What to say to "You're Stupid"?
shirarocklin
Hi everyone,
We've been unschooling for about 3 years now, taking on the ideas and principles since my daughter was about 3/4 years old. She is 6 now, so really officially unschooling as of this year. Her brothers are 3 and 7 months. We are also travelling at the moment, in a foreign country, and lots of unforeseen circumstances have made this a stressful trip... but we didn't have the option of leaving early, due to funds. So we are trying to make our time here as super fun as we can and turn this all around.
My daughter is the sort who becomes emotional quickly and I love her for it (because we can move on and have fun so fast!). Because of the various stresses here, its been more difficult to meet everyone's needs in the best possible way (well, its the best possible we could do in the moment, but not really what the kids are used to). When things haven't gone well, or another child has temporarily been prioritized above her, or when I had the flu and my husband was in charge (and he is somewhat slower in response and creativity when it comes to dealing with difficult moments than I am, having had less practice at being the parent who is home most), she's become very angry. This isn't abnormal, and I often come and 'solve' the problem quite easily.
Lately though, she's been calling everyone and everything stupid. "You are stupid!!!" Screaming it loudly. Only at home, though, I think. I don't mind the word, or even worse words. I do mind being called stupid, and each time she has said/yelled it, I have responded with, "Don't call me or anyone else stupid," in a strong voice. But it hasn't stopped. I've also spoken to her about how hurtful it can be to call people something like that (although my feelings aren't particularly bruised, knowing she's just expressing general anger with a word she feels expresses it sufficiently).
She's asked me and led me to a discussion about what it means, and how objects can't be stupid because they have no brains, etc. I've tried in the past to play the 'blowing balloons' game with breathing to deal with emotions, and she hasn't responded to that as anything she wants to play at. She listened to the Indigo Child (Angry Octopus and others) stories at night for a few months, loving them.
Is there another response, game, activity, idea that could lead her to change this? I'm concerned also because her brother is at the age of copy-cat, and has started slamming doors (something else she does in anger). I can understand how she feels, the emotions are very physical and angry, and I feel them the same way, and have worked really hard over years to stop slamming things around and acting angry. Maybe I should tell her about myself actually. Would that help or hinder?
Thanks,
Shira
We've been unschooling for about 3 years now, taking on the ideas and principles since my daughter was about 3/4 years old. She is 6 now, so really officially unschooling as of this year. Her brothers are 3 and 7 months. We are also travelling at the moment, in a foreign country, and lots of unforeseen circumstances have made this a stressful trip... but we didn't have the option of leaving early, due to funds. So we are trying to make our time here as super fun as we can and turn this all around.
My daughter is the sort who becomes emotional quickly and I love her for it (because we can move on and have fun so fast!). Because of the various stresses here, its been more difficult to meet everyone's needs in the best possible way (well, its the best possible we could do in the moment, but not really what the kids are used to). When things haven't gone well, or another child has temporarily been prioritized above her, or when I had the flu and my husband was in charge (and he is somewhat slower in response and creativity when it comes to dealing with difficult moments than I am, having had less practice at being the parent who is home most), she's become very angry. This isn't abnormal, and I often come and 'solve' the problem quite easily.
Lately though, she's been calling everyone and everything stupid. "You are stupid!!!" Screaming it loudly. Only at home, though, I think. I don't mind the word, or even worse words. I do mind being called stupid, and each time she has said/yelled it, I have responded with, "Don't call me or anyone else stupid," in a strong voice. But it hasn't stopped. I've also spoken to her about how hurtful it can be to call people something like that (although my feelings aren't particularly bruised, knowing she's just expressing general anger with a word she feels expresses it sufficiently).
She's asked me and led me to a discussion about what it means, and how objects can't be stupid because they have no brains, etc. I've tried in the past to play the 'blowing balloons' game with breathing to deal with emotions, and she hasn't responded to that as anything she wants to play at. She listened to the Indigo Child (Angry Octopus and others) stories at night for a few months, loving them.
