As we begin to transition from living through a global pandemic parents are finding that their children are presenting with more and more mental health symptoms. According to new research, one in five children and adolescents will experience a mental health disorder each year, which can impair their mental, emotional, social, and behavioral functioning. Additionally, one half of mental disorders have an onset before the age of 14 years (Bitsko et al., 2022).
At a young age mental health symptoms often show themselves as tantrums, irritability, and emotional dysregulation. Parents may try a host of different approaches, including ignoring bad behavior, reinforcing positive behavior, sticker charts, taking away privileges, punishments, time-outs, counting, and more. However, without identifying the underlying need of a child’s emotional dysregulation, oftentimes these approaches will not resolve the issue and will leave both the parent and child feeling frustrated. By approaching dysregulation with curiosity, compassion, and attunement, parents can utilize their relationship to support their child in moving through big emotions, managing mental health symptoms, and building resilience. These concepts are the foundation of parenting the Theraplay way.
How can the relationship support such big tantrums? Well, let’s start at the beginning. When a baby cries or is frightened, the way that their parents intervene will help them to regulate themselves in the future. If a parent can accompany a child without judging or rejecting them and help them to handle what is happening, the child can learn to contain and regulate their strong emotions that are generating stress. Conversely, children who do not have a present and attuned parent may perceive that they are not good enough for their parents. They may begin to feel shame and a sense that they are not capable in their parents’ eyes. When a child’s needs are not being met, they can sometimes develop a belief that they’re defective instead of thinking that something might be wrong (Siegel, 2018).
To strengthen the relationship between a child and parent, especially during a time of high stress, parents can utilize the 4 S’s from Daniel Siegel’s work (2018):
- Safety: The first priority is to keep your child safe. This means keeping them physically safe - for example by holding their hand while they cross the street, for example. This also means keeping them emotionally safe. As an example, one child may feel overwhelmed when entering new and unfamiliar spaces. That child may feel more emotionally safe when their parent prepares them to enter a new space by first showing them pictures and describing what they will do in the space. Depending on the level of safety that a parent provides to their child, they may run to their parent for protection or away from everything to protect themselves.
- Seen: Give your child an integrative experience by looking behind the external, superficial behavior. Focus attention on their inner world by asking, "What is going on in my child's mental life? What are their feelings, thoughts, perspective, memories, hopes, dreams, and desires? What is underneath this behavior?” When a child feels truly seen, they are able to start to focus on their inner world. If the parent does not have the capacity to hold a child’s big emotions, they may absorb the child’s emotions and both the adult and child will feel increasingly stressed.
- Soothe: While keeping your child safe, acknowledge their fears in order to reduce their stress levels in them. In order to do this, parents must regulate themselves to ensure that they don't react with distress to their child’s fears or upset.
- Security: By feeling safe, seen, and soothed within their parental relationships, your child will begin to make meaning about their experiences and relationships. Overall, when a child feels protected within their relationships, they will be able to be co-regulated within them.
Let’s take this example from Parenting with Theraplay (2017). You and your children are outside on a summer day playing tag, bubbles, chalk, and more. One of your children has been playing for quite some time now and is very energetic. It’s getting close to going inside for dinner. You see that your child is still feeling pretty high energy; they’re running around, jumping up and down, and moving quickly. You know that if you give the “we have two minutes left” warning they will either A) ignore you or B) shout ‘NO!’ and continue running around. Using a Theraplay approach to transition inside might sound like this:
“We have 5 more minutes before we head inside. Let’s see how many bubbles we can pop with clapping hands!”
*Begins to blow bubbles while child(ren) pop them by clapping their hands together*
“I want to see if you can pop 20!”
*Continues blowing bubbles and counting pops*
As you are giving directives, you notice that your child is still jumping up and down signaling that they are still unregulated. So, you respond with additional structure to help them calm down further, which might sound like this:
“Wow! You popped 20! I have a new challenge. Let’s see if you can pop just one from the bubble wand. Sit right here and show me your pointer finger”
*You blow and catch a bubble on the wand and carefully place it in front of your child to pop with their finger*
“Whoa! You did it! Let’s pop four more just like that before we go inside”
*You give a reminder of the ‘last one’ and then gather your items with your child(ren) to go inside*
Because the child needs to focus on this task while sitting, their body will start to become calmer and will occur without your child being told off or suddenly ending the game (Rodwell, 2017). As the parent, you have identified where your child’s regulation level was at and how to use play to help them down-regulate. Your child needs your help to know what is going on in their body (Rodwell, 2017). The Theraplay approach focuses on building awareness of your child’s needs through observations of their body functions and responses to those needs through play (Rodwell, 2017). By consistently using attunement, responsiveness, and play in your interactions with your child, you can help them recover from big emotions and learn to identify what they need in order to do so on their own as they get older.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Theraplay can help your child through big emotions, check out The Theraplay Clinic! The Theraplay Clinic offers child-family therapy, free parent support groups, child play groups, and Camp Theraplay! You can also contact Clinic Manager, Zaya Gillogly, LCSW at clinic@theraplay.org or 847 256 7334 x126.
References:
Bitsko RH, Claussen AH, Lichstein J, et al. Mental Health Surveillance Among Children — United States, 2013–2019. MMWR Suppl 2022;71(Suppl-2):1–42. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.su7102a1external icon.
Circle of Security International (2003). Being-With and Shark Music. Available in:
Being-With and Shark Music — Circle of Security International.
Rodwell, H. (2017). Parenting with Theraplay®. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Siegel, D (2018). The Science Behind Parental Relationships With Children. The MasterSeries, 1-11.
