Demanding, Stressed, and Aggressive - What's Happened to My Gentle Child?

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0:36Potential savings will vary. Hi, this is Janet Lansfrey. Welcome to Unruffled. Well, today I'm going to be sharing an interaction I had with a parent online in a message on one of my social media pages. She's concerned about her son, who's four years old, who's being demanding, aggressive, erratic. His behavior is volatile. And like so many parents that reach out to me, and I saw this with my own children, actually, she tells me at one point that her little boy has been such a gentle, thoughtful boy up until recently. And of course, right there is where we're seeing our actual child. That's our child when they're feeling emotionally regulated, comfortable, okay in their skin.

1:29They're feeling safe where they are and in who they are. So no matter what your child is going through, what their behavior is looking like, know that there is that vulnerable person behind there that we want to help bring out again, obviously. So here's the parent's note. Hi, I would love to take the time to compose a more polished message, but I'm going to try to be very quick. I love your podcast and books, and it has all helped my family so much. My husband and I have an almost seven-year-old daughter, four-year-old son, and a new baby girl age four months. Our son has been having a hard time for over a year now with aggressive behavior towards his older sister, when frustrated about her or himself or a transition, etc.

2:21And also being extremely demanding of my time, often to help him with projects and creations that he imagines, but doesn't quite have the ability to create on his own or gather the materials for on his own. He will wake up and decide to build a cardboard robot and need help from the moment I open my eyes, but I need to put my contacts in, feed the baby, etc. And he doesn't want my husband's help, and our daughter will try to help, but often they get frustrated with each other, and he might bite or scratch her. And if I'm feeding the baby and my husband is making breakfast, it could all fall apart quickly.

2:59I try to stay calm and let him know I'll help him when my hands are free. He's extremely smart and loves building and constructing, but gets mad when he's trying to build a real boat or whatever and of course can't. When I tell him to wait until my hands are free, he gets very upset, which is okay, except he will yell and scream and stomp so loud it scares the baby, hurts my ears, and makes us all anxious. So, what to do? Thanks for any ideas. We love our sweet boy who does none of this well at pre-K four days a week, and also barely ever does any of it when his big sister is not home. It's really hard for me to figure it all out, but I see he's stressed and overwhelmed by his big ideas, his sister, the idea that he has to wait for things, my attention, and he's also worried about being by himself in any parts of the house.

3:54I want to add that up until age three and a half, he was such a gentle, thoughtful boy, but seemed to get more and more stressed by interactions with his big sister, who is a very loving but very intense, smart, dominant girl. She's becoming better at trying to give him space and not get him frustrated by arguing with him over toys. But it seems that the six months or so of these tense interactions between the two of them have caused him to have this anxiety when she's around that makes him in a constant state of stress and worry. And he will do things now like pinch or hit her out of nowhere.

4:29And I think he's looking for a big reaction out of us because it has certainly happened a few times. Okay, so I read this. I actually read it pretty quickly. So I'm like learning more now that I'm rereading it. And I wrote back to her, Hi, I'm sorry you're having these challenges. The timing of this sounds like it may be related to you expecting and then giving birth to his sibling. He's holding on to some strong feelings and they're coming out through his frustrations with his projects, relationship with his sister, etc. The freer he feels to vent, like when you can't help him, the better. To be free to do that, kids need us to feel comfortable about it, so we're not feeling guilty that we can't help him right then.

5:16He's going to be fiery right now. It's par for the course and actually a very good sign that he's sharing this mostly at home with his trusted family. When you can put this in perspective as a temporary phase where he's clearly struggling, it will help you to not feel so reactive to his behavior. Therefore, you'll be able to be more a co-regulator. The calm in his storm. And she wrote back, This makes sense. Thanks so much for the response. But what about when the venting is screaming really loud near the baby while I'm feeding her or jumping on and hurting Big Sister before I can get there while I'm feeding the baby?

5:54He also does it if I have to wash my face or do another task where I'm tied up for a few minutes. Also, the behavior did start towards Big Sister even before he knew the baby was coming, though I know the baby is, of course, a factor. So then I wrote back I'd make a family plan that includes everyone's ideas as to how to handle these situations, including asking your son what might help him when he's feeling, quote, wobbly or whatever you want to call it. Find a term for this that he's comfortable with. So you'll be working out with your daughter and him how she can protect herself when he goes off.

6:33You'll be letting them know what you need when you're caring for the baby, that you may need to go in a separate room for feedings or whatever, and he's welcome to be mad about that, that your job is first and foremost to keep everyone safe, the details you figure out and whether they work right away or not don't matter. You can keep working on this together. What matters is the overall feeling that he and everyone gets that you are putting your arms around him at this time, that you are on his team as you are on all your children's team, and you're not blaming him for his untethered behavior.

