Summer update
‘I wonder how often I need to watch this scenario play out, before I routinely default to doubting the pain is actually real?’
This was my thought as I watched another incredible footballer roll around on the pitch with a grimace that so clearly conveyed unimaginable damage had been done to their ankle (head, hamstring, ego…insert as required), only to witness them get up and carry on with a spring in their step!
Over the past few weeks, I have been a dedicated follower of the beautiful game. I have been captivated by the strength and skill that all of the Women have embodied, I have cheered with utter surprise at brave opportunities taken and have watched from behind my hands in disbelief. And genuinely, I have found myself wondering how many moments it has taken during this fantastically chaotic Women’s Euros, for my empathy to morph in to detached observation, laced with expectation that the moment I was witnessing was just another dramatic distraction.
The pattern of hurt and whether to believe in it, followed by apathy and frustration, has really reminded me of parenting.
Firstly, the expression of the ‘hurt’ itself. This is often over dramatic, always intended to disrupt the flow, usually to buy some time and take control, mostly only fractionally true. When I think about patterns of parenting that are the hardest to deal with, most of these elements will feature in a child’s behaviour. Whether its resisting bedtime or disrupting a mealtime.
Second, the ‘hurt’ evokes a response. Much like my Euro’s experience this might begin with authentic belief that damage has been done to your child, pulling at your heartstrings and stopping your breath for a moment.
But when we are repeatedly impacted by the heart stopping moment that is followed by a little hop and a skip back to the game (once control has been gained) we can feel frustrated, manipulated and eventually detached. Best case scenario is that we hope the drama will settle if we ignore it for long enough.
So, I remind myself that all behaviour makes sense with enough information and our children are not professional footballers front and centre on a global stage (please tell me if I’m wrong!). Our children will over dramatise; they will play for time and blame another when they are feeling that something about the situation is unfair. They will express their pain when a scenario leaves them feeling insecure, uncertain and psychologically wobbled. All of this will stop the flow of life for a moment. We all seek to take control when things feel out of control in some way. In these drama fuelled moments our children need more than a referee pointing out the right and wrong from their own perspective, there is no VAR in life to double check what factually happened.
Our children need the most patient version of their parent when the drama kicks in, they need acceptance of the way they are feeling (not the foul itself), they need to be noticed and listened to, they need us to co-regulate before we attempt to get curious about what has happened. This takes for us as parents to dig deep and lean in to the knowledge that all behaviour makes sense with enough information. It might feel like an arbitrary playing for time but there will be an end goal for the drama and we have to stay steady in our responses time and time again, holding the boundary and empathising with the feeling. Then we need to work out what structure and information the child needs from us so that the scenario doesn’t play out again.
Breaking this exhausting cycle of push and pull will take more than a summer holiday, this much I know. There will be days when it feels like you are nailing it in the parenting Euro’s and times when you wish for substitutions to take you off the pitch for a while so you can take a rest yourself. So, whilst this summer doesn’t have a 90min boundary or a trophy at the end of it, lean in to the knowledge that the behaviour is information and that your co-regulation will help your child to move away from the jaw dropping drama. And if chaos arrives there’s always a song to be sung… ’where it began, I can’t begin to know when…’
- Katy