Three pivotal ways to resolve challenging behaviors in your kids- Apply the CC-R

How CC-R can change the dynamic and greatly improve your relationship with your child

Ever wanted to yell from the top of your lungs “just stop it, why aren’t you listening!”

You are a parent. The kind of parent that sees their child as having problems that is unique only to you. Your child may even have a particular diagnosis from a Pediatrician or Psychologist. However, regardless of their diagnosis, you are feeling stuck because you simply do not understand your child and their particular behaviors.

Make no mistakes, you know your child best and you know what emotions they trigger. This includes feelings of overwhelm, feeling as though you lack something as a parent or feeling as though you can’t seem to fix the problems. It’s a familiar feeling each time you come across these “challenging” behaviors. You may even have good intentions to try to understand the behavior but you always seem to be reactive.

In the moment the behaviors are occurring, you just want them to listen and understand where you are coming from (i.e., you want them listen and stop the behavior). However it doesn’t seem to work, the problem perpetuates and you are left feeling stressed and frustrated.

Now let’s consider something different. In order to change any behaviors, we need to start with establishing a connection firstly with your child and then slowly begin to correct the behaviors. For example, your child behaves in a certain way that frustrates. Ask yourself what could these behaviors be possibly communicating. In other words, what may be underneath that behaviors?

Imagine this- your child starts banging the pots and pans around – even though you expressed - “stop that, its annoying”. Instead, they increase the behaviour.  You try to be patient, try to distract them, even ignore the behavior, and it just doesn’t seem to work. Consequently, you lose your temper and the yelling starts. Before you know it, the behaviour is like a beast that has taken hold of you and you become triggered and resign to feelings of anger and frustration.

You no longer see the child- you see the child with a big problem. The child no longer becomes an object of love but rather an object to get away from and even worse- just an object- a bad boy or bad girl who does not deserve your attention. In fact, you punish this object but denying love, understanding and compassion. Instead, you feed it with defense and anger. What did you miss? Perhaps it could be something else like…

“ I am bored, what else can I do”

“ I like the sound of this, can we make different sounds together”

“ you always get annoyed at me, you don’t show me what you would like me to do”

“I can’t tell you how I feel because I don’t know how to express it, I need you to help me with the words”

 Is it possible that there could be multiple perspectives of the same behavior? Yes, it is- the child’s perspective and your perspective. Ask yourself, what perspective are you choosing right now and is it fueled by the need to be right or the need to understand in the moment?

Perhaps if we just pause in the moment, take some deep breathes, this may help calm the nerves and clear the mind.  Only when we are calm and our head is clear, can we truly attune to our child’s needs. It is the first step to wanting to truly connect to what they are trying to communicate with their behaviors. Allow time to attune yourself to the child, let them know that you are listening and be curious about the behavior with them . For examples, “I wonder why you keep banging the pots, is there something you are trying to tell me?”.

 Being curious and being open to the perspective of the child helps to truly connect with the child as a person rather than an object of annoyance and source of frustration.  It is all about communication. The behavior is communicating something and the louder the feelings or annoying behavior, the more we need to wonder, what are really communicating here.

So pause- then connect- correct and lastly, reflect ( CC-R)- what worked and didn’t work together. What can you agree upon as to the new behavior when the child is feeling a certain way?

Hopefully this will increase the quality in the communication and relationship with your child and more importantly, reduce the miscommunication and increase the love and bond with your child.

Keep transforming, x Lisa