You walk into a party and your child’s behavior does a complete 180. He is fussing, pulling your pant leg, and beginning to melt down. Why now? What flipped his switch? How are you going to respond?
The most important question here is: “what flipped his switch?”
- Was the party different than he expected?
- Louder?
- Bigger?
- More crowded?
- Was he wanting to be alone instead, but not able to recognize that feeling?
Hopefully you get the point. Situations like this beg us to think like our children. He needs to be understood and respected. He does not need to be lectured, punished, shamed, or placated. Things are not always as they seem.
Understanding your child’s perspective forces you to look past the surface and go deeper. These exercises below, from The Third Side, perfectly illustrate the perspective shifting that must take place. Look at each picture below one at a time. What do you see?
Things are not always as they seem.
In the first picture do you see a man’s face? Or, the word Liar?
In the second picture, do you see a young girl? Or the old woman?
Like I said, these pictures perfectly illustrate the perspective shifting that can take place. There is more than one interpretation of every picture, experience, and situation. Things are not always as they seem. It takes knowing your child deeply and accepting his uniqueness to really understand his perspective. My mission is to help this become a natural part of your parenting.
Think about your specific situations or examples when you struggle to tap in to your child’s perspective. Please take a moment to leave a comment and share your experiences.
Related posts:
On days when my daughter is home with me ( I work four days a week and we have one day during the week together- a much cherished day) she will wear herself out as always but will NOT nap. I now “get” that she is too excited to nap when its Mommy and Una time, and have surrendered to it for the most part-it took a shift (and still does some days) for me to accept this! Having a sense of compassion for her, trying to experience it as she must, has helped with my own feelings of agitation/ frustration that she won’t nap for me.