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

No More Lies

A common problem for parents of preschoolers is what to do when they tell a lie. A recent book, Nurture Shock adds fuel to the fire by saying that all children lie. While this may be statistically true, it's not a very empowering view for parents or children. Try this one instead:

Children turn to lies when they don't have any other way to get what they want or need. But when they know we will help them (without giving up our boundaries), they don't lie. When lying has begun, you can reverse it by helping kids see why they would lie and by giving them an alternative approach.

Little kids are honest to a fault. When asked why they lie to get something, most little children will tell you, "I really wanted it!" It seems plain as day to them. Why else would an honest kid tell a story to get something?

Rather than asking a young child, "Why did you lie?" which leaves the child feeling dishonest, it's up to the parent to help the child find out why an honest kid would feel he or she needed to. When you look at what led up to the lie, there's a good chance that the child had already exhausted all the honest alternatives but none had worked. After asking directly, the child had probably even tried switching the words "I want it," to  "I need it," and it still didn't work. After trying these approaches time and time again, what else is a kid to do?

They really don't know, so it is up to us to give them some honest alternatives. Basically, a child lying is a parent's cue to help brainstorm some honest solutions.

SAYing WHAT YOU SEE openly and honestly without negative judgment, setting a boundary and offering a CAN DO would sound like this:

SWYS:     "You really wanted that and nothing you said or did worked, so you found something that did."

CAN DO:  "Making up a story about what you did is not OK with me, but there must be something you can do that is."

Now you brainstorm honest alternatives. For instance, if the rule is one snack a day, and the child wants two, rather than tell you she hadn't had one yet, she could ask for seconds. If seconds are not OK with you today, find a day when they would be OK, or make a special day once a month like "Two-Snack Day." If it's never OK to have 2 snacks, grant her wish in fantasy as in, "You want two today really badly, and you can only have one. Rats! You wish you could have two every day, or even three or four...snacks every where you turn, any time you want, a whole room full of snacks, sweet ones, chocolate ones, crunchy ones, blue ones, orange ones. I know! You can pretend they are everywhere and eat them all!"

By now little ones usually join in, add their own ideas, and keep pretending until they are done. Brainstorming with a child even in pretend shows the child you understand how much she wants something and that it's OK to want it, which believe it or not, is really the point anyway.

A little known truth is that kids must continue to communicate until they are heard. Understanding gets them heard and keeps them from needing to lie in the first place.

There's lots more about CAN DOs in the little SAY WHAT YOU SEE handbook posted online in full. It's a quick read and a simple approach for parents who want more from parenting than just well-behaved kids.

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.

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?

Grabbing Glasses Off Your Face a la Alfie Kohn

There has been a flurry of blog activity on NY Times Motherload following a Sept 15 NY TImes article by Alfie Kohn, author of Unconditional Parenting. I want to reach Mr. Kohn. Any suggestions would be welcome.

You can help by posting a quick comment about SWYS on Motherload with a link to my website: http:www.languageoflistening.com

The world and Mr. Kohn need to know about the simplicity of SWYS. Thanks - Sandy

Grabbing Glasses Example: Here's the example I posted (comment #122) in response to another parent's comment (#108) that read: "Yeah this will totally work with my 10 month old when she yanks my hair or rips my glasses off my face and flings them to the ground...":

When your 10 month old reaches for your glasses to throw say: "You want to throw! Here's bunny. Throw that!" (Point where it's OK with you to throw it.)

Said with excitement in your voice to match the child's, even a 10 month old will get that you are on his/her side. If you can find something that clatters when it falls, even better. The closer you match what I call the CAN DO to the child's initial action, the more successful you will be at shifting the behavior into something that works for you both.

For example, if the child's intent was more about grabbing something off your face, as silly as it sounds, put something on your face the child can grab & throw ( a little plastic toy that will clatter when it's thrown, or a washcloth which would add the beloved hide & seek game to the play?) and respond with enthusiasm to match the child's when he/she grabs and throws that instead.

Provide the CAN DO a few times and the child will learn the pattern of what's OK with you without punishment or reward.

If the child looks pleased with the throw, you get to add the STRENGTH, "You threw that just the way you wanted to!" Then as your child grows, you can continue to point out fact-based STRENGTHs (NOT opinion-based praise) to help him see his strengths like, "You looked first then threw! That shows you are careful!"

Since children act according to who they believe they are, shifting beliefs permanently shifts behaviors. No punishment, no rewards. Again, just like Mr. Kohn says.

Kohn, Faber & Mazlish, Ginott and I all come from the same place; the difference is that I am a parent, not a psychologist, so I simplified it into a how-to that even I can do.

It has turned out to be the basic 3 steps everyone is asking for. It is always right for the moment and for every child because what you say basically comes from the child. And it always starts with the same thing: SAY WHAT YOU SEE (objective observation).

