« Turn your upset into victories! | Main | “Let Go and Move Upwards” - Key meditative statements exercise on “Letting go In Love” »
What you resist persist! Getting through to your child
By Mike Wang | March 24, 2008
Today i had a good demonstration of this statement: ” what you resist, persist!” I went for a seminar intro today and i heard a parent sharing things about the way she communicate with her child.
This parent was having so much problem with her child that the whole family was being affected by the way the child was behaving. The child was a cry baby that is always crying to get his way across and no one in the family was able to get him to stop that.
The parent has been trying ways like scolding, punishing and even resorting to bribing him with rewards to get him off this habit of crying to get his way. But none of the ways were successful. After thinking about how they were interacting with the child, they realised that they have been resisting the way the child was behaving. What does this mean?
The parent realised that although they understand they are child is doing what he is doing to get attention. She is not actually accepting the child for the way he is behaving. By not accepting him for who he is, she is not able to be fully there for him and listen intently to the message being convey. She is also resisting the way he is behaving as she does not approve of his behavior, however, by doing it this way, she does not stop the way the child behave and the problem becomes persistent.
After realising that how she is perceiving the problem causes the persistent of this problem, she had a conversation with the child that starts something like this:
Mum: Child, from today onwards, mum is not going to stop you from crying. Crying does not mean that you will always get your way but mum is not going to stop you from crying if that is what you want and i will be there for you after you finish crying.
Once this conversation was conveyed across, something slowly started to shift. Firstly, did the child stopped crying? of course not! He cried again when he tried to get something across. However, this time, the mum was not disturbed by his crying anymore as she has choose to accept the child behavior totally. However, she also keep to her word that she will only listen to the child after he finish crying. So when the child called her up during her work and started crying. She told the child that he can go and cry but she will listen to him after he decides to stop crying.
So what happened? immediately the child called back after she put down the phone and stopped crying, saying that he is ready to talk. After a few repeated attempts, a habit was formed and the child was able to communicate his desires freely without the need to cry. The house in fact become so peaceful and quiet that the mum requested for the child to cry in a joking manner as she sort of miss those times… Haha, the irony of parents…
The child was also very appreciatively of the joke and laugh together with the mum. Their relationship now is really great and the child is able to grow out of this need to use crying to convey the message across.
So in the area of communication between you and your children, consider that certain things they are doing you are resisting them which causes a communication breakdown between you and them. Accept them fully for who they are and who they are not as each child is a special individual with different personality and traits. Love them unconditionally and the channels of communication will be straight and powerful. Be truthfully and always keep your promises.
Topics: Communication |