7:10Right there with that attitude toward him and his behavior, you will ease his little heart. It won't all change immediately, but it will soon when you keep him lovingly in the fold that way. And it really doesn't matter when this started, or for what reason, the result is the same. Your sweet gentle boy is still there, but he's struggling mightily and probably feeling somewhat alone in that struggle, which makes it even scarier for him. It's that feeling alone part that we can fix right away. Then I wrote back again, also, he's an intense character, so it's not like these are deep, dark, terrible things going wrong here.

7:51He's just the kind of child that reacts strongly, and it sounds like his sister is an alpha as well, so that's going to be a combustible combination. It's all safe, so just keep your seatbelt fastened and congrats on your baby. Don't let him flurry you. So a little more detail as to what I have the senses going on here and what this parent can do to help. The main message we want him to get is that we accept that you're feeling like this and doing these things, but we're going to keep you safe. We're not going to allow you to just do certain things. And we're not going to play into them. And this is something I really didn't get a chance to write back to this parent about, which is the way that she handles all his requests and demands on her.

8:41So when children are making these over-the-top requests and demands, or any requests that we can't fill, they need to reserve the right to have their feelings about that. But they need us to just be honest and strong in our response and our boundaries around that. and to not take it upon ourselves that we've got to help him do this. This is a very capable child, and he doesn't need us to try to make things work for him. He needs to learn how to do that himself, and he is doing that. But he needs to know that a part of this process of creating and building these things that this child envisions is frustration.

9:30and a lot of venting about where you are in the process and what you're able to do versus what you want to do versus your dream. I mean, it's such a positive attitude this boy has. It's really incredible. And it won't be discouraged at all by us not trying to drop everything to make it work for him. If I were this parent, especially right now where she's, oh my gosh, he's got so much on her plate right now. But anytime, I would absolutely not try to get involved in his projects any more than is easy for you. You happen to be available. But at the same time, I would be honest and encourage him to feel how he feels about it, rather than taking that on ourselves, which is so easy for us to do, right?

10:22Oh, my child's frustrated. This is a problem I've got to make better. No, that's not our problem. Our only responsibility is to be the caring person that says, I can't help you or I'm not going to help you with that. But yeah, look at this challenge you made for yourself. Of course it's frustrating. Yeah. Whatever he's feeling is a healthy part of the process. And children like this intense character. Sounds like she has two intense characters, like I said. There's a lot of screaming and venting and foot stomping that goes on, right? With everything. None of it's a crisis. It's all just a healthy part of the process.

11:07And no, we don't want that to be in our baby's face when we're trying to put them to sleep or something. But oftentimes, too, when we see that a baby seems frightened. The baby is surprised. They're mirroring back those feelings that the child is having. But if we're not frightened, usually the baby's not going to be frightened, especially once they've gotten used to the explosiveness of their siblings or one of their siblings. It's not as alarming to them as we might worry. I mean, I don't want to, And there's no way it's my place to decide what anyone's feeling, especially a baby. But this is a common thing.

11:50It's actually a sign of empathy that when their sibling screams or cries, that the baby screams or cries. It happens from baby to baby. In our rye parent infant classes, when one baby cries, other babies cry. When one toddler cries, other toddlers cry. Not all of them, but the ones that are getting impacted by that. It's not unhealthy. It's not a worrisome sign that we also need to fix and try to avoid ever happening. When you have three kids and the youngest one is that little, yeah, they're going to be affected by the other kids' feelings. But that's not a terrible thing. That's not another problem on our plate.

12:32So I've recently done a couple episodes on sibling relationships. And yeah, they're intense, right? Especially when these children are both intense types. And it can feel like there's a constant argument going on, if not physical aggression. The physical aggression we want to help our child stop by understanding that it is normal, it is typical, and we're going to do our best to keep them safe, but they've also got to keep themselves safe to a certain extent. Because we can't be there on them every minute. And we don't want to give our child the impression that they need our protection from their sibling at every moment, especially when they're four years old and seven years old.

13:18At some point, we want to give them the confidence that they can handle what comes up. And that's why I suggested this family meeting. And it can be several family meetings as they are working through this time. But what the family meetings do is they say, okay, everybody's got a valid point of view. Everybody's going through what they're going through. And I'm sure this older sister is going through her own process with the addition of a new sibling and probably taking it out on her brother. So with this attitude of acceptance about where everybody is right now, we have a lot of healing power, more than we may realize.

13:57Because it's really not about all the little stuff in the instances. It's about this feeling children have of being okay where they are. and it being okay with us when they're having a hard time. And that we're going to do our best to help, but we can't wave a magic wand and just make them feel better.

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16:16Because he knows he's being disruptive. He knows he's not behaving well. He knows he's upsetting people. He doesn't want to be doing that, but he's doing it. So what do you do if you feel stuck in that? It's scary. When your parents are doing normal things like getting mad at you about it. So that's still going to happen from us, but maybe it'll happen a little less when we can understand our child's point of view and what they're showing us, which is I'm out of sorts in this case. So here's another telling thing in her first note to me. He will wake up and decide to build a cardboard robot and need help from the moment I open my eyes, but I need to put my contacts in, feed the baby, etc.