Is there another response, game, activity, idea that could lead her to change this? I'm concerned also because her brother is at the age of copy-cat, and has started slamming doors (something else she does in anger). I can understand how she feels, the emotions are very physical and angry, and I feel them the same way, and have worked really hard over years to stop slamming things around and acting angry. Maybe I should tell her about myself actually. Would that help or hinder?
Thanks,
Shira
Sandra Dodd
-=-I can understand how she feels, the emotions are very physical and angry, and I feel them the same way, and have worked really hard over years to stop slamming things around and acting angry. Maybe I should tell her about myself actually. Would that help or hinder?-=-
I think it would help.
Tell her if she wants to slam doors she needs to wait until she grows up and owns her own doors, because it can ruin the door frame.
Kirby slammed his door until the frame was moved nearly an inch, but we owned the house. Had he done that in a rental house, it could have cost us a lot of money.
We advised Kirby to put his hands down (not to throw or grab or slam for just a second and breathe. Breathe out, far; breathe a deep breath and hold it. THINK. That all takes only a couple of seconds, the one big breath. It only works well if you've breathed out first, or if you can take two or three deep breaths.
Talking to him about adrenaline, and how to make it worse by holding your breath, helped him. So did martial arts. Hearing it from someone else was good. Having ways to use his strength and reasons not to helped.
I would rather my kids had said "fuck" than "stupid." I never condoned it. I always minded it. It's worse than physically hitting someone, to hit them in their esteem, in their being, in their validity on earth. I would tell her that you can no more allow her to do that than you would allow her to cut people with a knife. But talk to her when she's not angry.
http://sandradodd.com/truck
Try to do it side by side, in a quiet time, with spaces for thinking. It will make a huge difference. Sitting facing one another and making eye contact could make it worse. Look at that link above and see if you can get any ideas. If you're travelling, maybe you and she could go on a train ride, or a long hike. Something you could take slow, and not escape from, but also wouldn't need to be chatty and talky all the time.
-=-. She listened to the Indigo Child (Angry Octopus and others) stories at night for a few months, loving them. -=-
I think "indigo child" stuff is a problem from the get go. If you, or she, or anyone has suggested to her that she's a superior form of being, could that be behind her thinking others are stupid? I see that whole "indigo child" stuff an overlay of confusing nonsense on what should be direct relationships between and among people.
Sandra
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I think it would help.
Tell her if she wants to slam doors she needs to wait until she grows up and owns her own doors, because it can ruin the door frame.
Kirby slammed his door until the frame was moved nearly an inch, but we owned the house. Had he done that in a rental house, it could have cost us a lot of money.
We advised Kirby to put his hands down (not to throw or grab or slam for just a second and breathe. Breathe out, far; breathe a deep breath and hold it. THINK. That all takes only a couple of seconds, the one big breath. It only works well if you've breathed out first, or if you can take two or three deep breaths.
Talking to him about adrenaline, and how to make it worse by holding your breath, helped him. So did martial arts. Hearing it from someone else was good. Having ways to use his strength and reasons not to helped.
I would rather my kids had said "fuck" than "stupid." I never condoned it. I always minded it. It's worse than physically hitting someone, to hit them in their esteem, in their being, in their validity on earth. I would tell her that you can no more allow her to do that than you would allow her to cut people with a knife. But talk to her when she's not angry.
http://sandradodd.com/truck
Try to do it side by side, in a quiet time, with spaces for thinking. It will make a huge difference. Sitting facing one another and making eye contact could make it worse. Look at that link above and see if you can get any ideas. If you're travelling, maybe you and she could go on a train ride, or a long hike. Something you could take slow, and not escape from, but also wouldn't need to be chatty and talky all the time.
-=-. She listened to the Indigo Child (Angry Octopus and others) stories at night for a few months, loving them. -=-
I think "indigo child" stuff is a problem from the get go. If you, or she, or anyone has suggested to her that she's a superior form of being, could that be behind her thinking others are stupid? I see that whole "indigo child" stuff an overlay of confusing nonsense on what should be direct relationships between and among people.
