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Connecting with Your Upset Child

Always Pulling Your Child out of Being Upset?

When your child is upset, angry, frustrated, disappointed, worried, sad, we want to connect with them. We want to allow them to talk about what they’re feeling. And that can just feel so strange, right? We’ve kind of been taught, “Make it better as quick as you can. Fix it. Pull them out of being upset.” When you pull someone out of being upset, “Oh, it’s not so bad. Oh, don’t worry. Oh, let’s think of something else. Oh, it’s not a big deal.” What really happens is that that child or even adult kind of digs their heels in more.

“But you don’t understand. But it really is that bad.” So that’s not what we want, right? We don’t want them now proving why it’s so bad and putting all of their energy thinking about why it really is so bad so, “That people will really believe me and know it’s that bad.” And we could all kind of relate to when we’ve experienced that in our lives when we were really upset, and people just minimize it. And we don’t want someone to fix it, but we want them to know, it’s really feeling awful or it’s really feeling hard.

Fix it with Logic?

So one of the things that I like to talk about is logic. We try to fix it with logic. If you think about when you’re being logical with your child or even a friend, “Oh, it’s going to be fine. Oh, it’s going to be okay. Oh, don’t worry about that.” It’s up here in our brain. When we’re upset, it’s more in our gut. So if your child is saying, “I didn’t get invited. I didn’t get invited.” And you want to say, “Oh, but you’ll be invited to other things.” Or, “Oh, but you know she likes you.” Or, “Oh, we’ll do something fun just the two of us.” You’re here, and they’re here.

Sit in the Muck

So you want to kind of come down and join them here. I sometimes say you want to sit in the muck with them. Sometimes we just in the muck. And what’s better than having a friend or a parent sit there with you in the muck and say, I know, yes, I know. Some of you may have never experienced that before. It’s a pretty amazing feeling. And it’s surprising too, because we somehow expect that sitting in the muck, will somehow suck us in, and it doesn’t. Or that we’re just going to stay in it forever and mope in it. That doesn’t happen either.

When we’re in the muck and someone sits in it with us, and says, “Wow, so you weren’t invited. What does that feel like?” “Well, I feel like I’m never going to be invited to anything else then.” “Oh, ever again?” And again, I stay with that feeling. Right? Your knee-jerk reaction is, “Well, of course you are.” Or, “Don’t be … ” but no, we want to stay with how they feel. “Wait, it feels like you’re never going to be invited to something? Oh my gosh, now I understand why you’re so upset. Ugh. Honey. So wait, it feels like you never ever, ever will be invited to anything?” “Yes.” “Oh, so does it feel like that for all of 5th grade? Does it feel like it’ll be that way in high school too? Does it feel like when you’re a grownup?”

And then you’ll hear something like, “Well, maybe not when I’m a grownup. It’ll be … ” They’re already starting to use their logic, connect to up here, because you’re in it with them. They don’t have to prove to you how bad it is. You’re already getting it. So they’re actually calming down and relaxing. And their prefrontal cortex, their logic problem solving, rational brain will start to come back online and help them figure it out, if you stay, in the muck with them while you’re talking about it, and being with them in it trying to understand it.

The other thing about really going down and being here, if you’re up here and they’re here, there is no connection. They’re alone, they’re alone in the muck. “Ugh, come here. I wish I can make it better. I wish I had all the answers and could make it better for you. What if I had a magic wand, and I could just woof and you were invited to every party ever.” Your child might even say, “Well, I wouldn’t want to go to that party, or that party.” All of a sudden you’ll see if you really join them in it.

The Parenting Pause

So one of the things, I love about this story, is when my oldest was in her first dance performance. I think she was about four years old. And she would say, “Mommy, I don’t want to do the performance.” And I said, “Oh, huh?” And I love, Huh? It gives us time and it calms us. It gives us time to think. Sometimes I call it a parenting pause. And if you have to bite your lip, you can bite your lip. Just let them say how they feel and let it be out there. Again, we are teaching them to sit with upset or disappointment, and not have to act on it or push it away, or drink, or do drugs, or become workaholic. Ignore to deal, because by acting like we can’t deal we’re helping them to deal. It’s really important.

It’s a wonderful skill. It’s a vital skill that will help them in every single area of their lives. So she said, “I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do it. I don’t wanna do it.” Right? And my mind went to, Is she afraid she’s going to forget her steps? Does she not want all these people staring at her? Is it weird being on stage? And so many parents would’ve said, “Oh, honey. You know your steps.” Or, “Oh, it’s okay. You’re gonna look so cute up there, and no one’s even gonna notice if you make a mistake,” right?

