Nanci and Thomas Kuykendall

>I am not interested in starting a major debate about the "dangers of
>holing therapy" and on and on and on..... been there already.


>Aletha Solter says that even young babies experience stress, toddlers >even more so. I don't think we can argue that point. She goes on to >say, however, and this is where some people cringe, that
>babies/toddlers/children need to be allowed to cry and rage to
>release these stresses from their bodies.
>~ Nicoletta


This topic is of interest to me. I know almost nothing about "holding therapy" but I do know this: I have a son with very special needs. One of the issues for us at home is his rages. I have told him that he is allowed to rage and have a fit if he needs to, but he needs to go to his own room where he will not disturb others or hurt anyone until he feels better. My son will be 4 on 12/22.

I keep a baby monitor in this son's room so that I can keep an "ear" on him when he is doing his alone time or calm down time. If he gets to a certain type of crying, then I know he needs assistance to calm down. I go into his room on these occassions and, if other attempts fail I, as gently as possible, force him to sit on my lap facing me, with his head resting on my chest or shoulder, and hug him firmly and rock. This always serves to calm him, although in the beginning he usually makes half hearted attempts to hit or kick me.

I talk to him soothingly and kiss him and pet him while we do this. I give descriptive words for his feelings and encourage him to talk about them. We also talk about what kind of behavior is acceptable and what is not (screaming and throwing things at people, kicking and hitting people, uncontrollable raging, are all on the unacceptable list.) My son is hyperactive and easily overstimulated. There is also some indication that he has Sensory Integration issues that make it difficult for him to handle certain situations and to get control of himself without assitance. I know that one therapy for sensory integration involves pressure massages similar to our holding time, which releases endorphins which allow him to get under control. We have discussed all this with our family therapist too.

Another word about alone time. We send him to his room when he begins to get out of control whenever possible. Although he gets mad at us for this, it never last more than a few minutes. I can hear him in his room when he is alone over the monitor. He quickly goes from screaming and kicking the walls, to grumbling, to playing happily by himself. It is amazing how quickly the change takes place when he is alone in his room and sperated from extra stimuli. When he is feeling better I try to go in and have a word with him and tell him I love him and remind him why he had to go to his room. On occassion when we go in, he tells us to get out, that he needs more alone time. We respect this and leave him in peace till he is ready.

This son also has nightmares frequently and we are VERY limiting about tv content and length he is allowed due to this, as most of them are based on someting he might have seen there. He has an incredible imagination. He amazes the other mothers I know with his stories and fantasies.

Our hope is that what we do for him (enforced alone time, talking about his feelings, discussing ways to soothe him) will make the holding unneccsary as he grows and learns to be aware of his limits and can take a time out and soothe himself when he needs to. I also want my son to understand that his needs are not more important that other people's needs, and that he needs to take himself out of situations where he is beginning to be abusive to others, and take a breather and calm down.

By the way, this is a VERY loving and affectionate child. He loves to be held when he is not upset, he kisses and hugs us and others freely and tells us he loves us often. Often when we go to get him out of his room after one of his rages, the first thing he says is "I love you mom/dad."

Nanci K.

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Nicoletta Manns

Hello Nanci,

I meant to elaborate on my earlier message

When Aletha Solter talks about children needing to cry and rage she
also stresses the importance of not sending them away to do so, but
rather to be there, hold them, give them loving attention. This is
basically what Holding Time is about also, according to Martha Welch.
There are some differences in the two approaches and I would
encourage you to read both their books.

I want to stress at this point that I am not judging you for sending
your son to his room, and there has been research done into how "time-
out" can affect children especially at a young age. Aletha Solter has
some excellent articles on her web site. I am thinking about "The
disadvantages of time-out" and "why children misbehave". You can find
them at www.awareparenting.com if you click on the articles link.


My own personal opinion on the issue of toddlers and young children
raging/screaming/crying as opposed to using words is this: I believe
that young children may need to actually rage in a physical way, to
effectively get the energy transformed and out of their bodies. I
believe that the phrase "use your words" is way overused in our
society, especially with young children. I think as a society we are
terribly out of touch with our deepest emotions, partially because we
were not allowed to fully experience and express them - especially
when it comes to rage/sadness, etc. Instead we were told to "talk
about" how we were feeling, but talking about feelings can never make
up for actually feeling and expressing fully.

I have been in various forms of therapy and the major work I have had
to do there has been to get in touch with my feelings and learn to
actually feel them and express them, as I have always been very good
at "talking about" my feelings.

