There are many techniques and proposals to help a child or adolescent who has difficulties regulating their emotions and who presents frequent and intense tantrums, crying, screaming and aggressive behavior. However, none of these techniques will work if parents do not have skills to regulate their own behavior and are controlled by emotions, rather than the goals they want to achieve in raising their children.
Think for a moment about a father exhausted after a long day at work, who comes home and yells at his son to stop crying after being refused to continue watching television. For a brief moment that emotional decision seemed to be the right one, the father expressed his frustration and supposedly signaled his authority. But in reality, the only thing he will achieve in the long term is that the tantrum will get worse, that the child will get used to the screaming, will not stop, and that the relationship between parent and child will further erode. On the contrary, a parent can be much more effective in helping their child regulate their emotion when they are able to put their child’s behavior into perspective and distance themselves from the judgments and assumptions about it and, consequently, act directed by your goals (help calm your child, teach regulation skills, maintain a calm afternoon, etc.) and not on impulse.
Acting directed by objectives is not an easy task. Judgments and assumptions affect the way we feel and behave, especially when we have to face very stressful situations. Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) proposes a series of approaches that help us see problematic behavior through different lenses, lenses that reduce judgment and promote empathetic, skillful, and compassionate behavior, which increases parental effectiveness and will ultimately help reduce the emotional intensity. Initially these principles were developed by for work with people with borderline personality disorder and suicidal risk. Miller and his team later adapted them for their work with adolescents and their families (Miller et al., 1997). These principles are especially valuable for parents and family members of children with very intense emotions, who are not necessarily at risk for suicide. These principles also guide my work as a clinical psychologist and I try to teach them to my clients’ families. This article is based on them and on the book (Harvey and Penzo, 2009).
DBT principles to help children and adolescents regulate their emotion
- Your son is doing the best he can.
- Your child needs to improve, try harder and be more motivated to change.
- Your child wants to do things differently and better.
- Your child must learn new behaviors in all important situations in his life.
- Family members should not assume the worst.
- There is no absolute truth.
Your child is doing the best he can.
This is the most important and perhaps the most difficult principle to learn. It means that your child is doing the best he can at this particular moment. Probably in the past he could have behaved better and perhaps in the future there will be situations where he can do better. But now he is doing the best he can.
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The following example can help understand this assumption:
Imagine that one day you wake up and you don’t feel well. You still get up and make your child breakfast and then give him the iPad to entertain himself by watching some videos. Another day you would have taken advantage of the morning to read him his favorite book and maybe take a walk in the park. But today you feel bad. Your head hurts and you have a bad cough. Maybe in the afternoon you sit down with your family to watch television, but you barely talk and just listen. On another occasion you would have asked everyone about their day, but today you are very quiet. In this situation and considering how you feel right now, you are doing the best you can.
Likewise, there are days when your child may feel better or worse. Maybe one day he will be more irritable because he didn’t sleep well, he is overwhelmed, or he is afraid. There will be days when he is more willing to listen to you and other days he will pull away. Every day, your child is doing the best he can.
The most important thing: Accepting and remembering that your child is doing the best he can will help you reduce your own emotional intensity and frustration towards him and you will be more effective when it comes to intervening. Remembering this assumption is a very useful tool in the most difficult moments.
Your child needs to improve, try harder and be more motivated to change
This assumption is the easiest for parents to accept, because they are very clear about the difficulties their child has and what they should do better. However, this assumption must go hand in hand with the first.
Accepting that your child needs to make changes doesn’t mean he or she is bad, damaged, or unacceptable. For your child to be more willing to do things differently and work to change problem behaviors, he needs to feel that he is not being blamed, judged or criticized. To achieve effective parenting, parents must achieve a balance1 between accepting their child in the present moment and the expectation of helping them do things differently in the future. That is the dialectic of DBT.
Your child wants to do things differently and better
There are days when it seems like your child wants to continue doing things wrong and doesn’t care what kind of consequences you give him or how sad he may feel after the tantrum. On those days it is very likely that you feel frustrated and believe that he has control over the house and that everything must be done the way he wants. In these situations it can be very difficult to think that things are going to get better.
But the truth is that children seek their parents’ approval, no matter how badly they may behave. No child likes to live in an environment of tension and constant conflict where the house becomes a battlefield and where he or she is seen as the bad guy or the problem in the house.
Instead of interpreting that there is something broken or wrong with your child, it is more useful to understand that angry outbursts, aggressive behaviors, and emotional outbursts are ways in which he has learned to manage his emotions. This does not mean that he enjoys behaving that way, but that it is the most effective way he knows to express his emotions. Which means that changing that pattern can be very difficult. But given the chance I would try to do it in a different way.
Your child must learn new behaviors in all important situations in his life.
It is not surprising that children behave better in certain circumstances than in others. Sometimes children behave better at school than at home because they can handle the school structure better and tantrums occur at home where they feel safe and secure. And vice versa, a child may have very strong tantrums at school where it is very difficult for him to manage the structure and academic demands, but at home where he has greater freedom and autonomy he does not have tantrums.
This inconsistency in children’s behavior causes adults to blame parents for not being able to “control” their children, or it also makes them think that the child is choosing to behave badly at school or that the child should know how to behave appropriately. , are beliefs that block an effective and empathetic response from parents when trying to help children who have problems regulating their emotions.
Therefore, it is important to understand that each situation requires different competencies and that you will have to be taught new skills for each different setting (home, church, school, for example) until you are able to use those skills in all contexts. .
Family members should not assume the worst
After many conflicts and tantrums, family members can draw unhelpful conclusions that only hinder their actions, generating greater anger, disappointment and confusion. For example, many believe that a child with emotional regulation problems behaves that way to get the attention of his parents or to manipulate them to his whim.
There are many reasons why a person behaves in a way, some of them have nothing to do with family. Learning to review the facts instead of staying with our own prejudices helps us better accept others.
There is no absolute truth
Accepting that each person has a different point of view helps to let go of that need to try to win, impose your point of view and prove that the other person is wrong. Accepting that we do not agree on a specific issue and that we do not need to “win” helps us prevent fights and stop power struggles between children and parents.
How many times has it happened that you started an argument with your child simply to win an argument or prove who is right. An example: you tell your son that he can’t invite friends over this weekend. Your son gets angry and he tells you that you never give him permission to invite his friends, that you don’t let him have fun. You know that does not represent the truth as we understand it. So you have two options. You can start an argument with your child until you prove him wrong or you can choose not to respond to that statement.
Accepting your child’s truth in that moment will not negate your own truth. This will also not break the boundary or rules you are trying to establish. However, accepting that everyone can have a truth will prevent you from entering into a meaningless fight that in the end only leads to bitterness.
Accept that your child has his own point of view and that that perspective feels very real to him. You don’t need to defend your point of view all the time, nor do you have to ignore or invalidate his point of view. You just need to accept that he is different from you.
How to learn the principles
- Even if you don’t fully believe them, repeat the most challenging principles: He is doing his best, even though my son is not cooperating today to get to school on time.
- When you are going through difficult situations, such as a tantrum in a public place, think of a related scenario: my son wants to do things differently and better even when he has the tantrum because I didn’t stop to buy what he wanted.
- Repeat the words of the principles most challenging to you: there is no absolute truth
- Remember that the principles
Practicing the principles
Review the DBT principles and consider whether treating them as facts can change the way you think, feel and behave. Then answer the following questions:
- What principles do you think will be most helpful to you?
- What principle challenges you the most? Because?
Then think of a situation in which the principles can help you better approach the situation with your son or daughter….