Huggie's House of Fun is Dallin's name for what he creates when he takes all the cushions and pillows off the couches and builds an elaborate "playground". Today we got home from visiting teaching and had just about 30 minutes until I thought I might have a piano student coming (I couldn't remember for sure). Within seconds, Dallin was tearing off the cushions, building slides and a tiny little house.
I wasn't crazy about the idea, but I figured it would keep both kids occupied, so I told him it was fine but would have to be cleaned up in time for piano lessons.
It certainly did succeed at keeping the occupied--occupied with fighting! Sariah's immediate and obvious thought was "couch cushions! time to jump!" Dallin, however, wanted to actually build a nice structure before the exercising began. Unfortunately, their separate interpretations of the activity at hand did not mesh well together.
Dallin yelled, grabbed, and pulled Sariah away every time she came near his masterpiece. Sariah screamed and ran right back to get into the middle of the fun. Mommy pulled her hair out and tried to think of a calm way to deal with the problem. I tried empathy. Dallin loved empathy, but wanted that to continue into me being able to fix the problem. The problem being Sariah. I tried to let him know that I understood exactly how frustrated he was. And he was definitely madder than I've ever seen him at his sister--even yelling that she had ruined his life. Wow, that is BIG frustration, and I truly did hear it and understand it. He was REALLY mad that every time he tried to build or do something, she wrecks it. He has really had to work hard to be patient and loving in the face of such sisterly destructions time and time again, and he was sick of it. I completely understood that.
But I also understood the frustrations of the 2-year-old sister who only wanted to be included, and who saw irresistable fun being denied her. I also felt frustrated myself, as I tried to help Dallin understand that I simply don't have time to sit there and babysit Sariah while he plays. I can do only so much to keep Sariah out of his hair, and then there reaches a certain point where it's not fair to either her or me--especially when he insists on conducting his activity right in the middle of a common area of the house like the family room.
Anyway, my empathy wasn't going anywhere, with either of them. Dallin continued to push, yell at, and otherwise antagonize Sariah, so I told him that he was welcome to be angry, but at this point he would have to go and do so in the privacy of his room. As he stomped up the stairs, he began yelling at me about how mean and unfair I was. At this point, I just about lost it. I stormed up the stairs, ready to let him have it and tell him how he needed to just get it together and knock it off. Right before I got into his room, I calmed down at least enough to deliver this with an "I" message instead of an attack. "I am SO angry right now! I don't like being yelled at and called mean things! I need to go take a break for myself before I do something that really won't be nice."
So right there, progress! I expressed my feelings, but did so in an appropriate way, owning that they were my feelings. And I modeled a healthy way to deal with them, by saying that I would take a break.
I headed back downstairs, and as I did so, the thought came that I really could use a prayer right now. So, followed by a still angry Dallin, I dropped on the middle of the family room floor and started praying that I could stay calm and know how to deal with all of this. Both kids were still at each other all around me, so I prayed harder. I decided not to get up until 1) they stopped fighting or 2) I knew I could deal with them without getting mad.
Well, Dallin was still mad when I got up. So this time, I tried to show him some ways in which he could get his "angries" out without hurting anyone. I took him upstairs and showed him how to punch his pillow and mattress. I also told him that he could say angry words in the privacy of his room. That one didn't work so well--he couldn't tell the difference between angry words and "bad" words, and I kept having to intervene, which made the problem worse. But I think in the future, with some structure, there might be a way we could use this technique to help him express anger. He really did get into it! It eventually worked, because I tried to model "appropriate" angry words, and that made him laugh, and pretty soon he was too busy laughing to be mad anymore.
So I went downstairs. And then started part two of this whole fiasco. I cleaned up his cushions because it was now time for the piano student (who never did show up). I had warned him at least 3 times of the need to clean up, but it never did sink in in the midst of all the other challenges we were dealing with, and when he came downstairs to discover a clean floor, he was furious all over again.
I tried to explain that we needed to have things picked up for piano lessons, but he just couldn't understand why. My not-so-great answer was, "Because it has to be clean for company." He didn't get that. He wanted to have the cushions partway off so he could still play in the couch.
Finally, I just got honest and told it like it was. I said, "We have to have the cushions on the couch because inside the couch is really yucky and dirty with lots of crumbs and junk, and I don't want anybody to see inside there. It makes me embarrassed for people to see that." I went on to explain how this student's mom kept a spotlessly clean house, which Dallin knew because he'd been there--and how I often felt embarrassed for her to come and see our house, which was far less than spotless. I explained to him that it was OK--I didn't expect our house to be 100% clean all the time, because then we wouldn't be comfortable living there. But I did want our house to not look completely disgusting, and I was embarrassed by the mess living inside of our couches.
He totally got it! Embarrassment is a concept that he has grown to understand lately, and when I put it in those terms, he finally understood how I felt. That was all it took. He didn't say another word about the couch cushions!
So anyway, it took forever, but we managed to navigate through the Huggie's House of Fun Fiasco and come out with everybody being friends again.
What did I learn?
That I need to remember to rely on prayer to keep my emotions in check.
That it's OK to express my emotions as long as I own them.
That I need to teach Dallin some effective ways to deal with his own anger.
That when I truly let him into my view of things, he responds better.