Anyway, I hope I haven't offended anyone. I am being very cautious
about this lately, because I was banned from another list for
speaking my mind and inadvertently disagreeing with the moderator of
that list. I don't want that to happen again.

~ Nicoletta
*************************
"It is paradoxical, yet true: children are the most in need of
loving attention when they act the least deserving of it!"
by Aletha Solter, 1998, from the article "Why children misbehave"
www.awareparenting.com
*************************




--- In [email protected], "Nanci and Thomas Kuykendall"
<tn-k4of5@i...> wrote:
> >I am not interested in starting a major debate about the "dangers
of
> >holing therapy" and on and on and on..... been there already.
>
>
> >Aletha Solter says that even young babies experience stress,
toddlers >even more so. I don't think we can argue that point. She
goes on to >say, however, and this is where some people cringe, that
> >babies/toddlers/children need to be allowed to cry and rage to
> >release these stresses from their bodies.
> >~ Nicoletta
>
>
> This topic is of interest to me. I know almost nothing
about "holding therapy" but I do know this: I have a son with very
special needs. One of the issues for us at home is his rages. I
have told him that he is allowed to rage and have a fit if he needs
to, but he needs to go to his own room where he will not disturb
others or hurt anyone until he feels better. My son will be 4 on
12/22.
>
> I keep a baby monitor in this son's room so that I can keep
an "ear" on him when he is doing his alone time or calm down time.
If he gets to a certain type of crying, then I know he needs
assistance to calm down. I go into his room on these occassions and,
if other attempts fail I, as gently as possible, force him to sit on
my lap facing me, with his head resting on my chest or shoulder, and
hug him firmly and rock. This always serves to calm him, although in
the beginning he usually makes half hearted attempts to hit or kick
me.
>
> I talk to him soothingly and kiss him and pet him while we do
this. I give descriptive words for his feelings and encourage him to
talk about them. We also talk about what kind of behavior is
acceptable and what is not (screaming and throwing things at people,
kicking and hitting people, uncontrollable raging, are all on the
unacceptable list.) My son is hyperactive and easily
overstimulated. There is also some indication that he has Sensory
Integration issues that make it difficult for him to handle certain
situations and to get control of himself without assitance. I know
that one therapy for sensory integration involves pressure massages
similar to our holding time, which releases endorphins which allow
him to get under control. We have discussed all this with our family
therapist too.
>
> Another word about alone time. We send him to his room when he
begins to get out of control whenever possible. Although he gets mad
at us for this, it never last more than a few minutes. I can hear
him in his room when he is alone over the monitor. He quickly goes
from screaming and kicking the walls, to grumbling, to playing
happily by himself. It is amazing how quickly the change takes place
when he is alone in his room and sperated from extra stimuli. When
he is feeling better I try to go in and have a word with him and tell
him I love him and remind him why he had to go to his room. On
occassion when we go in, he tells us to get out, that he needs more
alone time. We respect this and leave him in peace till he is ready.
>
> This son also has nightmares frequently and we are VERY limiting
about tv content and length he is allowed due to this, as most of
them are based on someting he might have seen there. He has an
incredible imagination. He amazes the other mothers I know with his
stories and fantasies.
>
> Our hope is that what we do for him (enforced alone time, talking
about his feelings, discussing ways to soothe him) will make the
holding unneccsary as he grows and learns to be aware of his limits
and can take a time out and soothe himself when he needs to. I also
want my son to understand that his needs are not more important that
other people's needs, and that he needs to take himself out of
situations where he is beginning to be abusive to others, and take a
breather and calm down.
>
> By the way, this is a VERY loving and affectionate child. He loves
to be held when he is not upset, he kisses and hugs us and others
freely and tells us he loves us often. Often when we go to get him
out of his room after one of his rages, the first thing he says is "I
love you mom/dad."
>
> Nanci K.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Show off your pagan (and Idaho) pride, get Idaho Pagan Mail(tm)
today!
> Sign up at http://www.idahopagan.com/

LisaKK

>
> My own personal opinion on the issue of toddlers and young children
> raging/screaming/crying as opposed to using words is this: I believe
> that young children may need to actually rage in a physical way, to
> effectively get the energy transformed and out of their bodies.

I'm not sure I would limit this need just to young children.

Lisa <who will say no more as her husband gets the list digest.>

Ps.. our digest readers asks everyone to remember to only quote what is
necessary please.

Helen Hegener

At 7:00 PM +0000 12/19/00, Nicoletta Manns wrote:
>Anyway, I hope I haven't offended anyone. I am being very cautious
>about this lately, because I was banned from another list for
>speaking my mind and inadvertently disagreeing with the moderator of
>that list. I don't want that to happen again.

