Question 1

What is the best way to respond when your child is in the midst of an emotional outburst, and trying to speak to them or encourage them to calm down only angers them more?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

Responding to a child helpfully while they are in the middle of an emotional outburst is all about getting the timing right.  And to get the timing right, you first have to be cool.

There is a YouTube playlist under the name "Andrew Wake" that goes through the idea of the 3-part brain in more detail (reptile-mammal-human brain).

www.thegoodenoughparent.com.au/videos and click on the chapter 3 playlist.

When my then 4yo reached over my shoulder and started tapping on my keyboard, causing my computer screen to freeze (I had been writing an important report for 2 hours and had not been saving regularly), I flipped my lid and went into reptile mode.  Luckily I had enough self-restraint (that time) to not blow up…instead I put myself in time-out by walking out the front of my hose and pacing until I cooled down.  In less than 20 seconds my human brain turned on and I started to think again.

Whose fault was it that I hadn’t been saving?  Mine.
Don’t 4yos touch things?  Yes.
Don’t modern computers autosave every 10 minutes?  Yes.

So logically, was I actually under a threat that would need a reptile response?  Of course not.  But if I had stayed in that room, would any of that logic helped me in my furious disappointment?  What would have happened?  I probably would have yelled and frightened my 4yo. It may have worked to get him to not do it again, but would it have helped him and his relationship with others?

When your child is significantly disappointed, this experience can feel like a threat (missing out on what they think they need).  This turns on their reptile brain and turns off their mammal brain becoming a relationship killer, and human brain becoming a mind killer.  When tantruming, they effectively become a crocodile and lose their moral reasoning and ability to use reason and logic.

If you try talk strategies (using your human brain) with an angry crocodile, what happens?
If you try relationship strategies (using your mammal brain) with an angry crocodile what happens?

While they are in reptile mode due to threat, they only have the relationship options of a crocodile: control-combat-avoid.

So this is where the 4C’s approach to strong emotions and tricky behaviours can guide our response if we want to be helpful:

1)	The adult has to be cool.  
2)	Only then you can help calm their reptile.
3)	Only then you can help connect with their mammal.
4)	Only then when your child feels safe and secure, calm and connected can you converse with their human brain and repair.

Of course if your child goes into reptile mode and tries to control-combat-avoid you, the most natural thing for you to do is to feel under attack, and for your own reptile brain to take over and react in a control-combat-avoid approach.  This may or may not work…but it won’t be helpful.  If your intent is to help your child develop self-control, cooperation, understanding and repair when unwanted things occur, any strategy you use while you are in reptile mode will simply reinforce your child’s own reptile relating.

So my number one tip when your child is tantruming is to first ask yourself, “Am I cool enough to be able to help my child?”  If you are not, whatever strategy you do may work, but it probably won’t help your child develop their own self-control.  Thus your first task is to be cool: “this is my business, but not my problem”, “It’s no big deal” (even if it is).

Your love is personal, but their difficulties are best helped if your strategies are not being implemented when you are taking it personally.

Question 2

What is your number one tip to help manage destructive anger in preschool children who perhaps don't have the language to express how they are feeling in other ways?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

At this age logic won't be able to help a child much.  Their reptile / threat brain is fully developed, as is their mammal / relationship brain, but their human / logic and curious brain is only just beginning.  One of the reasons for the intense emotionality of 3 and 4 yos is that they are regularly being confronted with unwanted realities without the awareness of what is logically reasonable, and this can feel like a threat and can trigger a reptile response of fight-flight-freeze, and reptile coping of control-combat-avoid.  The rupture of an unwanted reality feels quite intense.  Every time a rupture is repaired ("I didn't get what I wanted but we ended up ok"), the child develops a new ability to deal with disappointment...a key life skill to learn if you don't want to be miserable.

Whatever the strategy you choose, the "4Cs" approach to doing it is more likely to make it helpful.

www.thegoodenoughparent.com.au/videos and click the chapter 3 playlist to watch me talk about this idea in more detail.

(NB: I've added "Cool" to the "3Cs" to make it the "4Cs")

Cool: the adult has to be cool.  Only then can you
Calm their reptile brain.  Only then can you
Connect with their mammal brain.  Only then can you
Converse with their human human and repair the rupture.

