Distractions

Aware parents accept the entire range of emotions and listen non-judgmentally to children’s expressions of feelings. They realize that they cannot prevent all sadness, anger, or frustration, and they do not attempt to stop children from releasing painful feelings through crying or raging.

– Aletha Solter

I’ve never really liked using distractions when Meredith is upset. For a long time, I wasn’t sure why I didn’t like them, I just knew they didn’t feel right. But they “worked”, so we used them from time to time when Meredith was really upset. As she got a little older though, they stopped working a lot of the time. I realized that just like I wouldn’t want someone to try and distract me if I was trying to air my upset about something, neither would she. (If I came home and told Kris I was upset about something that happened that day, and Kris tried to immediately change the subject and talk about something else or show me something cool he did without listening to what I had to say, I would feel like I wasn’t listened to. In a child’s case, they may also feel like it’s not okay to feel that way.)  There are times when I do find it useful though. Like getting her into her carseat. 90% of the time she’s fine now, but those times she’s not, often using a bit of distraction will get her in happily and once the straps are on she’s happy to stay in too.

It’s still something I struggle with at times. It’s hard to come up with alternatives sometimes. And sometimes there seems to be little difference between a distraction, or trying to engage a child’s attention somewhere else, or a compromise. For example, this morning while I was nursing her, she wanted to hold the pencil I was using. I was fine with that, and gave it to her and she happily drew in a magazine I was holding while she nursed. Then she decided she wanted to wave the pencil around in my face, which I wasn’t okay with. After a couple of times of trying to redirect her to draw on the paper or wave the pencil somewhere else, it became obvious that she was very adamant about wanting to wave it around near my face. I asked her for the pencil, and she gave it to me but immediately wanted it back and began to cry when I didn’t give it to her. Instead, I handed her something much smaller that I was okay with her waving around. She immediately cheered up and proceeded to wave that around for a few minutes before getting bored and moving on to the next game. Was the second item a distraction to distract her from the pencil, or was it a compromise, that she could continue doing what she was doing with a different item? I think it was a compromise, and one that we both could live with, but it seems like there is such a fine line at times.

I think it often comes down to respect for our children and their feelings. In the case above, Meredith wanted to wave something around in the air while she nursed. I understood that and was okay with that, and gave her something that she could safely do so with. If the second object hadn’t worked, I would have validated her feelings rather than try to get her to move on to another activity and waited until she was ready to move on.

I did find this article a while ago that explains some of the problems with distractions much better than I could: Solutions are not the solution. He talks about how children need to experience the whole range of emotions and that quick fixes to try and have a happy child 100% of the time should not be our goal as parents. We have only had one real “tantrum” so far, and it only lasted a minute or two before we bundled her up and took her outside for a walk (was that a distraction?), but it was a long minute or two. She ended up falling asleep almost immediately and slept more than 13 hours that night, so obviously the “tantrum” was more about her being tired than about the small thing it seemed she was upset about.

Solter helped me to question my need for “a constantly happy child” and my use of quick fixes. If I was honest, my rapid solutions and distractions were about trying to return to the veneer of peace and smiles as quickly as possible. I was behaviorally focused; deeper more significant content did not come into it.

It was really hard to listen to her scream and cry and see that she was so obviously out of control. I wanted to stop it, and I will admit that we actually did try and distract her (unsuccessfully) a couple of times before we decided that being in the house around what was causing the upset was too difficult for her and we left for our walk. I think if she had been okay with one of us holding her and comforting her, it would have been easier, but as it was she would only let me occasionally rub her back. Otherwise, I sat next to her, mostly quietly but using validation as well. But not even being able to hold her and listening to her being so upset felt too much like crying it out to me, even though I know validating feelings and being next to them for when they are ready to be held is much different than leaving a child alone to cry. One way you are showing that the feelings are okay to express, and the other the message is that the feelings should be stopped or bottled up.

While the implementation of my new tool kit is often crude and slow, the transformation has begun. I am facing the fear of pain in my loved ones. I am letting go of needing to “rescue them” or “fix things,” and I know that it is enough to be there for them and to love them unconditionally.

This is something I personally want to work on in myself, especially as Meredith gets older and starts to be able to verbalize her feelings. I hope it will get easier as we’re able to reason with her and she can help come up with compromises or her own solutions

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