How many times a week (or even a day) have you defused an irrational and over-the-top emotional response in your child over a minor problem they faced? You know the arc-the-back-sobbing kind of response to the tower of blocks falling. Or maybe you had to navigate the waters of refusal to leave a friend’s house when the playdate was over. Or for goodness sake, did you turn off a screen? How dare you! Haha
Our children can have some pretty over-the-top emotional outbursts, and sometimes from our perspective it seems like pure silliness. Well, if we are in a good mood it sounds like silliness. If we are in a sour mood, it’s them being (spoiled, entitled, obnoxious) and they are ready for a good consequence to learn not to act this way any longer.
Now, if you have followed me any length of time, you know that being a behavior analyst, I most certainty am in favor of consequences. We talk plenty of what types of consequences we should be using and when. I wanted to take a different approach today, though.
Have you ever stopped to think of the motivating factors at play internally that have caused such an over-the-top response in your child?
So often I talk with parents that ask WHY. They want to know why their child reacted in the way they did.
The psychologist David McClelland determined that there were three main motivators for everyone. We make choices, navigate our surroundings, and have emotional responses to these three motivators. First, there is the need to influence others and gain status, which is the driving motivator for power. There is the driving motivator for achievement, which is the need to set and meet goals. Lastly, there is the driving motivation for affiliation which is the need to work alongside others and collaborate. This is being motivated to be a part of community.
Hence, it makes sense when someone knocks down a tower a child built, that they begin to cry. Their driving motivator for achievement was just rocked. It’s useful to think in these terms at times because we realize our brains work in generalities. We become upset in specific and individual circumstances because of the wider patterns of human nature.
Emotions are absolutely something we should shape in our children. We should be helping them match an appropriate emotional response to the circumstance. We should be allowing them the opportunity to feel and express those feelings, yet showing them how to do it appropriately and without sinning. One thing that we can truly do better at (if we can understand what motivation has been challenged) is sympathy!
Our God and Father often sees our emotions and knows they are irrational and probably over-the-top.
Our own emotions frequently do not fit the circumstances and often times are expressed in sin.
Yet, what is the Lord’s continual response? Sympathy. He knows our weakness, our silly motivations that drive us in flawed ways – and yet He understands. He is ready to listen and help you through any fit you may be having.
Let’s model this for our children. Let’s me ready to listen to our children, and give advice that is solid and true – even when the emotions are something that may not be quite fitting. Let’s be approachable and ready to forgive and guide, even when they are being irrational. Goodness, if our Heavenly Father can forgive, sympathize, and guide us through our irrational emotions, we too can learn to be patient with our children’s. Amen!
References:
Miner, John B. 2005. Organizational Behavior. Vol 1. Armonk. NY: M.E. Sharpe.