That’s where most of us would go. So I said, “Huh? Well what does it feel like being up there? What do you imagine?” And she said, “Well mom, when you’re up there they turn off all the lights. And until that curtain comes up, it’s dark.” And I thought, she wasn’t afraid of performing. She wasn’t afraid of people staring at her. She was afraid of being on stage in pitch black. I never would’ve gotten that if I didn’t just, “Huh, well what is it that feels so scary? What do you imagine?”

Making Opportunities for Connections

If I hadn’t asked those questions, if I didn’t calm myself and be curious with her, I would’ve just given her all these quick answers and never would’ve gotten to, she was afraid of the dark on stage. Who knew? That happens a lot when you really just be with them in their worry. So again, you want to get down and sit with them in the muck. They learn how to sit in those feelings. They learn frustration tolerance, impulse control. They learn to think through things when they’re upset. They learn how to explain what they’re upset about and understand the different reasons why. That’s all making this incredible wiring, these beautiful neural connections between their logic and their emotion. Their prefrontal cortex and their limbic system.

The more we have those connections, the more through life your child will be able to think and be curious, and calm when they’re upset, or worried, scared, anxious. When they’re in school. When they’re being pressured to do something they don’t want to. When they’re on a job interview. When they’re dating. When they’re in a high pressured position. They will have all those beautiful neural connections, connecting logic and emotion and the ability to calm and problem-solve, even at a time of stress. And you can give them that gift. And you’re giving them that gift through being with them and connecting with them, and understanding them and their feelings even more. It’s really beautiful.

A Mini Lesson on the Brain

I’m going to give you a mini lesson on the brain, so that you can understand your children just a little bit more, and how you can really help them when they’re struggling, by understanding what’s happening in their brains. It turns out, humans have three brains. Two that are really ancient, and one that’s newer.

Thanks to brilliant Dr. Dan Siegel, he came up with this hand model of the brain. We have our brain stem, which all reptiles have, and it’s 300 million years old. It’s responsible for all of our main systems, for our digestive system, and our circulatory system, for our nervous system. The we have our limbic system, our middle brain, and all mammals have this. This is 200 million years old. 300 million, 200 million. This is where humans go whenever we’re having any really big feelings, any kind of big feeling. We’re here. (see video above) This is our cortex. This is our prefrontal cortex, right here. Oh, and by the way, the limbic system’s right in the middle.

Right here, right here, this is the human brain, and this is only 200,000 years old. 300 million, reptiles, and all of our systems, 200 million, mammals and our big emotions. This 200,000, it’s a baby, and what it’s responsible for is our problem solving, our rational thinking, language, and much, much more. It also requires a lot of oxygen, and uses up a lot of resources. This uses very little resources, and just a little bit of oxygen, so why is all this important? When you think about your children, and they are upset, I don’t want to go, or ooh, any kind of big feeling, no, right? Where are they in their brain? What’s happening? They are in their limbic system. Brain stems always operating, if it doesn’t, we’re dead. Always operating. They’re in their limbic system, their emotional brain, and this, our logical thinking brain, Dan Siegel says it’s … We’ve flipped our lids. I say we’re offline, right? Either one. We flipped our lids, so our logic is not online.

When our child is really upset, and we’re talking logically, which is really what we’ve been taught in this country to do when anyone’s upset, is tell them why they should calm down, or tell them why it’s not a problem, or tell them why it’s going to be okay, except it’s kind of like that Charlie Brown, wah, wah, wah, wah, because this is offline. They cannot hear our language and our words. It doesn’t matter how terrific what we’re saying is. It doesn’t matter how well thought-out, how well-planned. We could be giving them diamonds. It’s not going in, because we’re offline. Our logic is offline, so what then does work when a child is really upset? You want to speak to their emotional brain, because that’s what’s online. That’s what’s working. How do you do that? You pay attention. You calm your body first off. Uh. You think of this as an opportunity that you can really connect, and really help them with upset in the future, which is going to suit them really well, and you start to match their tone, and their expression.

If they’re like this, you want to kind of do some of this, and if you’re not that expressive, it’s okay. You can kind of go, I know. I know. You want to match, again, their tone, and their expression, so when you do that, you’ll see it, and parents talk to me about this all the time, and they’re like, I could tell. I felt it. It feels so much better when your child’s really upset, and they’re feeling helped by you. They’re feeling connected. You will feel it in your body. You’ll feel better, and again, we’re not solving anything. We’re not fixing it, and that’s not what we want to do. We don’t want to fix it for them every time. How are they going to learn? One, to fix it themselves, but before we can fix it, we have to be able to sit with feeling upset, or angry, or frustrated. We have to sit with those feelings to figure out what to do. We don’t want to just push them away, or pretend they’re not there, because we then never learn how to deal in life when things are hard, or disappointing, or frustrating, and they are all the time.

