Monthly Archives: September 2011

It’s Okay to Cry Over Spilled Milk

(C) Luw Swift 2007

I was sitting, alone, at a table in the middle of a crowded, local Starbucks today, sipping tea and composing an email. I heard a small commotion behind me, and then quickly heard the pained cry of a child in the middle of a big upset. I turned my head around immediately,  recognizing the wordless call for help that I hear in my home oh-so-often. What I saw was a little boy, around 5 or 6 years old, standing over a paper cup and a puddle of milk.

He was screaming, and seemed to be frantically searching for a familiar face. I quickly scanned the room, and noticed a family that had just passed through the, now closed, doors on the other side of the cafe.

The remarkable part, for me, about what happened next actually has less to do with the child in distress than it does with me. I instinctively stepped down from my stool and moved in close to the little boy, kneeling and making eye contact. I knew that his parents would quickly notice that he was not with them. I had no concerns about that. The only thing that mattered was that he was upset, and he needed someone to be with him.

At first he tensed up as I approached, and almost stopped crying. I reached out and gently touched his elbow, saying softly “You spilled your milk”. The tears welled up in his eyes, and just as I said “I’m right here” he began wailing, loud and hard, and the tears streamed down his face. Within moments there was a hand on my shoulder, and his mother was moving in to help him. She thanked me briefly as I stepped away, and compassionately listened to him tell her, through his sobs, about dropping his cup of milk. The kind baristas hastily replaced it, and they were quickly on their way.

As I sat back down, I noticed many eyes upon me. For the first time I thought about what had just happened. A child was screaming, over the loss of something that could be easily replaced, and his parents were out of sight. It occurred to me that my response was likely quite outside the realm of what these people were used to seeing. Even more, I realized how differently I would have reacted before learning and working with the tools that I have learned through Hand in Hand.  Without a doubt, I would have wanted to “fix” what was wrong, to erase the child’s hurt and stop the crying. I think that’s a pretty common response, and certainly an accepted one, in our society.

But I didn’t try to fix it. I simply moved in, and gave him my full attention. I knew he would be okay. I knew that he would probably get another milk, but I also recognized that the deep hurt he was feeling wasn’t just about this spill. I did what made sense to me, what I have learned to do for my own children when they are hurting. And the amazing thing? When I met the eyes of the other patrons, most of them were smiling. The business man sitting across from me looked at me warmly and said, “That was really great, what you just did!”.

On their way out the door, the mother stopped to thank me again for helping her son. She seemed relieved, and very grateful. I felt grateful too. I’m grateful that I have learned these listening tools, that I was able to offer my presence and ability to listen to a little boy that really needed someone in that moment. I am grateful that I no longer feel a frantic urge to “fix” the emotional upsets of those around me. And I am really grateful that I got to see, from a more objective perspective, the appreciation of strangers witnessing these tools in action. It’s hard to notice when I’m in the middle of it with my own kids.

- Jamie R. of Oakland

Check out Hand in Hand’s upcoming classes (local and on-line) and free monthly teleseminars.

I Want to Go to the Park

One summer evening when my son was 4.5, we were walking our dogs after dinner.  He really, really wanted to go to the neighborhood park.  I told him it was getting late, and we needed to go home and get ready for bed.  I promised that we could eat dinner early the next day and go to the park.  Usually my son is a very reasonable child, and this would’ve been enough explanation.

Playground SignHowever, that evening, he was stuck in “I want to go to the park” land.  He whined, cried and begged to go to the park.  I tried playing games with him to distract him, to no avail.  I made up a song about “I want to go to the park.”  He laughed a bit at that silliness, but soon returned to, “I want to go to the paaaarrrrk!!!”  I ran around him in circles and tried to get him to dance with me.  It only upset him more.  His responses to all my questions and actions were, “I want to go to the park!!!”  That was when I realized that it was not about going to the park.  He was setting himself up for emotional release.

So I let him.  I asked my friend who was walking with us to take the dogs home, and sat on the curb and held my son.  By this time, he was beside himself crying and trying to drag me toward the park.  He struggled against my arms, rolling around on my lap.  He kicked his legs back and forth like a pair of scissors.  I kept patting him on the back and telling him I loved him.  I said I was sorry he was disappointed but we could not go to the park that evening.  He kept crying and struggling.

Some neighbors walked by on the other side of the street.  They smiled at us when they heard his cry of wanting to go to the park.  I guessed they’ve been through that with their kids at some point, too.  I smiled back from the curb.  I was calm and didn’t feel I was being judged.  In hindsight, that was rather remarkable.  It may have been a turning point as a more confident parent.

My son continued to cry and began pushing me.  I let go of him and sat looking at him.  He walked a few steps away, then ran back and climbed into my lap again to cry.  When he pushed very hard, I would let him get up.  He would climb and lie down again in my lap, all the while screaming about going to the park.  As he cried, I held him and told him that I knew he had had a tough day.

