Parenting Class

Today Daniel and I went to an adult ed parenting class called "How to Respond to Tears, Fears, and Tantrums". I was very impressed with the class and really connected a lot with what was covered.

Here are some of the things I wrote down in my notes and information from the handouts from the class...

Sources of stress for children:

Hurts by commission-

Being hit, yelled at, criticized, punished

Sexual abuse

Hurts by omission-

Lack of food when hungry

Lack of physical contact or attention

Situational hurts-

Prenatal stress & birth trauma

Developmental fears & frustrations

Overstimulation

Illnesses, injuries, hospitalization

Parental stress, anxiety, or depression

Effects of Stress on Behavior:

Hyperarousal response-

Hyperactivity, impulsivity, distractibility, aggression, violence, sleep disturbances, fears, exaggerated startle response, frequent temper tantrums

Dissociation (numbing)-

Withdrawl, isolation, passivity, self-stimulation (ex. thumb sucking, self rocking), somatic complaints (ex. fatigue, headaches)

"80% of physical child abuse occurs when a child is crying"

"Crying is an important healing mechanism. Crying releases built up stress in the body."

"Healing consists of returning to the same level of arousal that occurred during the original trauma. Healing is accomplished when the child no longer shows emotional arousal to other symptoms when exposed to trauma reminders. A healed child is relaxed, alert, communicative, non-violent, and sleeps well. "

"Children need to feel secure and loved. Children need to be reminded of the trauma, and process the trauma by talking, laughing, playing, crying, raging, trembling, or engaging in therapeutic play." (*trauma can be anything really upsetting to the child)

How crying is Repressed:

Telling the child to stop crying

Punishing or threatening (ex. timeouts)

withdrawing love, isolating child

Distracting (with talk, music, movement)

Putting something in child's mouth (ex.pacifier, food)

Teasing, shaming

Denying or minimizing child's pain

Getting child to talk or laugh

Praising child for NOT crying

Giving drugs (tranquillizers, stimulants, antidepressants)

"When Children are hurt, anxious, frustrated, or stressed, they attempt to heal themselves by crying or raging."

If the crying is stopped:

Children will still feel sad, angry, frightened, resentful, or confused.

Children will be more prone to illness and sleep problems.

Children may become hyperactive, hurtful, violent, uncooperative, demanding, whiny, and have trouble thinking and learning.

If the crying is accepted:

Children will heal from emotional pain, and become more happy and relaxed.

Children will sleep better and be less prone to illness.

Children will become more calm, gentle, compassionate, cooperative, resourceful, and better thinkers and learners.

The "Broken Cookie" Phenomenon:

She told the class a situation of a little 4 yr old girl that went to preschool and everything started going bad for the little girl. She fell and skinned her knee, a toy was stolen from her, another kid pushed her, her mom was late picking her up etc. etc. When they got home her mom made lunch and asked how school went and she said “fine” then she asked her mom if she could have a cookie after lunch. Her mom said yes, took her into the kitchen, opened the cookie jar and there was one cookie left but it was broken. The mother gave her the broken cookie and the little girl threw herself on the floor and threw a huge kicking and screaming tantrum for 20 min. When she finished with her kicking and screaming fit the little girl stood up, ate the cookie, and was fine for the rest of the day. No problems, no acting out, nothing. Our instructor told us that this was a perfect illustration of how stress can build and build until it finally overflows and needs to be released. Children don’t know how to express feelings with words. Not even some adults know how to express what they are feeling with words and here is where the crying helps to get out all that built up stress.

It isn’t just crying that will make you feel better (although it is a wonderful way to) but also she talked a lot about how laughter is a great therapeutic way to release stress. She gave us a handout about some different recommendations for therapeutic play with children that was really informative. That one is a whole page worth of info so I won’t include it in this post…seeing how this is already a really long post…but if you are interested in hearing about what it has to say just leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail and I’ll e-mail it to you.

I was really happy that Daniel and I were able to experience this together. The last workshop I went to I had to go alone and it was an amazing class but when I tried to recount it to Daniel later he just didn’t get it the way I did when I was there. So I’m really glad we did this together so we can both be on the same page and we can grow and become better parents together.

P.S-If anyone around here (Santa Barbara) is interested Aletha is having another workshop on “Connecting With Your Teenager” on November 21, 2009 from 9am to 1pm. It is a free workshop but you do need to register for the class. If anyone is interested just let me know and I can give you more info.

P.P.S-I did buy 2 of her books while I was at the workshop so if anyone is interested in reading a really good parenting book let me know and you can borrow mine!