Sometimes in little tiny ways, sometimes in really big ways. Our job is to help be with our children in those upset feelings, so they learn how to be in those upset feelings when we’re not there. We want to speak to the limbic system, and when we do that, and I came up with the ABCs, acknowledge, believe, and cope. Acknowledge the feeling, right, so that’s again, they’ve flipped their lid. Their logical brain is offline. We want to say, you’re really upset. You’re disappointed. You don’t want to go. We want to acknowledge the feeling. That’s speaking. That’s how you speak to the emotional brain, and then you believe the feeling. It doesn’t mean you agree. You could totally disagree. You could think that they’re being ridiculous, but it’s how they’re feeling in the moment, and maybe it’s really not ridiculous for a four-year-old, or it’s really not ridiculous to someone who just had a terrible day at school, or who did terrible on their math quiz, and they’re feeling awful, and irritable, and angry.

Maybe it’s their brother or sister’s birthday, and they’re getting all the attention, and so they’re just really feeling extra upset, so we want to believe what they’re feeling, and acknowledge it, so acknowledge, believe. I know it’s your brother’s birthday, and everyone’s all about him, and all about him, and all about him, and you’re five. Five-year-olds can’t, you can’t hold onto that your birthday’s in two months, or that you just had your birthday a month ago. You’re five. I know. This feels so unfair. Maybe it’s just going to be a stinky day. Maybe with just a few parts of fun, but mostly stinky. Ugh, yeah. Sometimes it’s not about us. I know. That’s believing, and then it’s cope. Right, I’m going back to the limbic system. It’s all in the emotions. Cope now is going to start to bring this back online, so we said, ugh, so what do we do, because everyone’s going to bring him presents, and everyone’s going to be all excited, and it’s all going to be Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey.

It’s not going to be about Sean today. I’m sorry. I know. Come here, and I always … As you get to hear me more and more, you see I always go back to that physical connection. Safe, loving affection calms our nervous system. We are designed so beautifully, so that that oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, so many more feel-good hormones take place, and cascade through us, and calm our stress and our anxiety, and help us feel this sense of belonging, and trust, and a sense that it’s going to be okay. Logic doesn’t do that. It doesn’t. It just doesn’t. The affection, our matching in our voice, and our tone, and our facial expressions, and really listening, that calms a nervous system, and it makes someone feel hopeful, and connected, and loved, and then we can calm down, and start to cope. What should we do? Yeah, so should I give you extra hugs today, because it’s really going to be all about Joey. Should we talk about your birthday, and what’s going to happen? Would you like me to show you pictures from your birthday?

No. Actually, I don’t think that’s going to help, and I like to even do that while it’s happening, right, because we’re going to say things, and then you kind of think in the shoes of your child, right? B, believe, and be, in that moment, if you can, that thought of your child. Yeah, looking at the pictures isn’t going to help. All right. What else, and I’m thinking out loud, and I’m teaching them in real time how to think something through, and think about how it makes us feel, and stick with it, or add to it, or not, or change it. Should I check in with you a whole bunch of times? Do you want to have some special time tomorrow, because it’s going to be hard today. What should we do? What would you like that special time to be, and so we’re coping, A, B, C, and in the coping, you want to go back and forth. You did acknowledge, believe, and cope. You want to go back and forth between the believe and cope, and believe, and cope, and believe and cope.

Literally why we’re doing that is you want to keep, to bring this down and put it back online, you’ve got to keep connecting to the emotional brain, and that’s the believe. It’s, ugh, I know. Should we try this? Eh. I don’t know. What about if we do this? How does that feel? We stay with the emotion. The second you go to, okay, it’s okay. You’ll be .. You’re going to lose them, and they’re going to flip their lids again, or they’re going to go offline. We need humans, need to be believed when we’re upset about something. Doesn’t mean we give into it, but we listen, so another thing that I always say, and we say at my practice is, all feelings are allowed, but not all behaviors allowed, but all feelings are allowed. We can feel really angry. We can get furious sometimes, and then we calm down, and we feel better, but in that moment, right, so we can want to kick someone. We can’t kick them, right? We can be so angry at our kids sometimes, but we don’t lay a hand on them.

We can want to. We can feel intensely, but we don’t act on those feelings. We think about, and talk about, and wonder about those feelings, sometimes just in our heads, and sometimes with someone else, and that’s what we teach kids. When they pick up a rock and they want to throw it, we want them to go, oh, wait a minute. Wait, I shouldn’t throw it over there. There’s cars over there. Ugh. There’s a pond. I can throw it in the pond. I’m really angry. What can I do with these feelings? That’s what we want to create.

