What is my child finding more difficult in daily life?

If you have already read the article ‘Why is my child explosive’ and learnt about the lagging skills your child may be becoming unstuck with, the next step is to learn more about the specific daily problems that seem to set them off. Learning more about the daily challenges and problems your child faces can lead to you feeling more informed and able to predict what may increase their stress and set them off. Problems solving with your child then leads to a renewed optimism and energy about making things better. Parents report feeling better taking a crisis prevention approach as opposed to a crisis management approach. The ideas presented here are based on the collaborative and proactive solutions approach, general clinical practice, and non-violent resistance parenting approaches.

Problems your child is facing in daily life

Problems are often linked to expectations that are placed on the child (or that they feel) that feel too difficult and challenging for them due to their current skill levels. A starting point is to think back over the past week or two and focus on what was the child doing or being asked to do around the time of them becoming distressed and explosive. Try making a list that follows the sentence structure, ‘they were having difficulty…’ For example, ‘they were having difficulty getting started to brush their teeth’, or ‘they were having difficulty listening to the upcoming plans of the day’, or ‘they were having difficulty sharing equally with their sibling’, or ‘they were having difficulty listening to what other children suggested to play’, or ‘they were having difficulty finishing playing before bed’, or ‘they were having difficulty tidying up when asked to’. At this stage there is no need to know or theorised why the difficulty was being experienced. The key to this part of the process is to be specific about the difficulty you saw your child struggling with.

Compiling a list of difficulties your child seems to face can be an interesting yet challenging experience. It can often be a surprise for parents when seeing how long the list of difficulties appears to be. The next step is categorising the difficulties into three ‘buckets’ (see below). This helps make things manageable for you as a parent, as the prioritised areas are the ones that you will be thinking about in more detail with the aim of reducing these problems for your child.

1)      Top priority (aim to have no more than 3 in this)

2)      Important but not a top priority

3)      On the back burner or not important

The top priority problems are difficulties your child currently faces that leave them feeling under skilled and incapable of solving or managing. In the collaborative and proactive solutions approach, as a parent you are encouraged to work with your child to learn more about the difficulty they face and how it can be made to feel more managed and solvable for them. This sounds simple but it can involve a change in role for you and the child, which can at first feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable as it challenges the notion of who is ‘in charge’. However, ‘in charge’ for parents of explosive children means taking the time to understand the difficulties/problems your child faces and leading them through the process of making positive changes. In other words, you are leading and being in charge through modelling to them effective thinking and problem solving. This type of discussion is best done in calm moments as opposed to in the middle of an explosive incident. To structure these discussions with your child so that it feels collaborative, you may find it useful to be guided by these three steps:

Step 1 – The Empathy Step

This involves asking your child about the specific area of difficulty you have noticed so that you can understand what exactly may be making it particularly challenging for them. Sentences that can be useful to try include, “I’ve notice it’s been difficult for you to [insert prioritised problem], what’s up?” or “I’ve noticed it’s been difficulty to [insert problem], I was trying to think about this from your perspective, can you help me understand it?”

If your child shares their perspective or information about what is making the problem feel so difficult to them, give them time to build on what they are saying. Often summarising an idea they have said is a good way of responding, as it helps them process it further and elaborate. You might even find using responses such as, “tell me more about that part, I never knew that” can show your child that you are curious and wanting to learn more from them. If your child is struggling to think, consider using phrases like, “I’ve never really asked you about this before, take your time, it's not always easy to think about this stuff.”

Step 2 – The Adult Concerns Step

This involves sharing with your child your perspective and concerns on the same problem you have asked them about, highlighting why you feel it is important to help them with this difficulty/problem. This is the space for you to share your thinking as to why this is an important area of life to spend time thinking about. Consider how the problem might be affecting your child and their life, as well as how it may be affected other people too.

Step 3 – The Invitation Step

This is where you and your child work together towards a focused solution for a specific difficulty that is a) realistic and b) mutually satisfactory. The message to the child is that we are working on this together to make things better, rather than the experience of the child having solutions done to them by their parents. Using a summary of the what you learnt in the first two steps can be helpful to make the problem solving more specific. Phrases such as, “let’s think about how we can solve this problem/ work it out together”, or “Do you have any ideas?” or “I wonder if there’s a way to make this problem easier and less of a problem? What do you think?” It is important to model a problem-solving process that allows for solutions not working. Saying, “if this solution does not work as we hope, we can talk more and come up with more solutions together.”

The child's experience of connection with you when together (and when apart)

Increasing the child’s experience of parental presence is something I often recommend parents pair with the collaborative solutions process outlined above. Parental presence is experienced differently by different children. For explosive children, there are often more high conflict and negative interactions they experience in family life. As such, this often needs to be balanced out more deliberately so that moments of felt connection in positive and calmer ways are also experienced on a regular basis. Parents can find ways to create moments of connection in unexpected ways for their child.

Over time, this ‘investment’ into the relationship can have an impact on the general feeling and vibe the parent and child feel within the relationship. A way of thinking about this and putting ideas into action is to create a list of random acts and actions you could try with your child that communicates a message to them that you care deeply for them and often think about them, even when you are not with them. Parental presence can be experienced from face-to-face interactions, random acts of kindness/affection, quality time and treats that are not associated with good behaviour per se, and from things set up for when you are apart. The experience you want to trigger in your child is that they are loved, valued, and thought about in positive ways.

If you would like to discuss these ideas further, consultations can be arranged with Dr Duncan Harris through using the contact form.