The experience of being safely understood despite the rupture is what results in a repair.  In a 3 or 4 yo, repair is less likely to require agreement, and is more about the child feeling understood and then a mammal experience of a hug, laughter, fun or some other connecting experience.  If you are not cool enough when trying to understand and repair, it is less likely you will be able to provide that connecting mammal experience of "we belong despite the disappointment".

Question 3

How can I support an 11year old who has significant fear of death and associated avoidant behavior e.g. avoids going outside for fear that an airplane flying overhead might be about to drop a bomb on her?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

How do we support our child if their threat brain is triggered strongly by a particular reality like death, or excessive and out-of-proportion belief such as bomb's being dropped by planes overhead?

The 4C's can be useful guide.

1) The adult has to stay Cool: if there is no actual threat, then the child's excessive fear due to inaccurate appraisal is their problem, not yours.  Thus though the fear and the outcome of the fear is not personal, it is your business to help them due to your love for them.  Control-combat-avoid coping strategies can be quite frustrating, and we can respond by using control-combat-avoid strategies of our own.  Though these work, they do not usually help a child develop their own ability to deal with their fears.  Before you can help your child with fear, make sure you are cool enough and managing your own fear and anger.  You may have your own unresolved fears about death.  A great book  is Yalom's "Staring at the sun: overcoming one's dread of death".

2) Calm their reptile brain: this child's reptile brain is unhelpfully and unnecessarily running the show.  What they need to be able to do is to restrain their reptile brain so they can use their mammal brain and human brain to deal with the perceived risk of overhead planes.  Trying to use language and logic with an angry crocodile rarely works.  Sensory soothing is best with reptiles, the classic ones being breathing, rhythm and movement, muscle tension-relaxation, and distraction (as long as distraction doesn't tun into avoidance of the issue).  Sometimes when psychological and social interventions do not work despite best efforts and the problem is serious enough, then medication can help chemically calm and turn down the reptile brain's excessive threat response.  My YouTube video about how to calm a reptile can be found with this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-3jreVve2U&t=2s

3) Connect with their mammal brain: "I don't care what you think until I think that you care".  Accepting unwanted realities like death, loneliness, responsibility, not being special, mistakes, changes, etc is a core skill to learn if you are not to remain disappointed and miserable through life.  Accepting anything usually requires a person to come together with someone they love, talk and try to understand the unwanted reality, use laughter when the time is right, and forgive the situation for not being as they wished it was.  A great way to help a child feel connected is to try to understand them.  So prior to talking with them, use "permission asking" first... "Is now a good time for us to talk about your worries about death.  If they say no, follow up with a validation, "It can be hard to think about death, let alone talk about it".  And then offer, "So when would be a good time?"  Expect them to reject your validation and you may need to return and offer to talk a couple of times before they agree.  A way of thinking about this is VO3 (Validate, Offer, repeat the offer 3x)

4) Converse with their human brain: understand them first.  Then offer to be understood, "Would you like to hear what I think" as opposed to "You need to understand".  Once you understand each other, repair anything signifiant that previously went wrong (they may have felt controlled by you, you may have felt controlled by them).  Once both are understood and the ruptures between you repaired, then you can come up with a gradual plan to expose them to their fear or unwanted reality.  This classic CBT approach to fear also happens to fit in with common sense and is relatively the easy bit.  The hard bit is helping the child own their own problem, accept the reality of it rather than holding onto their fantasy about how the wished it was, and voluntarily play their role in doing the thinking and exposure work.  Do your best as a family, but make sure there is a time limit so that if by an agreed time things are not improving, the next step is to make a new plan and perhaps maybe get external help.

Use your own skills, love and common sense initially, and make sure you and your child are cool, calm and connected before you try to converse and repair whatever the problem is.

Question 4

How would you help children manage strong feelings associated with the child not wanting to do what they’ve been asked to do?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

Defiance can be experienced as provocative, and this can lead to you having your own strong emotions.  Once we are emotionally triggered, we are more likely to interact with our child in a control-combat-avoid way.  Strategies we use in this state may work, but they will not help your child in the long-term to better manage their own behaviours and emotions.  The "4Ws" is an approach that can help you not take the problem personally so you can stay cool calm and connected to your child, and model to your child what healthy emotion management looks like.  Short-term and long-term benefit.

