CAN DOs Work for All Ages

You don’t have to psychoanalyze your child to offer CAN DOs. Just ask yourself, “What else would work?”

For a young child breaking things, you might try: “You can build a block tower and knock it down,” “You can stomp some bubble-wrap,” “You can stomp on this shoe box or tear up this cardboard tube,” “You can flatten some cans.” You can probably think of many more depending on exactly what you see the child doing.

That’s why objectively SAYing WHAT YOU SEE is such a great place to start. When you say, “That came apart,” “You smashed that,” or “That made a loud sound,” the rest is much easier. You can state the boundary, “That’s not for breaking,” and add the CAN DO; or if the child already knows the boundary, go straight to the CAN DO.

CAN DOs arise from neutral observation. You simply try to match the child’s experience in a more acceptable way as in, “What can the child break that's OK with me?” Certainly it needs to be something that requires force. That alone tells us something about the need since force communicates, “I was here! I made something happen! I have power over my world!” Seeing the child’s perspective reveals the child’s need.

By putting yourself in the child’s place you can almost feel the need. The trick is often in giving yourself permission to feel it. The more you allow yourself to feel those childhood feelings, the better you will be at figuring out the “need.” If the CAN DO works, you got it; if it doesn’t, try again, or better yet, turn it over the the child with the empowering phrase, "Must be something you can do!"

When kids learn the CAN DO pattern, they come up with their own CAN DOs. When my niece was two, her mother had been bitten by a brown recluse spider and had gotten extremely sick, so the child was very afraid of spiders. Having learned the CAN DO pattern, when she saw a spider on the sidewalk she didn’t scream to crush it. Instead, she said, “Spider, you no bite my mommy. You can eat the grass!” By the age of five, she was still using CAN DOs naturally. When she saw me fussing at her dog who was digging in my garden, she came up and said, “Where can she dig?”

From these real life examples, it’s not too hard to imagine an elementary school child who wants to break something coming up with a CAN DO like, “I could build a balsa wood tower and crush it with my bare hands!” Just the thought of it might do the trick. If not, what a great project for a kid who feels he always has to be careful -- you don’t need to be careful with something you are going to break! Besides all the other great STRENGTHS you will see along the way as he constructs the tower, in the end when he crushes it and you see the satisfaction on his face, you can add the STRENGTH, “You found a healthy way to get your strong feelings out.”

CAN DOs apply to teens as well. I remember one mother's CAN DO for her 16 year-old son who had recently gotten his license. She had approved his plans for driving his date to a neighborhood restaurant then on to a school dance, but at the last minute he and his date were invited to join a group of friends at a different restaurant farther away. The problem was that it required him to drive on the interstate. He was sure he was ready, but Mom was not. She offered this CAN DO instead, “Dinner with friends sounds great. Must be some way you can eat with them without driving on the interstate. Hmmm... You can ask them to join you at the local restaurant or I can drive you to the other one.” Her son and his date rode in the back seat to join their friends at the restaurant on the interstate. Mom waited in the car reading a book, drove them home, and gave them the car to go on to the dance.

CAN DO opportunities are endless. What CAN DOs have you offered? What CAN DOs have your kids come up with for themselves?