Many times, when talking with parents this is the response they will give when talking about their child’s response to a difficult situation. It is well intentioned but not very helpful to the situation. If you have read my other blogs, you will now understand the behaviors we want to go away are simply the child’s ineffective responses to stress. They become overwhelmed by stress and act out the only way they currently know how.
If we take the sunburn example, we can see how ineffective this response is to the problem and if additional actions are not taken the problem behaviors will not go away. No parent would say “They need to deal with it better” if their 6 year old got sunburnt. They would completely understand the burn was a physiological response from the body to too much sun and a 6 year old cannot apply sunscreen to themselves effectively or limit the amount of sun they are getting to prevent themselves from getting burned. If you are in the sun all day you are going to be burned. End of story. No willing it or wanting it not to happen will prevent it. Over-stress the skin, it’s going to turn red, blister and peal.
Parents understand this and actively do things to prevent it, Reduce exposure to the stress – limit the amount of sun time the child gets, Coping skills – suntan lotion, hat, long sleeves, and pants, etc. Parents can see the direct cause and effect of sun and sunburns, so they proactively work to minimize burning and they teach the child how to deal with the stress themselves. When the child is a baby, the parent does all the work. As the child gets older the child becomes more involved in mitigating their sun exposure by using the skills the parent has taught them to deal with the stress (sun’s rays) and not get overwhelmed by it (burned). The older and older the child gets the more responsibility he is given to deal with the stress through use of coping skills and limiting exposure to the stress. It is a gradual process, and the parent is always there to help and support the child.
The same concept can and should be used for every other stressful event the child may deal with. The parent actively reduces the amount of stress they are exposed to while also teaching and implementing coping skills that can help the child deal with prolonged exposures to the stress. We also need to use age appropriate coping skills. A parent will slather suntan lotion on a baby but probably not their teenager. The parent will put a hat on a baby but I highly doubt they would do that to a teenager. They will also probably tell a teen to wear a hat but if they don’t then the parent is ok with the teen dealing with the consequences of that behavior and getting burned. The parent is not saving the teen from their bad choice because they know the teen is smart enough to make that choice themselves and if they make a mistake they will learn from it, getting a sunburn is not the end of the world for a 16 year old.
Once we understand how we can help our child deal more effectively with stress we usually have no problem with it. The struggle is admitting we don’t know how to help and we want to.