Watch: 
try to step out of the situation and see the big picture. You are less likely to react as an observer.

Wait: 
don’t immediately react, the longer (as reasonable) the better. You are less likely to react the longer the time between being provoked and your response.
Also, W.A.I.T. can also stand for "Why Am I Talking?"... we often waste our breath trying to talk to our child when they are scared or angry and unable to converse (see the "4Cs" approach)

Wonder: 
this is the beginning of wisdom, and something your child is definitely not doing if they are provoking you.  If you are wondering, I can guarantee that you are not reacting, and therefore not taking on their issue as your own problem.  And if feeling understood helps a child to feel secure, wondering with them is a powerful validating experience.

“One-down”: 
your child is trying to “one-up” you and take control by being provocative.  If you go “one-up” in response by defending yourself or going back at them, most likely they will respond by going “one-up” again themselves.   Both of you will likely continue to “one-up” each other ("yeah BUT"...), raising the emotional and combative level.  The alternative of this is that when your child goes “one-up”, that you respond by going “one-down”.  If you don’t defend yourself or enter into their combative interaction, they have nothing against which to continue to escalate.  
Going “one-down” does not come naturally.  If someone provokes you, the most natural response is to defend yourself.  Going “one-down” can feel like losing or submitting.  This is where being confident that you are good enough is so important; if you believe you are, then you won’t need to defend yourself.  Whatever is thrown at you, you listen to it, and then gently but firmly put it back on them.  It is usually a complaint, “so when we are calm lets talk and work it out”.  Below I have written a couple of examples of “one-up and “one-down”.

“One-up”: 
you ask your child to take the bins out while they are doing something on their phone.

They respond by rolling their eyes and ignoring you.

“Hello…did you hear me”

“What do you think I am…deaf.  Of course I heard you”

“Hey, don’t be rude…I want you to take the bins out now”

“I did it last week” (Angry, complaining)

“Do you want to know what I did last week for you?!”

“Well you can do this too then”

“I can stop doing things for you too you know.  I don’t have to pay for that phone”

“You always threaten the phone when you don’t get your way. Anyway, you don’t always do things for me. You left me waiting for an hour after sport!”

“That was 1 month ago, and it was only 35 minutes”

“Because you were drunk and mum had to do it for you”

“I was not drunk.  I was at a work function that went late”

“You are always late”

“You want to talk about lateness.  What happened Monday morning!  Do you know how late I got to work that day!”

“You never ask Michael. It’s always me.  You are so unfair”

“I’m unfair?  Is it fair that you don’t do anything around the home?”

“Like you do much.  You just sit around drinking beer”

“What!  You can talk, your fat arse lazing around”

“At least I’m not actually fat like you”

“You little…”

etc

“One-down”: You ask your child to take the bins out while they are doing something on their phone.

They respond by rolling their eyes and ignoring you.

“Just checking that you heard what I said”

“What do you think I am…deaf.  Of course I heard you”

“OK, great.  So can you take the bins out for me now please”

“I did it last week” (angry, complaining)

“I’m sorry mate.  I didn’t mean to make you angry.  Is there some reason you don’t want to take the bins out for us?”

“I’m busy, and its not fair”.

“Fairness is really important isn’t it.  Hey if you like, lets have a talk about fairness because I don’t want to be unfair.  But first, can you please take the bins out now”

“I told you I was busy”.

“Uh huh. So do we need to talk about fairness right now?”

“I said I was busy”

“Oh. OK.  Umm.  I might be wrong, but to me it looks like you are playing on your phone. Can you tell me what is so important that you can’t take a 2 minute break to help out the family?”

“I’m talking to my friends”

“Great.  Say hi to them for me. But first we need to work out the bins”.

“Why do I always have to do it when you want?!”

“Do you feel like I’m always asking you to do things at the wrong time?”

