For a child to feel contained when he goes into high arousal, you need to stay calm and strong. If you do, you are acting as an emotional regulator for his highly overwhelmed state: This is containment. It is a very beautiful gift to a child locked in rage
Margot Sunderland, How to Help Children Locked In Rage and Hate
When our children are struggling, or suffering, or acting out, or hurt, we receive an intense jolt of energy that disturbs our system, and we are prone to move in too quickly to speak, to fix, to lecture, to consequence, to punish, to justify or to explain.
But just because we are jolted doesn’t mean we have the green light to react. Sometimes, the only action we need to take is to stay with and pay attention to the increasing sensations and vibrations of our nervous system, and to practice growing our capacity to tolerate this energy.
In the words of Margot Sunderland,this means being “psychologically strong, kind and calm enough to be able to stay with the child’s emotional roller coasters, without withdrawing, side-stepping, feeling overwhelmed, attacking or cutting off from them”.
When we can increase our ability to tolerate and contain our own internal experiences, we have more chance of tolerating the emotions, experiences and behaviours of our children. We reduce our risk of being flooded by emotions, and they feel safer feeling held by our strong boundaries.
And when we become more aware of our own internal world (of moods, triggers, sensations, thoughts and feelings) we can also more accurately assess the mood and intentions of our children, and can therefore speak to what really matters and concerns them, in a way that can be heard.
In this way, we can get to the heart of the problem with more ease.
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