17:01and he doesn't want my husband's help and our daughter will try to help, but often they get frustrated with each other and he might bite or scratch her. So obviously we don't want him to bite or scratch her. So that's gonna be part of the family meeting. Like when you have that urge to bite or scratch, what can we do? And to his sister, what can you do when you see him getting riled up like that? Not that we're gonna get perfect solutions right there. That's not the goal. The goal is for everybody to feel our arms around them at this time. But right there, what we're seeing is he's just waking up with some feelings of frustration that he needs to express.

17:39It's not about that his deep need is to be helped with that particular project or to have his mother snap up and drop everything and rush to help him. That's absolutely not what he needs. If he needed that, if he needed someone just to help him, then his dad would suffice. His sister might even suffice. but no because he has a need to let off some of that steam let off some of that frustration that's inside him that fear that's inside him i've talked about this before on this podcast but we could probably never have enough reminders that the more sort of out there the behavior seems the more we can trust that this is about feelings our child is having the need that our child is expressing on the outside is not the actual need.

18:26I need someone to make this work for me. The actual need is I need to express how scary everything is and how it feels like it's not working for me right now. What's important about that is that this could be a place where we get so easily caught up as parents in the minutiae of the behaviors in front of us, especially when it's about help me, help me do this, help me do that. I mean, everything in us wants to always help our child, right? But that's not what's helping our child when we come over there in a flurry and don't take care of ourselves. What helps them is if we say, ah, you really want to do this right now.

19:04And that's just not going to happen, my love. I got to do this. I got to do that. Then I'd love to come see what you're up to there and how I can help. Feeling really good about that, feeling good about him screaming in response and stomping his feet, taking care of ourselves, moving a step back, whatever we need to do, but preparing ourselves for this is the venting process my child needs to have. I know, it's not so fun all the time, but it works because it's the dynamic that kids want from us, that nothing they throw our way is beyond what we can handle. Again, we're not going to be perfect and that's fine.

19:44But every time that we can perceive this accurately and let him know that we're not going to join him in this storm that he's in or try to make it stop, we're going to hold on to ourselves as our own anchor. And that's what co-regulating is. And this parent says he barely ever does any of it when his big sister is not home. So I think, yeah, they're playing off each other. And she's got her own tension right now and her own feelings that it's harder to see with the older child. I know I had this issue when I had my third. My oldest was nine. And I thought, oh, she's fine. I'm going to focus on the emotional process that my four-year-old is going through.

20:30But then I realized through my older child's behavior, actually at school where she'd never acted out before, that she had her own feelings too, but she didn't feel there was room for her to express those with me. So I had to make a big point and a big turnaround to seeing that, no, just because she wasn't having these emotional ups and downs that the four-year-old was, she was just as shaken in her foundation by this huge change in her family. So when the seven-year-old is taking it out on the, in this case, the four-year-old and the four-year-old is taking it out on the seven-year-old, yeah, that is going to be a combustible situation.

21:14But it can be a safe situation if we can understand it and try not to play into it. So this parent who's handling so much right now, I would just love her to be able to take deep breaths, not try to put out any fires right now. Just do her best to keep everyone safe and let everybody know when she can, I see you. I'm on your side. I just want to help. But I'm going to take care of myself first because without that, I can't help anyone. So what this parent had said to my note is, this sounds amazing and eases my heart. I hope I can communicate all of this to them in a way that makes sense. I said to her, you can do this.

22:02And please give yourself a lot of grace for all that you're handling at this time. It will get easier. And the thing is that I didn't add there, she doesn't have to communicate it all accurately and perfectly. Again, it's the gesture. It's her attitude about the whole situation that will have a healing effect on all of them. It will help her to rest easier, help her children to be wherever they are in their emotional process with her not fanning flames or trying to squelch them. So I guess that still sounds like a lot, but any little step we can take in that direction is going to make a difference because we're going to start to see differently.

22:45And when we start to see differently, when we start to see what actually is going on here, we're still not going to like it, but we're going to feel better about handling it. We're going to realize it's not the crisis that it seems. It's actually a transition and everybody's feelings around it and a sign that that's actually working and moving forward in a positive direction. So I hope this helps. And I just want to add, I realized from this exchange that I'm so blessed. We all know that one of the best ways to lighten our spirits, to make us feel better, is to be able to make a helping gesture towards someone else.

23:26Well, I realize I have this opportunity at my fingertips all the time thanks to you. Thanks to you following me on social media, even though I haven't been able to post that much lately because I'm so busy writing my book. But you write messages to me. You also email me. And I'm still getting lots of comments on articles on my website. I wish I could respond to all of them. I can't. That's not possible. but whenever I have time, I can try to help somebody. And that means the world to me. So again, thank you. And thanks so much for listening here and supporting this podcast and my books and my course, the No Bad Kids Master Course.

24:09And please hold this thought in your heart always. Your child wants you and they don't want you to be perfect. So just try to take another baby step in the direction you want to go in. We can do this.

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