This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 60, “Drawing Your Dysregulated Child Close,” which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/drawing-the-dysregulated-child-close
Eight years ago, we had a ten year old boy living with us. He had a great smile, gave good hugs and asked if he could call me “mom” almost immediately. He wanted to connect, to belong, to be loved. His behavior often made that difficult, especially at school. He came from an environment where he needed to defend himself. Fighting and tough talk and physical strength was the norm. Suddenly he finds himself in a soft suburban school where none of that is allowed. To say that he struggled is an understatement. After observing him for a bit, the school social worker created a rewards system for him…with the reward being that he could help out in the kindergarten classroom. Rather than isolating him for his behavior, they drew him in and connected with him in a way that spoke to his heart and the potential they saw in him.
I have been thinking about that a lot the past few weeks with one of my sons. His body is in an almost constant state of high arousal. Feelings like embarrassment, sadness, fear, insecurity, and disappointment are all big, painful feelings that he hides beneath his anger. All of us, in a high arousal state, turn to fight, flight or freeze responses when triggered–his is almost always fight. He turns to the person that he feels the safest with to release his emotions, and fortunately and unfortunately, that person is me. This looks like him hitting, kicking or scratching me, making lots of threats, and throwing things at me. As you can imagine, it is a lot of fun.
Connected Families, the organization that is training me to be a parent coach, calls parents to communicate two key messages in all interactions with our children, but especially in response to misbehavior or dysregulation. I have mentioned them on this podcast before. The first message is “Child, you are safe with me.” This has been convicting for me as I come face to face with my child’s fists and flying toys. My protective drive wants to kick in and say, “Don’t you DARE hit me.” “You stop that RIGHT NOW!” or to begin to fight back. My voice can get louder, harsher, meaner. My hands can turn from gentle to overly firm or angry. My facial expressions can go dark. My fight response declares the exact opposite of safety to my child.
The second message is, “Child, you are loved no matter what.” Whether you are obeying or disobeying. Whether you are laughing or crying. Whether we agree or disagree. Whether you get an A in class or a D. Whether you make the sports team or not. Whatever the “whether” is, our kids need to know that they are loved unconditionally. This is about identity and belonging. It comes far too naturally to me to say, “Don’t talk to me like that! Go to your room!” or “How dare you hit me! You can’t be anywhere near me now.” or “When you are done crying, then you can come back to me.” Rather than seeking to connect with him, I am pushing away. Even though I know I love my child, I can often send the messages of “you are a problem,” “you are unwelcome,” or “I only love you when you are happy and obeying me.” in how I respond to their misbehaviors and dysregulation.
My body is naturally wired to protect itself. So when my child is coming at me with all the rage his little body can create, which is A LOT, it is natural that my alarm system would start to go off and that I would look for ways to find safety. There are many, many things in parenting, and in life, that can be triggers for us and activate our alarm systems. Amber Lia and Wendy Speake wrote a book titled “Triggers: Exchanging Parents’ Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses”. They talk about disrespect, anger, lying, whining, and many other behaviors that our kids present with. They also talk about internal triggers like stress, feeling guilty, overstimulation, and even lack of faith. Almost every chapter covers something that I am triggered by. What a mess.
The two messages of Connected Families speak to the two groups of triggers that Lia and Speake cover. The message “Child, you are safe with me” means that as parents we have to look inward to find out what is going on in us. One Connected Families parent said, “Oh, I get it–that’s how to protect them from my baggage!” When my child is charging at me from across the room, there’s a few things bubbling up inside. I start to worry that I am going to be hurt. I start to think, “Oh man, here we go again. I shouldn’t have to deal with this!” or the more helpless thoughts of “I can’t handle this. I don’t know what to do. Things are never going to change.” Those thoughts present as frustration, loudness, harshness, protecting myself at any cost even to him, and anger.