“Yes”

“That would be really annoying.  Is my asking at the wrong time important enough for us to talk about it? Because if it is a problem, hop off your phone and we can have a chat about what are reasonable expectations of helping and fairness in our family”

“No, no.  We don’t need to talk about it”

“Great.  So take the bins out now please”

“Aaaargh!”

“So this IS really annoying to you. We really do need to talk about this now then, as I don’t want us to get annoyed with each other”.

“I don’t want to”

“Same.  I don’t really want to either.  But even more I don’t want us to annoy each other.  So I guess you have a choice to make.  Its take the bins out now and this problem is over in 2 minutes, or we turn everything off and work out how to come to agreement about what are reasonable expectations of each other about chores and fairness”

“You don’t always do things straight away.  You left me waiting an hour after sport because you were drunk!”

“I’m really sorry you had to wait that time.  I didn’t realise you were still angry about that.  I thought I explained what happened and we had fixed that.  If you are still angry, I’m really happy to talk to you again about what happened to you and why I was late.  If I had have been drunk as the reason I didn’t pick you up, that would be really bad.  So do we need to talk about that as well, and about fairness and chores?”

“No, no. I’ll just take the bins out”.

“One-up” may work to solve the conflict if you are willing to go that one step further than your child and make sure you win. But it does not help your child to learn how to cooperate and be curious.

“One-down” as part of the 4W’s is more likely to help you do the 4C’s: for you to stay cool, help to calm their reptile, then connect with their mammal, and then converse and fix it with their human.

Question 5

When school age children (5-10) hit their parents/break things in the house when they have a tantrum, it can be hard for parents to apply patience in teaching coping skills. Any different advice?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

"Support when you can, save when you must".

If your child is attacking people or property, they are likely in threat mode (AKA reptile brain).  While in that state, they only have the interpersonal options of dominate or submit, and have obviously chosen dominate.  They probably reached this point after a number of to-and-fro interactions where they have tried to dominate you to achieve their win ("one-up" you), and you defended yourself to resist that ("one-up" them), to which they "one-upped" you further, and you reacted by "one-upping" them further.  You can picture the increasing threat related emotions and behaviours as you and the child bounce off each other.

What started off as a small disagreement resulted in an intense combative interaction where your child has lost their ability to think (human brain), and their ability to cooperate (mammal brain).  In that state, they ended up using violence to dominate you, the enemy.

You are not the enemy.

But in reptile mode, that is how they perceive you, and any attempt to love them or use logic with them is about as effective as offering love or a conversation to an angry crocodile.

So broadly I have 2 pieces of advice

1) If there is significant danger of hurt, you may need to step-in and save them to stop further damage.

This will require you to take over and dominate them to win the combat.  Unfortunately, this will reinforce reptile relating as a way of getting what you want; not a coping skill you would wish to teach them if they are to have good relationships.  And eventually you will not be able to resolve disagreements by domination as your child will become too big.

So "save when you must" as it works, but avoid it as it doesn't help in learning new coping.  And start as early as you can.  Age 5 is better than 10, but 10 is better than 15, and 15 is better than 20.

2)  If you don't need to save them, then it is better to support them to manage it themselves.

Here is a playlist looking at how to understand their reptile-mammal-human brain and how to get the timing right when supporting them and eventually repairing the rupture that occurred.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LklbfOgj4hg&list=PL61vJfR6BJdjyf2MQQbFodADzSgmgQh3_

Here I've attached an article I have written about the 4W's, which is about your own mindset.
https://thegoodenoughparent.com.au/2019/07/26/4ws-watch-wait-wonder-one-down/

Here is a playlist looking at how to understand their disappointment when confronted with unwanted realities such as missing out, being told no, coming up against boundaries.  The intensity of our children's anger and hate can be shocking at times.  Understanding it can help us to make their emotions and behaviours our business but not our problem as we support them to learn how to hate well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK9O5d5IhrA&list=PL61vJfR6BJdixpli4nQJcWFlJ_GCeAxG4

All the best.