The Secret to Tackling a Child’s Upset Feelings

FACEBOOK LIVE INTERVIEW: When faced with a child’s upset feelings, how do you deal with it? What works may actually surprise you.

Marna Lynn speaks with Andrea Hecht of Fully Informed Life to share actionable tips on how to tackle a child’s upset feelings.

Learn why “inviting and exploring” challenging feelings will help to build resiliency and a buffer to future drug and alcohol abuse.

Marna Lynn Speaks at The Fusion Academy

September 18, 2017, Englewood, NJ- Marna Lynn MSW, LCSW, the accomplished founder and director of Bergen Family Therapy in Ridgewood, NJ. spoke to a group of parents and educational professionals at Fusion Academy, 10 Sterling Blvd., Englewood, NJ.

The group was either parenting or working with children ages 2 through the teenage years. They were asked to identify the issues they struggled with most or upon which they would like to improve. It was clear that communication was the topic for discussion, specifically when dealing with emotions like; anger, upset, hurt or children consumed and distracted by technical devices such as cell phones and computers.

Understanding the role the primitive mind plays in modern communication and interaction with children (and adults) is necessary to understand how we receive or don’t receive communications stated Ms. Lynn. Using her understanding of interpersonal neurobiology, Ms. Lynn broke down and presented the brain’s components that have evolved over thousands of years and those that have not.

Ms. Lynn demonstrated when a child is angry, hurt, frustrated or upset, using logic to communicate, (which is what many people do) simply does not work. Scientific Research has shown-the brain is not capable of receiving logic under these conditions. Ms. Lynn enthusiastically presented her parenting tools and the ABC’s of handling non-happy feelings; Acknowledge, Believe and Cope (which happens to work with people of all ages) and the group responded in kind. “Science and psychology have finally come together and are giving us the answers,” stated Ms. Lynn.

Marna Lynn is on the cutting edge of emotional brain based research within the field of psychotherapy. In addition to her extensive expertise, she has experience and training within the area of the newest brain research and emotional physiology. Marna’s insightful content and dynamic delivery style turn an ordinary presentation into a life-changing event.

Screenagers Marna Lynn Talk Ridgewood, NJ

Screenagers Documentary: Marna Lynn Expert Commentator

Invited as an expert commentator Marna Lynn addressed a packed house at the viewing of the “Screenagers” Documentary shown at the Ridgewood Public Library and sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Screenagers addressed the use of digital devices as related to children and the need to find a balance.

Speaking to the crowd of parents and school age children Ms. Lynn the founder and Director of Bergen Family therapy, opened the discussion by asking some questions and getting some feedback from the children and adults in attendance on the amount of time family members spent on cell phones, computers and video games and whether they believed it interfered with their relationship time. Most all believed it did.

Ms. Lynn with her experience in interpersonal neurobiology was able to offer sound solutions on how to manage the amount of time spent on digital devices and how to negotiate and set limits that everyone can adhere to, including a “Family Screen Time Contract”.

Marna Lynn was excited to see the enthusiastic turn out and believes the conversations afterward can lead to a positive constructive change by understanding the effect the tech world is having on our children’s development and as a community discussing solutions to better manage screen times…for everyone.

Marna Lynn is currently engaged in speaking to audiences as well as tending to her private practice at Bergen Family Therapy in Ridgewood, NJ.

To discuss having Marna Lynn talk at your school, practice or event: 201-378-7389

Marna Methods at Apple Montessori Schools

Marna Lynn speaks to parents at Apple Montessori Schools about a child’s brain growth and why this scientific knowledge is a game changer in raising children today. “Parents no longer need to parent with guess work or fear” stated Marna.

Marna Lynn answered questions and provided not only the understanding but the techniques for parents to use which truly provide life-long benefits. For more info call 201-378-7389

Wonderful Talk by Marna Lynn at Comprehensive Women’s Care

Marna Lynn MSW, LCSW spoke at Comprehensive Women’s Care of Paramus last week. Marna shared her methods of merging Love, Psychology and Science to raise thriving babies in the 21st century. Based on epigenetics and secure bonding, her Marna-Methods teach why “Skin to Skin is a Win/Win”, why babies “Held Now, are Happy Later”, and how to keep the love hormones “PODS” (Prolactin, Oxytocin, Dopamine and Seratonin) flowing so that new babies and postpartum moms thrive! Dr. Craig Wiener, midwife Nicolette Gressett, and the wonderful nurses and staff in the practice share Marna’s understanding of the role of brain science in parenting and the belief that information empowers women!

Lisa Donofrio stated “We believe our patient base is made of intelligent, caring people that would love to build a strong foundation for the children of tomorrow.” They asked Marna back to speak to their past and present OB patients about the Marna-Methods.