On tantrums and taking swords away
Because we're all basically kids when it comes to Big Feelings™
One of my toddler daughters had BIG feelings yesterday morning. As she stiffened her little body and lay on the floor screaming, completely inconsolable, for what felt like an hour, but was probably more like 15 minutes, I felt a lot too:
compassion (“Oh kiddo, it’s so hard to be little and not to have words to express what you’re feeling”),
concern (“Is she sick? In pain?”),
irritation (“We’ve got to get out the door, kid!”),
and frustration (“Seriously? We’re still doing this?!”)
I went through this gamut of feelings, taking deep breaths to try to be mindful of what was going on inside of me, while not externalizing them in the way that, frankly, I really wanted to. (It would have felt great to scream, but the likelihood of that helping my daughter was zero to none).
I was supported in keeping my cool by witnessing my other daughter, her twin, approach her with the utmost concern. My calm kid tried to give milk to her emotive sister, only to have the cup forcefully thrown back. She then attempted to caress her sister’s forehead. More screams.
The upset twin eventually calmed down and we headed out the door. But within a couple hours, I heard from my daughter’s school that she was not feeling well. My daughter had simply been trying to convey the pain and confusion of what was happening inside of her.
I’m relieved I kept my cool, as displaying my anger would not have made a whit of difference in calming down my child. And I’m also grateful for the lessons in nonviolence my daughters are teaching me as they share their Big Feelings™ with abandon.
I’m finding that toddlers are expert teachers when it comes to growing in awareness of:
1 ) my own inclinations toward violence, and
2) my own vulnerability and need for care in the face of a violent world.
In the aftermath of the Big Feelings™ episode, I revisited a long-treasured book, Daniel Ladinsky’s Love Poems from God, which contains two poems that resonate with these revelations of violence and vulnerability.
The first comes from St. Francis of Assisi:
Always from the child’s hand the sword
should be removed.
I think every nation is an infant.
Children (especially toddlers) are prone to act out their feelings — pounding the floor, kicking or hitting a sibling, biting whoever happens to be nearby, etc. — because they do not yet have effective impulse control or emotional regulation, due to a not-yet fully developed prefrontal cortex. In fact, this part of the brain is not fully developed until age 25! (Which, in my case, means that I have had less than a decade with a fully developed adult brain to learn how to appropriately manage my own emotions).
the less practice we have had using our prefrontal cortex to override our evolutionary defaults, the less likely we are to respond calmly and thoughtfully
My girls’ bouts with Big Feelings™ challenge me because the brain is lazy. It’s easier (read: takes less energy) to keep operating in the limbic system, or what some people call the Lizard Brain, which responds to stress with fight, flight or freeze. In moments of emotional overwhelm, the less practice we have had using our prefrontal cortex to override our evolutionary defaults, the less likely we are to respond calmly and thoughtfully.
Hence the St. Francis quip about every nation being about as responsible with tools of violence as a baby frantically screaming for their breakfast like their life depends on it (which it actually does) would be. You wouldn’t give your toddler a loaded shotgun on purpose (I say it like this because we have to contend with the horrific — and preventable — reality that children unintentionally shooting themselves or others is a more frequent ocurrence than ever before). Are we really that much better than our children at responding, rather than reacting, in moments of stress?
On her podcast Parenting with Understanding, Marcela Collier coaches parents to heal their reactivity, because
“When the energy is up and everybody is disregulated, then discipline is not effective. We are not in our logical mind, we are in our survival response. We are trying to get our nervous system back to regulation and any consequence measure will feel really threatening even if we are talking about gentle discipline responses.”
Yes, we have hard-wired inclinations toward reactivity, which often manifests as violence, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual. And, violence is an outworking of fear, especially feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. Kids feel these things a lot. If we’re honest with ourselves, so do we. That awareness is a powerful tool for transforming our passive reactivity into a proactive, nonviolent response.
I get these daily reminders from the Enneagram Institute about how my personality with its particular fears and desires impacts the way I walk through the world, and yesterday I felt SEEN:
“Remember that your Basic Fear of being unworthy of being loved is the driving force of your ego. Notice how your Basic Fear is affecting your decisions today.”
When my toddlers are screaming like it’s the end of the world, and there is nothing I can do to comfort them, I can feel helplessly unhelpful. When I do not feel helpful, I can begin to feel undeserving of love, and this results in feelings of fear, which I sometimes subsequently react to with anger.
So when I’m knee deep in Big Feelings™ with my daughters, I’m trying to practice some mantras that remind me of my belovedness and theirs, which are often sung for my own sake as much as my daughters’ (singing slows down breathing by extending the exhale — which helps slow the racing brain!). Barney and Babe make good co-pilots in emotional regulation.
The beautiful thing about children sharing their Big Feelings™ is that they remind us of our own need for care as they demand care from us. I find that parenting my girls brings out the ways in which I need to reparent myself — to connect with the parts of me that are in need of curiosity, compassion, and kindness.
This brings me to the second poem I mentioned, which is from 14th Century Italian feminist and mystic, St. Catherine of Siena:
Vulnerable we are, like an infant.
We need each other’s care
or we will
suffer.
Children bring us face to face with our vulnerability. In my experience, the aphorism is true that when one has kids, one’s heart is suddenly walking around outside one’s body all the time. Children, with their sensitivity and tenderness, simply shine a light on what was already true of all of us: that to be human is to be vulnerable.
While our basic operating system urges us to react to our inherent vulnerability with violent self-protection as needed, we have a powerful counter-program we can use to override it: love. Because to be authentic, love requires vulnerability. Love is not diminished by vulnerability, but strengthened by it.
Love is what allows us to courageously make our way through the world with all its violence, as well as its beauty and possibility. As we love, we attend to life’s beauty by remembering that we belong to one another. We seek life’s possibility by reminding one another of our interdependence through our words and actions. While life can be harsh, we never walk the path alone.
And when you occasionally have a tantrum along the way — because that’s part of being human too — may you be cared for with concern and compassion, perhaps even offered a sip of milk, and a gentle caress on the forehead.
What helps you counteract your particular basic programming of fear and violence? How do you care for yourself in your own vulnerability? How do you allow others to care for you?
Thank you Lauren. You take one moment in life and give it so much meaning and understanding. You are amazing!