S - Seperate yourself from your child's behaviour and emotions with Silent Self-talk. - pg 7
When our children behave a certain way or express a certain emotion, a lot of us tend to react without thinking. Yet - how many times were we told to 'stop and think before we speak' as children? ...or was that just me? hehe Well really, this is what I do with my son. It takes a lot of effort (for reasons I will explain in a bit) and really is the hardest step but once I stop myself and think before I speak to him, then I can respond to him authentically - in a healing empowering way. If we respond to our children inauthentically, then we only create walls between us - we lose our connection (with our actions causing the problems we are trying to solve).
Stop - Silent Self-Talk - Self investigation: The hardest step, for various reasons, that may be personal to each of us. This could be where 'raising ourselves' comes into the picture - it certainly is for me (you can ask yourself why you feel the need to yell, why this 'age' is so hard for you which can bring up childhood memories and issues of your own that without stopping and self investigating you may have never discovered of yourself)! I did not have an ideal childhood and many of us probably havn't. Often times we may, without realising it, be re-living our own childhood through our children (their behaviour and emotions). When our children are upset or angry with us or about something, it may cause us to feel in ways that we do not understand - with our reaction towards our children not to our ideal because of our own brought out feelings/emotions. This is why it is very important to stay authentic to ourselves, so that we may stay authentic to our children. If we can stop ourselves from automatic reaction towards our childrens behaviour and/or emotions, then we can do a bit of self investigation into our own thoughts (and possibly do our own much needed healing).
Play ourselves a little film... Stop yourself from reacting automatically. Think inside your own head what you were about to say to your child, or what you would like to say to your own child - with the tone and gestrues you might use. Ask yourself why. Play the outcome of it. Then ask yourself the validity of our thoughts. These thoughts could be standing in our way to love and understand and connect with our children. How do these thoughts make us feel? Consider who we would be and how we would react to our child if the thought did not cross your mind. Check to see if your thoughts about your child reflect yourself. It is a lot to do! - It is not called the hardest step for no reason!
"Once you become aware of the thoughts that mislead you, you will discover that who you really are is unconditional love." - pg 9
Sometimes 'S' might take us a long time. We might need to quickly move through this in order to connect with our child (sometime today hehe) but the thought will not just disapear. However, we can work through them more thoroughly later. During these times, we may like to go over them again when we get a bit of time to ourselves. Aldort explains that perhaps it might be best to write them down on paper - a little self therapy I like to call it! It may be that we need to embrace a little version of ourselves to help us get through a hard time (perhaps we feel the need to yell at our three year old child because, now that we have had the time to stop and self investigate, we can remember being three and oftened yelled at...how did this make us feel and how can we heal our inner selves so that we may be fully connected and authentic with our own children?/etc).
Once you are satisfied with 'S' - you can move on to the rest of the formula in connecting with your child - and once past 'S', its pretty easy to do then!
But how can we stop ourselves? How can we ensure we have the self control to self investigate? I often hear other parents asking 'How can I stop yelling at my child?', etc...
Only you can answer that really. Once you can stop yourself though, the rest of the 'S' comes easily just as the rest of SALVE does...But here are some ideas that I have found that help me:
Immediate self control ideas include:
Making posters to put up around the house. I call them little visual reminders. They include peaceful pictures of mother and child with bold words such as 'STOP' and 'CONNECT/LISTEN/SALVE!'. I have placed them in all the main rooms at my visual level. I find they really help in stressful moments!
Pretend you are being watched (yeah, not in a creepy way though!). Nothing gets us motivated more than thinking there is a little angel on our shoulders! I find sometimes it helps to imagine a close caring friend nearby. WWJD? - How about WWAD? ...Same idea - just used for a different part of life! hehe
Sing! - Change your tone of voice and your body language and let it out...gently, softly, oh so lulluby-ly! (is that a word? hehe) You get the picture...anything that helps us refocus in the moment!
Long term ideas include:
Anticipate what upsets/angers/frustrates/etc - your child. Our children can not live in a bubble, but if you know what is coming, we can then better help our child (and ourselves!) through such a time. Get to know your child and their triggers basically!
The same for the parents - get to know you and your triggers so that you can better control them and work through them!
Prepare some time to yourself if you need it. A place you can go to relax or take a quick breather before things get out of control. I find that having a nice hot relaxing bath at the end of the day cna really make a long term difference. I do this when hubby has come home and is having some time with our son. I can also read a book which I find relaxing. Once the water is cold enough, our son can then come and join me and we can have a fun bath together and get clean as well!
Bach Flower Remedies. They are safe and suitable for all the family! When we find ourselves out of balance and need to centre ourselves - I find these really helpful! You can get them online or from H&B and other such places.
Read. Always read! I may have read it once...I may have read it twice, but having Aldorts book around, checking it various times of the week, etc is a sort of nice little refresher for myself. Helps to keep me on track! :)
Start a blog - such as this one! (for the same reason above hehe)
Stress relievers and connectors - Ideas for the long term harmony in yourself and your family together:
Take a yoga class - or other class we may find helps us release energy and relax. I even find that doing an exercise video can really help in this way and I can include my son as well. We also do 'toddler yoga' at home which is fun for both of us.
Art therapy - from drawing to painting to playdough. Anything artsy you can all do as a family to relax and connect!
Monkey grooming - Or so I call it! hehe... Physical relaxing bodily touch. Because we all need such loving touch. This may simply include cuddling, tickling, or even brushing eachothers hair, etc.
I don't feel that my explanation of 'S' is complete - but I hope that I can show how this looks and works in our lives as this blog grows. :)