SAY WHAT YOU SEE (not what you think) to connect and validate;
See something you like, add a STRENGTH;
See something you don't like, offer a CAN DO.

I posted the little SAY WHAT YOU SEE handbook in full on my website to share with other parents around the world, and I invite your readers to take a look at it. Quick read.

As it turns out psychologists love it. Every time I teach it, parents' jaws drop and they say in amazement, "It can't be that easy!" I would love for Mr. Kohn to see it. It completely supports what he and other great psychologists like him have been trying to tell us all along.

Bottom line, it works.

http://www.languageoflistening.com/swys1.html

Stinkin' Veggies!

An Austin Journalist, Martha Wood, interviewed me a couple of weeks back for an attachment parenting article on SAY WHAT YOU SEE for an internet article. In a subsequent blog, she was explaining to her readers how to use SWYS in the case of a child not wanting to eat cauliflower. I expanded on her entry here:

The purpose of SAYing WHAT YOU SEE is to leave children truly feeling understood so they have no need to defend their position, in this case, their tastes. Once children know you understand, you can go on to problem-solving with CAN DOs.

SWYS: "You really don't like that cauliflower! It tastes bad and smells yucky! You don't even want it in the same room with you, and there it is, sitting right there on your plate. And on top of that, somehow you have to find a way to eat it! Man!"
CAN DO: "Hmmm. Must be somewhere I can put it while you figure out a way to eat it without having to taste or smell it."

I don't know how it would work on cauliflower, but my daughter ate her broccoli with ketchup on it for years. It worked for her because she was the one who came up with the solution.

Check your boundaries, then let the child problem-solve to come up with solutions that work for you both. In the example of a distasteful vegetable, could you offer 2 veggie choices at each meal? Or maybe a special veggie-free day each week or month to celebrate your child's other tastes? CAN DO problem-solving at mealtime can take the power struggles out of the kitchen. CAN DOs all the time can take the power struggles out of your life.

FYI: While it has the same roots as Ginott, etc, the SWYS approach is unique in it's simplicity: starting with SWYS (the same thing) every time, finding STRENGTHs in EVERYTHING your kids do (no kidding), and giving you a way to be on your child's side in problem solving with CAN DOs. No rewards or punishment; just pointing out your child's greatness and opening up possibilities. What guidance could be better than that?

Plus, the SWYS approach makes all other relationship-based parent training more accessible. The greats like Ginott, Faber/Mazlish, Kohn, etc. have got the theory; we've got the simple how-to.

Children Don't Back Away; They Back Up for a Running Leap

You’re in the park with your two children watching the water trickling along a small stream. Your toddler’s eyes gleam as you take his hands and jump him over it. “Again, again!” he cries completely delighted with his success. Meanwhile, your kindergarten daughter sees a wider place downstream, backs way up to take a running leap, and...

Where do they learn that? Children seem to innately know that backing up builds up steam. The bigger the challenge, the further they back up; and they only run forward when they think they can succeed. Kids are wired for success.

So there she goes, up, over and plunk. Into the mud – muddy shoes, muddy knees, muddy hands. She looks up at you and starts to cry. What do you say?

A cautious parent who thinks the child shouldn’t have tried in the first place might say, “Now look what you‘ve done. You’re a mess. You should’ve known better.” A “get back on your horse” parent who thinks the child might give up will say, “Stop crying. You’re not hurt. Wipe off your hands and try again. Go on; you can do it.”

The missing element in both of these responses is what the child thinks. If the child thinks she can, and you say she can’t, she is likely to rebel with a reckless, “I’ll show you!” Or if she thinks she can’t, and you make her try, she is likely to show you with a, “See, I can’t either!” kind of attempt. She has to because children must communicate what they think and feel until they are heard. That’s why following the child’s lead and saying what you see is always the right choice.

It’s easy to do when you understand the running leap theory. Think about what kids do when we are not around. They try to wipe off the mud on their own (evidence muddy shirts and pant legs), cry until they are done, then start looking for something to do to make themselves feel better. Making oneself feel better is the first step in building up steam for the next try.

What if you knew that even crying is the child’s way of beginning to build up steam for the next running leap? If you did, it would be much easier to SAY WHAT YOU SEE like:

SWYS: “You’re crying. You really wanted to do that. You backed way up and tried really hard, then plop. Right in the mud. You didn’t like that at all. You were surprised at first, then disappointed. Now you’re sooo sad.”

Child: “I can’t do it!”

SWYS: “You really wanted to jump that part of the stream, and it didn’t work. That’s really frustrating! You wish you could just sail right over it, then off you’d go to do it again, and again!”

