Getting Out of Negative Cycles
If you find yourself repeatedly in a spot where you and your child both end up getting angry at each other, that is a sign that you and your son or daughter are stuck in an automatic, self-defeating pattern. You need to interrupt your pattern of reacting and create time to think.
Suppose, for example, for the past few weeks, you've been trying to get your daughter to go to bed at 8:00 P.M. She's not ready to go to bed, however, and she fights your efforts to enforce this bedtime. Because it is the end of the day and you are both tired, you both become emotional during your conflict and are unable to resolve it peacefully. Every night you're having the same, predictable argument. At about 7:30 P.M., you (and your daughter) can feel tension start as you anticipate the encounter you know is going to come at bedtime.
What can you do to try and get your child's cooperation? First, understand that when your child gets upset, her emotions take over her thinking. The same is true for you. When someone gets emotionally upset, for the moment there is no thinking person home.
So, rather than allow feelings to continue to do your “thinking” for you, declare a timeout so both of you can cool down and allow the power of reason to solve the problem. Then say something like this to your daughter: “The way we are doing bedtime isn't working for either of us. We need to start over. We need to find a different way. Let's each think about what that might be.”
What if you can't figure out a way to stop a recurrent problem with your child?
Instead of treating the situation as your responsibility alone to solve, treat it as a mutual concern. Enlist the child's ideas to help solve the problem. Two heads are often better than one.
For you, the first part of the answer is to not do whatever you have been trying, since that seems to be supporting the continuation of the problem. So, you must take a clear and honest look at your own “bedtime” behavior. You may find that your method is a combination of telling (“You will”) and yelling when you don't get your way, the child telling (“I won't”) and yelling back.
Ask your daughter why going to bed on time is so hard to do. She may reply, “I don't want to go to bed when you're angry at me. I feel scared. Maybe when I wake up you will still be angry with me!” To this you answer, “Well, I wouldn't get angry if you'd just go to bed when you are told!”
But then you think about your own behavior and offer to work out a different bedtime scenario with her. “What could I do with you before bedtime that would cause you to feel warm and close to me?” Then your daughter does some thinking. “You could lie down with me and we could snuggle, and you could read me a story.” And you agree to give this a try.