What did I not learn?
How to keep precocious toddlers out of their older brother's stuff. Yep, still haven't figured out how to deal with that one, or the resulting precocious toddler tantrums.
I wasn't crazy about the idea, but I figured it would keep both kids occupied, so I told him it was fine but would have to be cleaned up in time for piano lessons.
It certainly did succeed at keeping the occupied--occupied with fighting! Sariah's immediate and obvious thought was "couch cushions! time to jump!" Dallin, however, wanted to actually build a nice structure before the exercising began. Unfortunately, their separate interpretations of the activity at hand did not mesh well together.
Dallin yelled, grabbed, and pulled Sariah away every time she came near his masterpiece. Sariah screamed and ran right back to get into the middle of the fun. Mommy pulled her hair out and tried to think of a calm way to deal with the problem. I tried empathy. Dallin loved empathy, but wanted that to continue into me being able to fix the problem. The problem being Sariah. I tried to let him know that I understood exactly how frustrated he was. And he was definitely madder than I've ever seen him at his sister--even yelling that she had ruined his life. Wow, that is BIG frustration, and I truly did hear it and understand it. He was REALLY mad that every time he tried to build or do something, she wrecks it. He has really had to work hard to be patient and loving in the face of such sisterly destructions time and time again, and he was sick of it. I completely understood that.
But I also understood the frustrations of the 2-year-old sister who only wanted to be included, and who saw irresistable fun being denied her. I also felt frustrated myself, as I tried to help Dallin understand that I simply don't have time to sit there and babysit Sariah while he plays. I can do only so much to keep Sariah out of his hair, and then there reaches a certain point where it's not fair to either her or me--especially when he insists on conducting his activity right in the middle of a common area of the house like the family room.
Anyway, my empathy wasn't going anywhere, with either of them. Dallin continued to push, yell at, and otherwise antagonize Sariah, so I told him that he was welcome to be angry, but at this point he would have to go and do so in the privacy of his room. As he stomped up the stairs, he began yelling at me about how mean and unfair I was. At this point, I just about lost it. I stormed up the stairs, ready to let him have it and tell him how he needed to just get it together and knock it off. Right before I got into his room, I calmed down at least enough to deliver this with an "I" message instead of an attack. "I am SO angry right now! I don't like being yelled at and called mean things! I need to go take a break for myself before I do something that really won't be nice."
So right there, progress! I expressed my feelings, but did so in an appropriate way, owning that they were my feelings. And I modeled a healthy way to deal with them, by saying that I would take a break.
I headed back downstairs, and as I did so, the thought came that I really could use a prayer right now. So, followed by a still angry Dallin, I dropped on the middle of the family room floor and started praying that I could stay calm and know how to deal with all of this. Both kids were still at each other all around me, so I prayed harder. I decided not to get up until 1) they stopped fighting or 2) I knew I could deal with them without getting mad.
Well, Dallin was still mad when I got up. So this time, I tried to show him some ways in which he could get his "angries" out without hurting anyone. I took him upstairs and showed him how to punch his pillow and mattress. I also told him that he could say angry words in the privacy of his room. That one didn't work so well--he couldn't tell the difference between angry words and "bad" words, and I kept having to intervene, which made the problem worse. But I think in the future, with some structure, there might be a way we could use this technique to help him express anger. He really did get into it! It eventually worked, because I tried to model "appropriate" angry words, and that made him laugh, and pretty soon he was too busy laughing to be mad anymore.
So I went downstairs. And then started part two of this whole fiasco. I cleaned up his cushions because it was now time for the piano student (who never did show up). I had warned him at least 3 times of the need to clean up, but it never did sink in in the midst of all the other challenges we were dealing with, and when he came downstairs to discover a clean floor, he was furious all over again.
I tried to explain that we needed to have things picked up for piano lessons, but he just couldn't understand why. My not-so-great answer was, "Because it has to be clean for company." He didn't get that. He wanted to have the cushions partway off so he could still play in the couch.
Finally, I just got honest and told it like it was. I said, "We have to have the cushions on the couch because inside the couch is really yucky and dirty with lots of crumbs and junk, and I don't want anybody to see inside there. It makes me embarrassed for people to see that." I went on to explain how this student's mom kept a spotlessly clean house, which Dallin knew because he'd been there--and how I often felt embarrassed for her to come and see our house, which was far less than spotless. I explained to him that it was OK--I didn't expect our house to be 100% clean all the time, because then we wouldn't be comfortable living there. But I did want our house to not look completely disgusting, and I was embarrassed by the mess living inside of our couches.
He totally got it! Embarrassment is a concept that he has grown to understand lately, and when I put it in those terms, he finally understood how I felt. That was all it took. He didn't say another word about the couch cushions!
So anyway, it took forever, but we managed to navigate through the Huggie's House of Fun Fiasco and come out with everybody being friends again.
What did I learn?
That I need to remember to rely on prayer to keep my emotions in check.
That it's OK to express my emotions as long as I own them.
That I need to teach Dallin some effective ways to deal with his own anger.
That when I truly let him into my view of things, he responds better.
What did I not learn?
How to keep precocious toddlers out of their older brother's stuff. Yep, still haven't figured out how to deal with that one, or the resulting precocious toddler tantrums.
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