Surfing Your Child’s Emotional Tsunami
Here’s a conversation I recently had with my 7-year-old when he wasn’t at his logical best.
Ben: I can’t go to sleep. I’m mad that you never leave me a note in the middle of the night.
Me: I didn’t know you wanted me to.
Ben: You never do anything nice for me, you do things at night for Luke, and I’m mad because my birthday isn’t for 10 more months, and I hate homework.
Sound familiar? An encounter like this can be frustrating, especially when you’re beginning to feel that your child is finally old enough to actually be reasonable and discuss things logically. All of a sudden, though, you’re interacting with a being who becomes over-the-top upset about something completely ridiculous and illogical, and it seems that absolutely no amount of reasoning on your part will help.
This is one of those times when knowing a little bit about the brain can help us parent in more effective (and more empathic) ways.
You probably already know that your brain is divided into two hemispheres. The left side of your brain is logical and verbal, while the right side is emotional and nonverbal. That means that if we were ruled only by the left side of our brain, it would be as if we were living in an emotional drought, not paying attention to our feelings at all. Or, in contrast, if we were completely “right-brained,” we’d be all about emotion and ignore the logical parts of ourselves. Instead of an emotional drought, we’d be drowning in an emotional tsunami.
Clearly, we function best when the two hemispheres of our brain work together, so that our logic and our emotions are both valued as important parts of ourselves and we are emotionally balanced. Then we can give words to our emotional experiences, and make sense of them logically.
Now, let’s apply that information to the interaction above. My son was experiencing an emotional tidal wave. When this occurs, one of the worst things I can do is jump right in trying to defend myself (“I do nice things for you!”), or to argue with him about his faulty logic (“That’s just not true, and your birthday is actually only nine months away”). My verbal, logical response hits an unreceptive brick wall and creates a gulf between us: he feels like I’m dismissing his feelings and that I don’t understand; I feel frustrated that he’s being so ridiculous and impossible. It’s a lose-lose approach.
So I have to come to an important recognition: Logic will rarely work until the child’s right brain is responded to.
How do we do that? I suggest that we use the “Respond with the Right, Redirect with the Left” method.
Step 1: Respond with the right.
In our society, we’re trained to work things out using our words and our logic. But when your four-year-old is absolutely furious because she can’t walk on the ceiling like Spiderman, that’s probably not the best time to give her an introductory lesson in the laws of physics. Instead, you can take that opportunity to realize that at this moment, logic isn’t your primary vehicle towards bringing some sort of sanity to the conversation. (And keep in mind: your child’s feelings, no matter how nonsensical and frustrating they may be for you, are real and important to your child. So it’s important to treat them as such in your response.)
You can use your own right brain to connect with your child’s right brain; relate with her by using nurturing nonverbal, nonlogical, emotion-based tools, like physical touch, empathetic facial expressions, and nonjudgmental listening.
In the situation above, though it was really tempting (and almost automatic) to ask my son, “What are you talking about?!” I pulled him close, rubbed his back, and said, “Sometimes it’s just really hard, isn’t it? I would never forget about you. You are always in my mind, and I always want you to know how special you are to me.” I listened a little longer and nodded while he expressed what he needed to. I could feel him relax and soften. He felt heard and cared for.
There are plenty of parenting situations I don’t handle as I’d like, but in this instance, knowing about the brain helped me to respond sensitively and effectively; instead of fighting against the huge waves of the tsunami, I surfed them by responding with the right.
Step 2: Redirect with the left.
Then I was able to begin to use logic and words to address the issues Ben had brought up, since he could now be more receptive to problem-solving and planning. In this case, after responding with the right, I could redirect with the left by logically explaining to Ben how hard I work to be fair; I could promise to leave a note while he slept; and we could strategize together about how to make homework more fun. The point is that once the right had been acknowledged, it was much easier for the left to come in and deal with the issues in a rational manner.
I’m not saying that this “Respond with the Right, Redirect with the Left” method will always do the trick. After all, there are times when your child is simply past her point and her emotional tsunami just needs to ride itself out (or she just needs to go to sleep or eat). You may need to wait until a later time to talk logically with her. And I’m also not saying that you don’t maintain your boundaries simply because a child isn’t thinking logically; rules about respect and behavior aren’t thrown out the window simply because we understand that our child’s left hemisphere is disengaged.
But most of the time, when your child is drowning in a right-hemisphere-induced emotional tsunami, you’ll do yourself and your child a big favor if you’ll recognize that that’s what’s going on, respond with the right, and then (and only then) redirect and solve with the left. Trust me, this method can be a life preserver that helps keep your child’s head above water, and that keeps you from being pulled under along with her.
(16 votes, average: 4.94 out of 5)
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July 12th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Awesome. We are drowning at our house…I will give this a better try and see how we do. Thank you!
July 13th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Excellent article! Good content (but not too much) and well-written. Very helpful resource, even for folks whose kids are long since grown, but I’ll be passing this link along to some friends with smaller children.
July 14th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Great article. We definitely have some emotional tsunamis in our house. This is helpful stuff. Thanks Tina.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Dr. Bryson, I appreciate your loving, sensitive approach to your kids. You have outlined some principles that are applicable for every parent.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Great article Tina! Very clear and concise and full of understanding. I’m looking forward to seeing your other coming articles.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:31 am
Logic doesn’t work? You don’t say! Excellent all around, and very helpful.
July 26th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Dr. Bryson,
Your “Respond with the Right, Redirect with the Left” method sounds doable and as a parent we need more tools that are doable. Thanks for the information.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Tina,
Thank you for an inspirational article! Since I tend to be very “left-hemispheric”, it was good to be reminded of our child’s emotional needs.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
This is excellent. As I’m sure you know, the principle is adaptable to use in all other relationships, too. When I e-mailed my daughter in NZ that our church will probably connect to e-Harmonymarriages.com, she replied that you were doing this–and that you are the mother of my granddaughter Elissa’s best kindergarten friend, Ben. I remember him from visits to their school a few times–nice boy, and what a special friendship they had. Now I can see they had a lot in common in parenting styles.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Loved your article. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I have been having battles with my 7 year old lately and it just seems like they keep getting worse. I do take a step back often to see how I can change things to try to make them better, but sometimes I don’t have the answer on what I need to do.
Your article explains things clearly and gives me some insight into what is happening in my 7 year olds brain and heart. It all seemed like a big mystery to me, but now that you have explained things AND given a tool to use on how to handle situations better I feel better prepared when a situation comes up again. It is going to take some practice, but I hope that this technique will help me and my daughter understand each other better and feel better. Hopefully the seas will be a little calmer.