Sandra
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Shira Rocklin
Thank you. I appreciate all your suggestions and will use them!
I may have mixed up the title of the stories she listened to? It was a set of CDs suggested on this list for dealing with emotions, a while ago. It's nothing to do with that whole indigo child, ie special children, thing. It was a set of CDs with a variety of slow relaxing stories that were really more like meditations, one was called Angry Octopus. I'm looking up a link...http://www.amazon.com/Indigo-Ocean-Dreams-Self-Esteem-Self-Awareness/dp/0970863365/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Sorry, I mixed up indigo dreams with indigo child.
Sent from my iPad, probably while typing one handed and nursing ;)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I may have mixed up the title of the stories she listened to? It was a set of CDs suggested on this list for dealing with emotions, a while ago. It's nothing to do with that whole indigo child, ie special children, thing. It was a set of CDs with a variety of slow relaxing stories that were really more like meditations, one was called Angry Octopus. I'm looking up a link...http://www.amazon.com/Indigo-Ocean-Dreams-Self-Esteem-Self-Awareness/dp/0970863365/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Sorry, I mixed up indigo dreams with indigo child.
Sent from my iPad, probably while typing one handed and nursing ;)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Alex
This--and responding to insults in general--is dealt with a ton in the Playful Parenting book. If you might have read it in the past, but don't have access to it abroad, you can join the associated group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Playful_Parenting
Many thanks to whoever posted that link here earlier because I am loving it. Lawrence Cohen has a number of suggestions I haven't really tried. The one that pops to mind is acting hilariously, ridiculously stupid.
A few times when my daughter has called me stupid or something else I've calmly agreed, like, "You know, I do feel kind of stupid sometimes." Or, more recently, "I AM poopy sometimes. Sometimes I even smell like poop!" which ended up with my husband and formerly angry daughter laughing pretty hard. I have zero history of verbal abuse or being told I'm not smart enough, and I can see how other people with different experiences would be uncomfortable with that. I certainly would discuss it further if I had any reason to think she was talking to other people this way as well.
Good luck-
Alex
mama to Katya, 5 yrs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Playful_Parenting
Many thanks to whoever posted that link here earlier because I am loving it. Lawrence Cohen has a number of suggestions I haven't really tried. The one that pops to mind is acting hilariously, ridiculously stupid.
A few times when my daughter has called me stupid or something else I've calmly agreed, like, "You know, I do feel kind of stupid sometimes." Or, more recently, "I AM poopy sometimes. Sometimes I even smell like poop!" which ended up with my husband and formerly angry daughter laughing pretty hard. I have zero history of verbal abuse or being told I'm not smart enough, and I can see how other people with different experiences would be uncomfortable with that. I certainly would discuss it further if I had any reason to think she was talking to other people this way as well.
Good luck-
Alex
mama to Katya, 5 yrs
Sandra Dodd
-=- I have zero history of verbal abuse or being told I'm not smart enough, and I can see how other people with different experiences would be uncomfortable with that. -=-
I do like the suggestion of using humor, and we've done that here, but there's something else to the statement above.
Whether she's doing it to other people or not, and whether you've been verbally abused or insulted before or not, she's being abusive and insulting.
These analogies may seem too harsh. I don't mean to suggest it's as bad as these. I mean to draw analogies with which I'm familiar.
If someone who had been sexually abused warned another family that something was looking dangerously like sexual abuse, how would it seem for someone to write, "I have zero history of sexual abuse or being sexualized at a young age, and I can see how other people with different experiences would be uncomfortable with that" ?
And because my mom drank too much, and I was 19 when she had a late-in-life baby by someone she met at the bar and she abused and neglected him horribly, I have been quick to point out alcohol abuse in parents and suggest that they might want to tone that down for the sake of their children. And people have said to, and of, me: "Oh, Sandra's mom was an alcoholic, so she reacts that way to drinking."