Question 6

Is after-school restraint collapse a real thing? How can we support children with the experience of this?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

I've not heard of the specific term "after-school restraint collapse", but it's a potentially useful descriptor for some of the children I work with who find socialising in a school setting a threat.  Such children have to use up enormous amounts of energy through the school day to deal with the strong emotions of fear and / or anger that perceived threat brings up.  And their response to those emotions of control-combat-avoid also tends to use excessive energy.  On their return home when they enter their safe place, the threat is lifted. Then the emotions that originated from stressors at school but that had to be repressed can come flooding out, often over small disappointments.

Broadly there are 3 causes of stress or threat in a school setting that it can help to understand, which is the first step intaking appropriate action.

1) Actual threat
This is the least common cause of threat, but should be considered.  Maybe the child is being bullied or hurt in some way, and this has to be jumped on by the school.  Most schools now have clear bullying policies.  Or maybe the child is being socially inappropriate and his peers are humbling him for his irritating behaviours, a vital social message and valuable learning experience for the child, and to be listened to, understood and learned from.  A child being humbled for being inappropriate may not have the reflectiveness to distinguish between bullying and humbling, especially the younger they are or if they have developmental difficulties.  
Whether bullied or humbled at school (or both), the school addressing this and coming up with a plan to understand, repair and foster new ways of interacting will be valuable for the child's development.  However, if the bullying or humbling is avoided or blown over, it may potentially remain as a poison in the child's life and a missed opportunity for understanding and change through acceptance and taking action.

2) Threat that comes from insecurity
30% of children have an insecure attachment pattern with excessive anxieties about relationships, and find relationships at times feel like a threat because of doubts about being good enough or getting enough with their relationships.  These children too easily feel excluded or that they do not belong, it triggers their threat brain, and this can result in reptile coping of control-combat-avoid within relationships.  Such unhelpful coping results in actual relationship stress (no healthy peer wants to be controlled, fought with, or avoided), and this can reinforce long-standing patterns of insecurity and doubts.  
To understand this better, there are videos on insecurity you can watch

www.thegoodenoughparent.com.au/videos and play the chapter 1 and 3 playlists.

3) Threat that comes from disappointment.
100% of children experience disappointment.  Parenting is the gradual disappointment of children, and disappointment always occurs at home and at school.  In a school setting there are multiple unwanted realities that can trigger disappointment and the reptile threat brain, typically resulting in anger.  Learning how to hate well is one of the central developmental tasks of humans if they want to flourish in their love and work.  One common response to disappointment and anger for children who are not confident to deal with disappointment is to push the anger away....however, if not addressed and acted on or gotten over, the anger doesn't go away but is simply stored.  
After school restraint collapse may be the logical outcome of an exhausted child who has not the skill to deal with disappointment as it happens, and it builds up to come out in a safe place...their home or at a parent or sibling, rather than a less safe peer or teacher.
The chapter 2 playlist looks at these ideas of missing out and disappointment.
Learning to freely and confidently be angry, and knowing that ruptures get repaired is a vital step in a child's development.  Otherwise, they will continue to do what works with a disappointment (control it, combat it, or avoid it) and won't develop what helps with disappointment (playfulness, being cool, acceptance, coming together, talking and understanding it, laughing, forgiving, wondering about it, thinking about it, etc)

There are other non-school related things that should be considered if a child loses their restraint of their emotions or behaviour post school.  Perhaps they are tired, or hungry, or in pain, or the 3 above  threats are actually coming from the home environment, or from within the child themselves.  If there is a specific problem discovered, obviously you would do something about that.

Otherwise, basic emotion and behaviour regulation techniques as described in other answers and in my videos such as the 4Cs, 4Ws, 4 stage plan, P.A.C.E.ing it, and VO3 can also assist to devise your own approach and strategies to your child's strong emotions and tricky behaviours.

Question 7

What is the best way to respond to a 3-year-old's emotional overwhelm/meltdown?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

At this age logic won't be able to help a child much.  Their reptile / threat brain is fully developed, as is their mammal / relationship brain, but their human / logic and curious brain is only just beginning.  One of the reasons for the intense emotionality of 3 and 4 yos is that they are regularly being confronted with unwanted realities without the awareness of what is logically reasonable, and this can feel like a threat and can trigger a reptile response of fight-flight-freeze, and reptile coping of control-combat-avoid.  The rupture of an unwanted reality feels quite intense.  Every time a rupture is repaired ("I didn't get what I wanted but we ended up ok"), the child develops a new ability to deal with disappointment...a key life skill to learn if you don't want to be miserable.