Even an, “I can’t do it,” won’t ruffle you, as long as you know that tears and verbalizing fears are important ways to release frustration. The freedom to say, “I can’t do it,” allows kids to try again.

Children innately know this.They all do it. Release is the first step in recharging for the next attempt. So there it is; without any prodding, from the very moment of incomplete success, the child begins “backing up” to build up steam. SAYing WHAT YOU SEE merely speeds them on their way.

The next thing children often do is replay thoughts of the jump going right. Saying what the child wishes as above helps them along. Visualizing success as wishes is another version of “Again, again!” that adds more steam.

Children also replay past successes in thoughts, stories or actions; switch to another task or game they are good at; or take smaller challenges they know they can master – over and over. This is not avoidance; it is the child setting exactly the right level of challenge for success. Again, children innately know that success is the best steam of all. The greater the challenge, the more steam they need. When children experience enough success, they raise the bar on their own.

Knowing this, you can be confident your daughter is on the right track. When you are coming from a place of confidence, you can dry her eyes, say what you see, and watch with anticipation for what she will do next.

And there it is – the first step back. She goes over to the trickle and tries to show her little brother how it’s done. In teaching him how to back up first to build up steam, she is doing it herself. Over and over, she’s recharging her confidence.

When we follow their lead, children naturally combine the two approaches of caution and “get back on the horse” at a pace that is right for them. They increase the speed themselves when you SAY WHAT YOU SEE:

SWYS: “You’re jumping over that part of the stream; showing your little brother how it’s done.”

STRENGTH:“You know backing up first and taking a running leap sends you further. Look at you go! You jumped it again and again landing solidly on your feet.”

Child: “But this one’s easy.”

SWYS: “Sounds like you comparing this jump to the big one. You’re wishing the big one would be easy like this one.”

Child: “Yea. The big one has muddy sides.”

STRENGTH:“So you already figured out the difference.”

Child: “Next time, I think I need to run faster and jump higher.

CAN DO: “That’s an idea. You can test it out over here where it’s drier.”

Once children begin thinking of ways to make something work, it’s just a matter of time until they try again. SAYing WHAT YOU SEE, adding STRENGTHs and offering CAN DOs propels them forward. Then before you know it, whether it’s this visit to the park or the next, you can count on them returning to the big leap without any prodding at all. They have to. They’re wired for success.

Note from the author: The little SAY WHAT YOU SEE handbook is posted in full on my website. My intention is to share with the world eye-opening concepts like these that lead you from traditional listening to a deeper listening that starts with your eyes and ends with your heart. SAY WHAT YOU SEE is a simple, down-to-earth approach that changes every moment with a child into a rewarding one. By reading the handbook and passing it on to others with children in their lives, you are helping me change the world for all children, one family at a time.

Sandy

Bedtime Motivation Q&A

Question: This happens occasionally, before bed especially. If we give our kids something to do like clean up their room, brush their teeth, etc., they go to do it, but then I think they get distracted or off focus and start playing with something else.

For example, our 7-year old son seems very focused on things like baseball cards to the point that he doesn’t respond when we speak, and our 5-year old daughter seems to have a hard time making herself do things she doesn’t want to do or isn’t good at. What is frustrating is when we tell them, “I see you are playing with your baseball cards and not brushing your teeth,” and it is still hard to get them off of what they are doing and focused on getting ready for bed. It is mainly frustrating because they didn’t listen to what we asked them to do. How do you suggest we approach this?

Answer: You tried to meet the children where they are by SAYing WHAT YOU SEE, but it didn’t seem to be enough. You are right on both counts. SAYing WHAT YOU SEE is the first thing to do, and you need to do more.

Focusing on what children are not doing is very frustrating, so the most important thing to shift in what you are saying is to focus on what the child is doing, and drop what he is not. It’s an odd thing to realize at first, but SAYing WHAT YOU SEE will keep you on track if you remember one thing: you can’t see something that’s not happening.

In this case, the child is sorting baseball cards after you said it’s time to brush your teeth. Since you can see sorting and cannot see “not brushing teeth,” that’s where you enter the child’s world and connect with understanding as in, “You are sorting those cards after I said it’s time to brush your teeth.”

Shifting that one statement allows you to think, “Why would a good kid do that? The answer will disclose a STRENGTH that you can add like, “You must be really focused on getting that done.” One acknowledgment like that can provide the connection needed for the child to respond like, “Yea. I want to finish sorting these, but if I stop, I’ll lose my place.”

Now you understand and can help him come up with respectful CAN DOs like, “Must be something you can do to keep your place until you’ve gotten ready for bed. You’ll have ten minutes after that you can use to read with me, or we can read some of these cards while you finish sorting them.” Basically, you approach this by SAYing WHAT YOU SEE is happening then saying more until you can point out a STRENGTH and offer a CAN DO.

