your child is upset, in conflict, or misbehaving.