When you are about to lose it with your child the most common advice from psychologists is to stop and count to 10 before reacting so that you can get yourself under control and be more reasonable. The problem is, that most of us either shallow breathe during this time or stop breathing completely. This actually defeats the object because without oxygen we will react / over-react instead of responding to the situation at hand. Responding is a learned and controlled behaviour vs reacting which comes more naturally and usually lowers you to the other person’s level.
Try using this simple breathing technique next time your emotional control is about to go up in smoke: 8 + 8 + 8. Eight seconds to draw the breath in through your nose, eight seconds to hold the breath, then eight seconds to exhale. This might also help – visualise the air entering your body as clean and turquoise blue (or any other calming colour you can think of). When you hold your breath, allow the blood vessels in the lungs to absorb the oxygen. Then, as you exhale, visualise brown, green and toxic waste dripping with slime and foam. Yeuk! All those ugly emotional toxins being released with your exhaled breath!
Now that your brain is oxygenated, the next step is to take back control and frame your response in such a way that you take responsibility for how you are feeling. Instead of “You make me so angry…..,” it would be “I am feeling so angry because …..”. You lose control by “letting someone else make you angry”, even your child. You need to hold on to your own power in order to lead your child effectively.
So, to keep on the up:
- Breath (remember 8 + 8 + 8)
- Drink lots of water to stay sharp and lower your levels of irritability. Did you know that the first organ in the body to dehydrate is the brain? A mere two percent drop in body water can cause fuzzy short term memory – not good in a conflict situation.
- Take a daily ‘time-out’ away from the demands of life and children, even if it is just for 10 minutes. Do nothing during this time. Just sit or lie down, close your eyes, breath and be with yourself. This is a gift to yourself each day, and if you can make it longer, that’s great.
- Try not to overreact to things. The calmer you stay even in the face of a crisis, the better your children will cope. They take you far more seriously in an argument if you drop your voice than if you shout shrilly at them and get all hysterical.
Last but not least, keep a little unexpected humour up your sleeve. When things get desperate with your child, try this: jump up, shake your arms and hands around loosely (as if you have lost control of them) and wobble your head from side to side speaking gobbledegook all the while. You will sound completely ridiculous, like someone who has lost control of their lips, mouth and tongue! I can attest to the fact that it really is an ice breaker and a tension reliever which will put a smile on your child’s dial. Only to be done in the privacy of your own home, of course, or you might find yourself being carted off to the local nut house!
NIKKI BUSH
Creative parenting expert, inspirational speaker and co-author of Future-proof Your Child (Penguin, 2008), and Easy Answers to Awkward Questions (Metz Press, 2009)
nikki@brightideasoutfit.co.za
www.brightideasoutfit.com
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