Chaplains Chat 

I am a great believer that when it comes to parenting, it is helpful to remember that all behaviour is communication.  Our children, especially our younger children, often don’t have the emotional dialogue to adequately describe how they are feeling, let alone even understand why they are feeling a certain way. All they have is their behaviour.  When our kids are ‘behaving badly’, it hardly ever means that they are manipulative, or that they have bad intentions, or that they are “evil” human beings who are intentionally trying to destroy the peace and harmony of our lives.  It is almost always an attempt to communicate something else, like frustration, sadness, fear, anger or disappointment.   And when we rush in to ‘deal’ with their behaviour, we can easily miss what is actually going on for our children.  We can totally miss what is causing their behaviour in the first place. Sometimes, we might unintentionally contribute to how they were feeling in the first place.

I wonder if the next time our child misbehaves, we became curious instead of punitive. That might sound something like; 

“ I am wondering if the reason that you have been finding it hard to do the right thing at the moment is actually because you are feeling upset about something? I am wondering if you think……..”

I love the way psychologist, Dr. Justin Coulson talks about, connection rather than correction. Connection always helps to build greater understanding and strengthens relationships.

I am not saying that consequences are irrelevant and you just need to be curious. However, if we enforce consequences without taking the time to connect and to be curious about where our child’s behaviour is coming from, we can so easily miss out on the really important stuff that is going on in our child’s heart and head.

Sometimes we need to slow down and ask ourselves a question like, “I wonder what is actually going on for them right now?” Or, “I wonder what it would feel like if I was in their shoes right now?”

We all do strange and occasionally unhelpful things when we are feeling sad, lonely, unloved, insignificant or frustrated.

It is so very important that our children feel deeply known, loved and understood.  It is this type of love and connection that truly provides the basis for human flourishing.