One more thing that you might like in working with your focused son is the phrase, "Find a stopping place." You can hear how respectful that is in the way it at once acknowledges the child's intensity of focus and sets a boundary. Any discussion that follows would then be about which stopping place is OK with you or when, instead of about "not stopping." Then when he does stop himself, you can say, “You stopped yourself,” to reinforce the STRENGTH of self-control. Or better yet, since he already seems to be in touch with the STRENGTH of focus, you can build on that by using language to acknowledge his success like, "You shifted your focus to stopping, and look at that. You stopped yourself in a record 2 minutes!"

For your daughter, since she is motivated to do things she is good at, if you start from where she is by first showing her how she's good at something, it will give her a way to get going. Using the example of teeth brushing, if that's hard for her to do on her own, you can try sitting with her as she brushes and "calling the shots" like a radio announcer pointing out everything she does right like, "Look at you putting your own toothpaste on your brush. You know you wet it first, and there! You got it into your mouth without the toothpaste falling off. Now you're brushing the top teeth, now the bottom. You even got those way back there. No tooth can escape that tooth brush while you’re in charge!" If you do this a couple times with her, it will establish a "success" soundtrack in her head. And, because she likes to do things she is good at, she might even start reminding you when it’s teeth time.

If at some point you decide you don’t want to sit with her anymore, and she has a hard time letting you go, you can come up with CAN DOs like making a recording of you calling the shots for her to play during teeth brushing as a kind of 2-min. timer. You can also try moving away in steps that keep her in touch with her success; for example, call less and less of the "shots" when you are with her, or start calling them from further out the door, then occasionally call one or two as you walk by doing other things.

Of course after she’s done brushing, be sure to name the STRENGTHs you saw that would allow her to start and complete the task all by herself like, "You always know when it’s time for teeth brushing. You like getting each and every tooth clean, and you keep brushing until they are all smooth and shiny. That shows you are diligent." We all have soundtracks that play in our heads; we might as well make them positive for our kids whenever we can.

One last thing to validate for kids who like doing things they are good at, is exactly that, "You like doing things you are good at!" Hearing that it's OK to have that kind of motivation is music to a child's ears, and will allow her to focus on becoming good at things, which is what she's already inclined to do, especially with your presence. It's way more productive for kids to spend their energy on becoming good at things than to spin their wheels trying to learn to motivate themselves to do things they’re not good at, when that's not how they work.

Parenting is easiest when you start from where your kids are. SAY WHAT YOU SEE and keep saying more.

Any other questions? To comment on this one or ask a new question, click on comments below.

Anger CAN DOs

When a child is angry, SAY WHAT YOU SEE (SWYS) sounds like this:

SWYS: "You didn't like that," or "You're really angry!"

Often one objective response is enough to keep you from reacting with anger yourself and to create an opening for the child to communicate more.

One of the main principles of SAY WHAT YOU SEE is that everything children say and do is a communication; and that they must continue to communicate until heard. This is human nature; so if a child doesn't get to express himself, he will either escalate his actions now or store it up for later. Unheard upsets do not disappear.

Adding CAN DOs helps translate unacceptable words or actions into those that are OK with you. Here's a sample response to a young child's anger:

SWYS: "Sounds like you really want me to know how you feel right now, and boy, do I! I can see how angry you are in your face, and I can hear it in your words!"
CAN DO: "Must be something you can do with all that anger. You can tear up these old newspapers (or hit a bop bag or pillow, etc.)!"

If the child would benefit from your presence and continued support, join in and tear them up together. The best moments occur when we can become playful in our interactions with kids. My older daughter used to bounce off walls to lighten the moment for her younger sister who was mad or crying. Kids know what works for kids.

For a parent, playfully sharing the child's feelings with an exaggerated mad face and silly words could work as well: "You are so-o-o-o mad! [Make a mad face, stomp, exaggerate the child's expression.] I'll bet you could pop popcorn with your eyes!" If you do this with humor not sarcasm, the child might join in and the event could become a "mad" contest. You could even get someone to judge who looks and sounds maddest. In any case, just the simple act of playing when a child expects seriousness can make a huge impact and provide the feeling of a shared experience.

On the other hand, if your child is very serious about her upset, you will want to respond in kind. This would be the child who is trying to prove a point, so the sooner you understand it, the better. [Note: Understanding is not the same as agreeing. If you'd like to know more about that, let me know.]

In either case, when the upset is over make sure to go back and add any STRENGTHs you saw, so the child can draw on them next time:

SWYS: "You were really angry."
STRENGTH: "It looks like all you needed was a way to express it to calm yourself down."

SAYing WHAT YOU SEE makes it safe for kids to tell you their side of the story. When they do, listen objectively and SAY WHAT YOU SEE; you'll be surprised how quickly they make sense.

If not, let me know.