Q&A: Incessant Crying

I just responded to a dad on cafemom.com who asked:

My 18 month old cries constantly....about EVERYTHING. If she's hungry and we aren't getting the food to her fast enough, she cries. If I am getting her dressed, she cries. I try to do arts and crafts, playing outside, puzzles, reading books....she cries. I have ruled out any physical and/or health issues so that's not it. It's really wearing on me and I don't know what to do. She doesn't understand time outs and she is barely talking. She only says dada, mama, ball, uh-oh and that's pretty much it. I try to encourage her to use her words to tell me what's wrong and she just cries harder.

My answer:

Children that age have lots of things they want to tell us but can't. Imagine yourself in her shoes and say what you would need to hear to feel understood if you were her. An emphatic, "You want that, and you don't want to wait!" with a matching pouty face will go much further than pleading with her to use words she doesn't have when you are getting her food or other things ready. Then add what's so like, "It takes a minute, and you want it to be ready now. It seems like you will never get it. Wow! No wonder it's hard to wait!"

Adding, "There must be something you can do to make waiting more fun. Hmmm..." and making silly suggestions like "You could try a sommersault," or "Here, tear up this napkin. See if that helps," puts you on her side. Suggesting things that are OK with you and return a bit of power to the child can turn the whole thing around and give the child more tools for waiting. When a tiny bit of patience shows up, make a mental note and point it out later when the child is seated with the food and completely calm as in, "You found a way to wait! That shows you have patience!" When kids know they have a strength, they can use it.

Other times when she cries, she probably doesn't know what's wrong, just that something is, so say that, too as in, "Something is wrong!" or "You didn't like that!" or "That's not what you wanted!" adding a stomp of the foot for emphasis or whatever she does when she is frustrated, like follow-the-leader for a minute. Kids respond to simply being heard in amazing ways.

Just remember that if something were wrong that was out of your control and nobody around you understood, crying would be exactly the right coping response. When she is done crying, point out how well it worked as in, "You got all that crying out and now you feel better." It might even help you see crying as a healthy outlet for frustration, not a problem you have to solve.

A free full preview of my little book that tells you how to get more from parenting than just well-behaved kids, SAY WHAT YOU SEE, is posted at www.languageoflistening.com

When Needs Appear to Conflict

"How can I provide the support and attention my three-year old needs from me and help him to be more independent at the same time?" is a question that many parents face. (See Aceiatx's question in comment #1 on CAN DOs Work for All Ages)

The short answer is:  Provide support and attention when it's OK with you, and model independence when it's not.

SWYS:     "You are done eating and want me to play with you right now, and I need 5 more minutes to eat. Waiting is hard for you."

CAN DO:   "Must be something you can do so I can finish eating on my own and come play with you."

The child can come up with something to do to make waiting more fun, or you can change when the child waits. For instance:

CAN DO:   "You can start eating after I do so that we finish at the same time."

Then after the child has shown patience or independence while you eat, point that out when you join him in play:

STRENGTH: "You played by yourself while Mommy was eating. That shows you are independent."

or

STRENGTH: "You waited for five minutes while Mommy was eating. That shows you have patience."

The trick here is setting your boundary of finishing your dinner and sticking to it. That is one way of modeling healthy independence that sends the message to your child that he is OK on his own for a while, too.

CAN DOs give you a way to meet your child's needs within your boundaries. Children have three basic needs: experience, connection and power. To know which CAN DOs will work, look for the need. Your biggest clue to the need is what the child is already doing. For instance, the goal of whining and demanding, even at a low level, is control. That points to a need for personal power and explains why support and attention may not be enough and why the Mommy-time children crave often gets pushed beyond connection toward control.

To give a child permission to experience his personal power, you have to give it to yourself first. This is big. The importance of clean, clear, feel-good-about-yourself-boundary setting should not be underestimated in raising kids to be able to do the same. 

Meanwhile, since self-control and self-determination are the root of all power in our lives (not control of others), that is the direction to go with your CAN DOs. You decide what you will do, and he can decide what he will do inside your boundaries until he is old enough to set boundaries for himself.