The hard, soul work that God is doing in me and with me, is to take those thoughts, “toxic beliefs” as Connected Families calls them, captive, making them obedient to Christ and replacing them with grace-filled truth. “God is here with me. God loves me and my child.” “Parenting is hard but the Lord is working in it to grow both my child and myself.” “This moment is an opportunity to show my child the love of God and help them grow.”
A study that I did a couple years ago, I can’t remember which one, talked about viewing our children’s misbehavior and dysregulation through the lens of James 1:2-3 which says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” I literally laughed out loud when I read that. “Sure, that will be the day!” I thought. “Why would I ever find joy in my children’s whining or crying or hitting.”
Melissa Kruger in her book “Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood” spoke of this verse also and she said: “How can we choose joy despite all these disappointments and distractions? By trusting in the One who is planning our lives. At every moment God watches us with parental, loving care, promising to work all things for our good…Believing that nothing can happen to us outside of His plan lets us view the events of each day as our assignments from God and helps us to interpret them in a new light. The daily struggles of motherhood…all become opportunities to entrust our lives to God.”
As I am learning to believe these truths that God is with me in the hard parenting moments, things are not hopeless because he is working, and we are all learning and growing, then I start to feel safe again and my alarm system begins to turn off. This brings us back to the second message of “Child, you are loved no matter what.” With my baggage out of the way, I am free to focus on my child and what is really going on inside of them, seeking the Lord’s help to respond appropriately. Jeannie Cunnion in her book “Mom Set Free” says, “..remembering that when God disciplines, He doesn’t rely on a pointed finger, an angry tone, and a shameful message to convict our hearts and inspire obedience.”
In the book “Discipline that Connects with Your Child’s Heart”, Jim and Lynne Jackson, the founders of Connected Families, talk about misbehavior as the golden opportunity for true unconditional love. They write: “So do the spiritual work of finding your heart of love for your child.” Then we are to express that love. To help us, and our kids, really think through the implications of unconditional love in our parent-child relationships, they talk about Romans 8:38-39 this way: I am convinced that neither failure nor lying, neither tantrums nor defiance, neither whining nor complaining, nor any disrespect, neither forgetfulness nor messes, nor any other misbehavior, will ever change my parents’ love and God’s infinite love through Christ Jesus my Lord.
That is what I so desperately want my children, especially my fighting son, to know and believe. As I have been doing the hard work of dealing with my baggage and becoming a safe and loving person for my children, I am slowly (emphasis on slowly) learning to draw my children close in times of misbehavior and dysregulation rather than push them away. The times when I have done that have been so healing and powerful for all involved. I’ll share with you just one example of God at work in a really hard situation.
In the middle of a week of extreme dysregulation, my son entered full-on fight mode. It was epic, and resulted in one of my arms covered in scratches as well as my ear as I worked to keep him safe and to not lose my cool. When he could hear me again, after a long period of calming, I told him that it seemed like he needed to stay close with me for a while. He was going to be my helper, and do whatever it was that I was doing. The last thing I had him do with me was go upstairs to the bathroom. I got a warm washcloth and some ointment and asked him to clean my cuts and help my arm feel better. I asked him to wash his hands first so that he wouldn’t put any germs in my cuts. That little boy stood at the sink and began the most thorough hand washing session I have ever seen. He had me double check them to make sure they were clean afterwards. Then he sat next to me on the ground and with the gentlest of hands he washed my arm and put on the ointment over every single mark. Then he massaged my hands as we recited Colossians 3:12 together—an idea that I had gotten from the Sensitive and Intense Kids course I am taking. It says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” I told him that the next verse says, “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” I took his face in my hands and brought mine close to his as I whispered, “I forgive you for hurting me. And I love you so much.” We hugged and moved on with our day.
I don’t often leave a parenting moment feeling the Lord’s presence as I did that day. And I knew to the core of my being, that I had been a safe person for my child and that he knew that he was loved by me and by God.
I pray that these moments will increase for me and for you as the Lord continues to do his good work inside of us.
Lyssa Stoyko 