In cases where someone with experience suggests that a behavior can create longterm harm, because they have seen or experienced the results of such behavior and harm, it seems worth at least saying "I'll think about that" instead of "it hasn't happened to me."
If a child is being too rough with a cat, it might seem the cat doesn't mind. And the cat can get away, and the cat has teeth and claws. That's too much looking at the cat, though, and not enough considering that the child's behavior reflects on and is part of the child, and the family.
I'm not talking about a moment, though, but trends and habits, and integrity and morality. Same old stuff. :-)
Sandra
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I do like the suggestion of using humor, and we've done that here, but there's something else to the statement above.
Whether she's doing it to other people or not, and whether you've been verbally abused or insulted before or not, she's being abusive and insulting.
These analogies may seem too harsh. I don't mean to suggest it's as bad as these. I mean to draw analogies with which I'm familiar.
If someone who had been sexually abused warned another family that something was looking dangerously like sexual abuse, how would it seem for someone to write, "I have zero history of sexual abuse or being sexualized at a young age, and I can see how other people with different experiences would be uncomfortable with that" ?
And because my mom drank too much, and I was 19 when she had a late-in-life baby by someone she met at the bar and she abused and neglected him horribly, I have been quick to point out alcohol abuse in parents and suggest that they might want to tone that down for the sake of their children. And people have said to, and of, me: "Oh, Sandra's mom was an alcoholic, so she reacts that way to drinking."
In cases where someone with experience suggests that a behavior can create longterm harm, because they have seen or experienced the results of such behavior and harm, it seems worth at least saying "I'll think about that" instead of "it hasn't happened to me."
If a child is being too rough with a cat, it might seem the cat doesn't mind. And the cat can get away, and the cat has teeth and claws. That's too much looking at the cat, though, and not enough considering that the child's behavior reflects on and is part of the child, and the family.
I'm not talking about a moment, though, but trends and habits, and integrity and morality. Same old stuff. :-)
Sandra
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teresa
I have a (nearly) 7 year old who gets angry like that, and a 3 year old who copies what he does, and this sounds a lot like how I have responded:
--- In [email protected], "shirarocklin" <shirarocklin@...> wrote:
>I have responded with, "Don't call me or anyone else stupid," in a strong voice. But it hasn't stopped.>
>I've also spoken to her about how hurtful it can be to call people something like that (although my feelings aren't particularly bruised, knowing she's just expressing general anger with a word she feels expresses it sufficiently).
>
I have been sticking with this strategy for maybe a year now. The "stupid" started just after we moved a third of the way across the country, and was always at the beginning of a big explosion of frustration about the world not matching up with my 7 year old's expectations, or the limitations of what I could offer in any given moment, or his little brother doing very typical 3 year old things and me not having anticipated ways to minimize the effects beforehand. When I was younger, I remember my younger sister acting like this, and people referred to her having "a short fuse." I think it's more complicated than that, but they are the same types of frustrated behaviors.
But, after a year now of "Don't call me that," followed by some help, support, and then--after the energy of the initial blow-up has passed a bit--a reminder to use some of the relaxing techniques (my son was feeling very resentful to these being suggested in the heat of the moment), things have gotten much, much better. Once every couple of weeks, we still deal with it. But it was a twice-daily thing for a while.
I wish the Playful Parenting thing had worked for me. I love that book, and using silliness, or anything that can instantly diffuse the energy and let us get to the real problem, and then get past it. But, my son would get even angrier when I'd try to be silly. His face would literally change to a kind of growling glower, and soon he was able to see what I was trying to do and would say, "I hate it when you do that!" He's a very silly kid, but in this moment, it was not the strategy that was going to help him.
I often wished I had something that would have acted faster, but I wonder if some of these things just take longer than others to work out. I told myself at the time that I was holding a sensible line that he could understand--"Don't call me that. I don't like it. It's not a kind thing to say to somebody"--and I was following up with tools and love and help.