In about 10 minutes, he stopped.  (Though it felt a lot longer at the time.)  He sat on the curb leaning against me.  The sky was just starting to get dark.  I asked, “Hey, where’s the moon?  Could we look for the moon on our way home?”  He calmly stood up and held my hand.  He found the pale crescent moon, and we listened for frogs as we walked home, hand in hand.  The next day, we did go to the park after dinner.

To this day, I don’t know what difficulties he had or what emotions he needed to offload.  I did learn from that experience that whenever my son appears to be stuck wanting something and starts to repeat one phrase over and over, it’s no longer about that thing he wants at the moment.  That signature behavior became my signal that some pent up feeling is bothering him, a lot, and a much needed Staylistening session is called for.  And more often than not, I’d be right about that.

–A mother in Fremont, CA

Read more about the Parenting by Connection approach in the Listening to Children booklets or hear Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor, Alaiya Aguilar discuss another example of Staylistening.

Starting Kindergarten

(C) Cienpies Design 2009

My five-year-old started kindergarten last week and he is almost finished with his second week.  It wasn’t an easy transition for him and here is how we supported him using Parenting by Connection tools.

Through summer, my son resisted to the idea of kindergarten.  “You are going to kindergarten, are you excited?” he was often asked and his answer was an adamant “No!”

Toward the end of a summer full of fun, Special Time and Staylistening my son’s response changed from an absolute “No!” to a “Maybe.”

But then, he kept resisting, not going into a classroom for kindergarten assessments, and we had to come back for the second day and still the teachers had to come outside their rooms to give him assessments in the playground!

Despite his resistance, I could tell he wanted to give kindergarten a try.  For example, he would talk about going to school. or choose to have his Special Time in the kindergarten playground where we played his favorite “mom-ster” game- I play a feeble monster (“mom-ster”) and try in vain to catch him while he swiftly runs away.

His first week at kindergarten came and he went very reluctantly.  On Friday, I was told that he became quite upset, crying and trying to run away after his dad dropped him off.  I had a meeting with the school counselor who listened to him that day and she graciously offered for us to use her room for any other separation upsets in the future.

Both my husband and I felt it would be really difficult to make him go the next week.

Over the following three day weekend, we decided to focus on his feelings around separation; my saying goodbye before going on an errand, playing physically together and playing hide-and-seek, and making our bedtime earlier to give my son a chance to express his feelings on separation.  Also, each son had one of us parents for half a day including an hour of Special Time.

The morning of second week came.  My son was half-naked without his pj shirt waking up.  After five minutes of Special Time in bed, I suggested putting on his day shirt.  He wouldn’t.  It was a small and quiet sign expressing his inside feelings.  I said very softly, “It’s time to put on your shirt.”  He ran out of bed to the other room.  I followed him, saying “Let’s put on your shirt and get ready for school.”  As soon as he heard the word, “school,” he tightened up and ran away again.  I tried to play, but he wouldn’t laugh.  “It’s time to go.”  This time, he tried to kick me.  I guarded with my arm, held his legs as gently as I could and said softly,  “No, no kicking.  It’s time to get ready for school.”

He started making some noise, wriggling, then crying loudly saying, “I don’t want to go to school!”  I listened.  His crying continued.  I encouraged, “I know your teacher is waiting for you.  She likes you.”  More crying and “No!”  “You are going to make more friends.”  He cried more.  We kept on going like this for 45 minutes.

Luckily that morning, my husband was able to take my older son, so they left.

I had barely an hour before work that morning, so I debated inside whether it would be a good idea to spend time on his crying at home like this.

It wasn’t easy to decide to stay and listen to him as his crying seemed to be getting nowhere and I started to wonder if my sitting next to him listening quietly and encouraging him once in a while would look like I was doing a good job of parenting.  But I had witnessed enough to decide to invest my time and attention then while I was calm.

Gradually his crying shifted and he would look around commenting like, “Oh, look at the bird outside.”  When I nudged him again in the direction of starting a morning routine, getting dressed, eating breakfast and eventually going to school, he would cry a while more.  By then, he was lying down on my lap, sobbing.

Finally, he looked more relaxed with his eyebrows lifted, looking at me in the eye, talking about things he remembered from school.  He got up and did all the morning routine with an attitude of “I can’t wait to go!”

We were half an hour late for school, but the transition went smoothly. My son had no difficulty walking into the classroom and waving goodbye.  And I wasn’t late for my work.

It’s the end of the week and my husband just called to say that the school drop-off went smoothly today and “whatever you did on Tuesday is really working!”

—Keiko Sato-Perry, Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor

Keiko Sato-Perry

Join Keiko in her upcoming Building Emotional Understanding online class starting April 22.  Register now!

Listen to a podcast of a recent teleseminar “Parenting: Going Deeper”, in which Keiko presented.

You can read more of Keiko’s stories here and learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.