Whatever the strategy you choose, the "4Cs" approach to doing it is more likely to make it helpful.

www.thegoodenoughparent.com.au/videos and click the chapter 3 playlist to watch me talk about this idea in more detail.

(NB: I've added "Cool" to the "3Cs" to make it the "4Cs")

Cool: the adult has to be cool.  Only then can you
Calm their reptile brain.  Only then can you
Connect with their mammal brain.  Only then can you
Converse with their human human and repair the rupture.

The experience of being safely understood despite the rupture is what results in a repair.  In a 3 or 4 yo, repair is less likely to require agreement, and is more about the child feeling understood and then a mammal experience of a hug, laughter, fun or some other connecting experience.  If you are not cool enough when trying to understand and repair, it is less likely you will be able to provide that connecting mammal experience of "we belong despite the disappointment".

Question 8

Hello Dr Wake,
My son is almost 9 and has been diagnosed with ADD. Can you suggest ideas to motivate my son to do everyday things in a timely matter. Such as get out of bed, eat breakfast, & get ready?

Andrew Wake · Accepted Answer

Chapter 9 in my book looks at how to create good enough boundaries as a family.  You can access the YouTube playlist that covers these ideas at www.thegoodenoughparent.com.au/videos and click the chapter 9 playlist.

A key issue is not what the boundaries are, but how they are made.  When making boundaries it helps most when they are based on reasonable values that all can agree upon: made cooperatively, not combatively. It is the value that gives a reason for the desired action, also known as a virtue.  Kids will often argue about rules and consequences, but it is impossible to argue reasonably about values.

One of the ideas to think about in the discussion with your children about values is the idea that in our family, everyone does their jobs.

Keep it simple. Your children once at school only have 3 roles that are non-negotiable.  
1)	They have to care for themselves = you have to clean up your own mess.  Do you not want me to flush the toilet?
2)	They are a family member and must play their role in the family = this is a family not a share house so we help and care for each other.  Do you not want us to help and provide for you?
3)	They are a student and must fulfill that role…we all have to do our main job.  Do you not want me to do my job of earning money?

They could try to argue against these values, but their family would fall apart and be very unpleasant if others didn't do their jobs.

Once they agree with those 3 roles, If they are not fulfilling any aspect of these 3 roles / values (as your 9 yo is), then it will reasonably become a focus of parental attention and boundaries…what’s it going to take.

So when your 9yo is going slow and complaining about your expectations, your response isn’t what you don’t want but what you do want.  
Not, “Hurry up”, but “remember in our family we look after ourselves.  Do we need to have a conversation about what reasonable self-care?  If you are not meeting reasonable self-care, mum and I may need to work out what it’s going to take to motivate you to get these things done”.

A family meeting is the best place to get agreement on values and virtues (wanted actions).  How to run a meeting like this is spelled out in chapter 9 of my book or in the YouTube videos chapter 9 playlist.

You probably noticed I haven’t provided any specific strategies in this answer above.  That’s because you probably already have great strategies that would work.  Like many things in relationships, it's not what you do but how you do it that makes strategies work or not.

But as you asked, here’s a few specific strategies you could try.
Get out of bed?  Alarm clock on the other side of his room so he has to get out of bed to turn it off.  (Also good for the pad and bell if used for night wetting, as some kids roll over and turn it off).
Eat breakfast? I assume you give his medication after he eats.  Some of the medications decrease appetite so discuss with his doctor.  
Get ready? Try a reward for a week.  Bribes can work quite well, and they are not a problem long-term if playfully done for a limited time to show a wanted value can be met.  One parent I saw bribed his kid with money to go to school with$5 a day for a week (carrot) and then the second week he’d lose the $5 a day he’d made if he didn’t go (stick).  So $25 lasted 2 weeks.  After that, it was clear he could do it, so the question was, what other carrot or stick will help you do your main job?

If you want some ideas about what makes for good consequences, try chapter 9 in my book.

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