We're chipping away at it, at the impulse to explode big and hot and fast and with name-calling. I don't know for sure--he's my oldest--but it seems as if the consistent response, his growing up a bit, and him being able to practice calming and anger-channeling skills during "down time" all came together to affect the change.
Teresa
mama to Woody (nearly 7) and Fox (3 years, 9 months)
Joyce Fetteroll
On Oct 3, 2012, at 9:13 AM, teresa wrote:
Different ideas -- if they're based on the principles put into practice -- are important too. The ideas can help people understand the principles better. They can help someone see more solutions than the one they might be stuck on.
But primary is knowing your child. And then using the principles to make the choices your unique child needs to help him or her.
Joyce
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> I wish the Playful Parenting thing had worked for me. I love that book,Which is why it's so important to discuss what principles work rather than trading "what works".
> and using silliness, or anything that can instantly diffuse the energy
> and let us get to the real problem, and then get past it. But, my son
> would get even angrier when I'd try to be silly.
Different ideas -- if they're based on the principles put into practice -- are important too. The ideas can help people understand the principles better. They can help someone see more solutions than the one they might be stuck on.
But primary is knowing your child. And then using the principles to make the choices your unique child needs to help him or her.
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
When one of my kids (usually Kirby) was angry with another and said something hateful or hurtful, sometimes it helped for me to say (with eye-to-eye contact), "I love Marty and I won't let anyone treat him that way, not even you."
I've also said to them at various times in various ways that if a neighbor came into the house and did that (whatever they were doing--hitting or yelling), I would tell them to get out, and if a stranger came in and did it, I would call the police. And so it's not okay for them to do it either.
I reminded them a few times that each person who lives here needs to feel safe and at peace in his own home.
Part of creating a peaceful learning environment is a focus on that environment. Instead of thinking of how to allow a child to disturb the peace without feeling bad about it, maybe turn it around and use "the peace" as the area in which he's allowed to frolic (and which he needs to help maintain, in order to keep "the peace").
If he says he doesn't WANT peace, maybe suggest that when he's grown he can have his own place and be as irritatingly negative as he wants to be, and people can choose to visit him or not, but while he's home and unschooling is the goal, that peace is as important as flush toilets and a roof that doesn't leak.
Sandra
I've also said to them at various times in various ways that if a neighbor came into the house and did that (whatever they were doing--hitting or yelling), I would tell them to get out, and if a stranger came in and did it, I would call the police. And so it's not okay for them to do it either.
I reminded them a few times that each person who lives here needs to feel safe and at peace in his own home.
Part of creating a peaceful learning environment is a focus on that environment. Instead of thinking of how to allow a child to disturb the peace without feeling bad about it, maybe turn it around and use "the peace" as the area in which he's allowed to frolic (and which he needs to help maintain, in order to keep "the peace").
If he says he doesn't WANT peace, maybe suggest that when he's grown he can have his own place and be as irritatingly negative as he wants to be, and people can choose to visit him or not, but while he's home and unschooling is the goal, that peace is as important as flush toilets and a roof that doesn't leak.
Sandra
keetry
== I've also said to them at various times in various ways that if a neighbor came into the house and did that (whatever they were doing--hitting or yelling), I would tell them to get out, and if a stranger came in and did it, I would call the police. And so it's not okay for them to do it either.==
You are the army in your home and your life making it as safe and peaceful as you can. I think that's all any of us can really do.
Alysia
You are the army in your home and your life making it as safe and peaceful as you can. I think that's all any of us can really do.
Alysia
seyyala
---
Robin B.
>I like to think I'm the UN Peacekeeper.
> You are the army in your home and your life making it as safe and peaceful as you can.
Robin B.
>
keetry
> > You are the army in your home and your life making it as safe and peaceful as you can.Yes, much better, more peaceful. :)
>
> I like to think I'm the UN Peacekeeper.>
Alysia