Not much chance of that on this list, Nicoletta. I agree with your
ideas, and would like to see these kinds of common-sense approaches
discussed more openly. There has been so much harm done to children
and families and relationships in the name of maintaining "control"
or "appearances" or whatever... Children are passionate, and unless
that passion finds a way to express itself in a safe, relatively good
way, it will find other ways...

Helen
(Mother of five, grandmother of four... <g>)

Helen Hegener

At 1:24 PM -0600 12/19/00, LisaKK wrote:
>I'm not sure I would limit this need just to young children.

Or to children at all...

Helen

Nicoletta Manns

> > that young children may need to actually rage in a physical way,
to
> > effectively get the energy transformed and out of their bodies.
>


> I'm not sure I would limit this need just to young children.
>
> Lisa <who will say no more as her husband gets the list digest.>
>


I agree with you, Lisa. I did not mean it in a limiting way. I do
think though that adults can transform the energy of rage in more
sophisticated and more conscious ways than young children can.

~ Nicoletta

Nicoletta Manns

> Not much chance of that on this list, Nicoletta. I agree with your
> ideas, and would like to see these kinds of common-sense approaches
> discussed more openly.
>
> Helen
> (Mother of five, grandmother of four... <g>)

Thank you Helen, that is very reassuring.

~ Nicoletta

[email protected]

I'm glad to be reminded of Solter's work. I read "The Aware Baby" when my
second child, my son (now 15), was a baby. It was helpful. -Amalia

Nanci and Thomas Kuykendall

>When Aletha Solter talks about children needing to cry and rage she
>also stresses the importance of not sending them away to do so, but
>rather to be there, hold them, give them loving attention. This is
>basically what Holding Time is about also, according to Martha Welch.
>~ Nicoletta


Well I don't want to get into an argument, as I and everyone else in the house have the flu and I just do not have the energy or patience for it. But I do want to say that I think there is a difference between a child expressing themselves and a child throwing a tantrum. Children should not be allowed to abuse others in their home or elswhere simply in the name of "free expression." One of the lessons to be learned in order for them to socialize with others is to respect others. I tell my children that their feelings are real and valid and that it is alright to express them, but that expression cannot cause pain and distress to the innocent. If they need to scream and kick things, they need to be alone to get it out. If they need comfort and help calming down, we are always there to assist in any way we can. But the best thing we can do, and often when they request, is to leave them alone to work it out themselves.

Children are learning to be adults, eventually, and need to understand early that being abusive to other people or doing whatever they please to others, destroying their own home or other people's property is not acceptable. We have laws against those things for adults. While I certainly make a lot of leeway for children who are NOT the same as adults and are still learning to be socialized, at the same time I certainly want them to understand what is and is not acceptable behavior towards others.

It may be true that children need to yell and be physical to get things "out of their system," but not screaming and being physical to others. That's abuse, whether you are three feet tall or six feet tall. I have had a lifetime of relationships with folks who have rage issues and are abusive, and I do not want my children to be on either end of that kind of relationship.

Nanci K.

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Helen Hegener

At 10:45 AM -0800 12/20/00, Nanci and Thomas Kuykendall wrote:
>It may be true that children need to yell and be physical to get
>things "out of their system," but not screaming and being physical
>to others. That's abuse, whether you are three feet tall or six
>feet tall.

Good point, Nanci. I certainly agree with you, and I see part of our
challenge as parents is helping our kids understand the differences
between expressing themselves loudly and being abusive, or being a
nuisance, or just being obnoxious and demanding.

Helen

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/20/2000 1:18:29 PM Central Standard Time,
tn-k4of5@... writes:


It may be true that children need to yell and be physical to get things "out
of their system," but not screaming and being physical to others.  That's
abuse, whether you are three feet tall or six feet tall.  I have had a
lifetime of relationships with folks who have rage issues and are abusive,
and I do not want my children to be on either end of that kind of
relationship.



I agree.  There is a difference in yelling and raging to release pent up
anger and in directing that rage toward another or toward property.  In
teaching my behavior disordered classes, and in dealing with a child of rage,
I have always stressed they are free to yell, rage, and even use language I
would rather they not use,  so long as it is not directed toward or ABOUT
another person.  They may also kick and throw things, just not at anyone and
not things that are too fragile to survive the attack.  No, raging and
attacking objects is not normal behavior, but these kids are not normal.  

I have always given my students and my child the choice of whether to be
attended during a rage or not.  But, if they choose to be attended, then they
must not direct the attack in any way towards me (or anyone else) or I will
immediately leave the area and they will be punished when the rage is over.
Evelyn