a collection of posts filled with insights, experiences and challenges of parenting a child who is more—more intense, more spirited, more expressive, more sensitive, more explosive.

This page represents some of the joys and struggles I have while parenting what author Mary Kurcinka has termed a "Spirited" child and Ross Greene has termed an "Explosive" child. While the techniques and perspectives outlined in Greene's book The Explosive Child are incredibly useful, the term itself can be somewhat unproductive. I prefer looking at it from Kurcinka's perspective where she suggests in her book Raising Your Spirited Child that putting a positive spin on some of the typical descriptive words will go a long way towards changing a parent's attitude toward her/ his spirited child. How parents view these children—the eyes with which they see them and reflect the child's self back—are crucial, and making sure that view is positive rather than negative is perhaps the single most important gift a parent can give these children.

The posts are organized chronologically, most recent to oldest. So if you want to see how we handled things when Sam was younger, you'll need to go to the end.

Written in March 2008 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

I know the pattern for her- she sets up a vision of what she wants. She sees a game happening in one way. And then she expects and demands that it go that way. When it does not, she ultimately feels disempowered, to a certain extent. And it can spiral from there. She ebbs and flows in how she manages this pattern. Sometimes she is able to be more flexible and fluid. But lately it is just painful for me to be a part of- I see my friend cringe. I see the other kids cringe. I see kathrynn feeling pain and frustration and anger.

*sigh* You just described much of what my days are like with my guy who is also doggedly focussed on what's in his mind and who gets very upset when the world doesn't deliver. I don't have a silver bullet, but I can tell you that with each passing year, he gets more able to deal with his inability to control everything around him. I'm lucky in that he's not really very social at all, though my girls are, and it can be difficult for them sometimes not having as many play dates in their lives as they would like.

In my opinion, I can't change the way my guy is any more than he can change the people around him. I try to love and support him through these moments as much as possible and to view them as important learning moments in his own life, to trust that he will find a way with time to work around his own rigidity and desire to control. Ultimately, he knows that the people around him are willing to find mutually agreeable solutions, but in moments like this, he goes into vapor lock, unwilling to entertain any other possibility than the original one in his mind. Once he moves through that, he's often able to consider other options or to simply move on to something else entirely.

One of the best tools I've seen for Sam are his video games. Boy does he get mad sometimes, but he always solves the problem eventually, from which he's learning to trust in his own ability to overcome frustration, being out of control and not being able to change the game. It's amazing to watch him problem solve something that the day before had him in a total rage. Plus, it's way better to have him rage at the machine that at one of us!

What we've found somewhat helpful, and maybe you could talk with your dd about it, is to set up an advance plan. I've observed to Sam many times that he has a really hard time letting go of something as long as he continues to be in that same space, but if we can get to a private space where he can release some of the anger without hurting anyone, then he's often more able to find solutions. He's not always real happy about going to private space in the moment, but he's always happy to be there in the end because it helps him find his way back to calm. It also lets him vent some very hurtful words and ideas without having any guilt about it later--it lets him feel fully how he feels in that moment without any ramifications outside of that moment, which has been really important for his own sense of self.

So, at any rate, maybe you and K could agree that when she starts spiraling that you guys could take a walk and create some space for a solution to emerge. The fact that she *wants* to play with friends might help her to see that coming up with solutions to help her move through her frustration will facilitate that play. You could let her know that you understand she wants things the way she wants them and that it's perfectly normal, but that playing with other people often means working to find solutions that can be the way everyone wants them. Let her know you understand how hard that can be and that you want to help her find ways to do that so that she can keep playing and having fun. Let her know that it's okay to take some space periodically to recenter herself, especially on drawn out play dates.

I've noticed my oldest and my youngest need down time even during play dates, so I'll try to support that. Sam will take baths in the middle of play dates, for instance, and that's often enough to recharge and recenter him so that he can interact again. Emily will often find something quiet to do like play her ds or just come sit and visit with the adults for a while. Are there coping strategies like this for K that you could build into your play date? This can get tricky and nuancy because when everything's going well, they don't want to take a break. I've found that the suggestion needs to happen as I see things escalating but before they spiral. Once they spiral, well, then we're already going to take some space, but then it's fraught with lots of high emotions.

All that said, we do stay home a lot because it's just not worth putting Sam into situations where he can't be his best self and where he's "the guy who ruins it for everyone"--that sucks and it's not a good place for him or his sisters. We've found that low-key, individual play dates work way better than groups, which we pretty much just can't do successfully.

Written in February 2008 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

However, I draw the line for things where they don't get a second chance to learn if a mistake is made. For example, we hold hands in the parking lot. Period. There is no negotiation on that for me, because in impact of car with child, the child WILL lose. We also hold hands crossing the street, although I relax this and let them practice crossing safely when we are in a really quiet neighborhood with no traffic.

Even with this, I'd like to challenge your idea of non-negotiable. My youngest guy has always been an adamant do-it-myselfer, and he's been sheer resistance to anything less than that. (Think the 50 lb dog that immediately seems like a 500 lb dog when it doesn't want to move. Then imagine it snarling and biting at the same time.)

He was the kind of kid who would pull away and run in the opposite direction as long as I tried to insist on holding his hand. By the age of 2.5, he was walking by himself in parking lots, perfectly willing to stay close enough to me that I felt I could grab him if I needed to, as long as I didn't try to make him hold my hand. The responsibility shifted from him having to hold my hand to me having to be more alert and more aware than I might otherwise be if I had the luxury of holding his hand.

He and I have done this dance through the years on everything from fire to electrical outlets to knives to guns. It's not been an easy dance, I can tell you, but it's been an important one. The more I trust him, the more he teaches me. The more I work with him, the more he's willing to work with me.

Written in February 2008 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

> I later told my husband after my FIL left, that I was certainly NOT proud of what I did, that I felt like a jerk, and that I was mad at myself because I still don't have any solutions as to what I could have done to show my son that hitting angrily is not the way to stop his sister from squirting him..... >

I think the first step is to realize what you've just realized: that you punished your son for having a "tantrum" by having one yourself. Never a very good feeling, and certainly not when we start to realize how many more years we've had to find and hone better tools.

I don't personally think guilt is a productive feeling; in fact, quite the opposite, I think it invites us to wallow and stagnate rather than making clear and determined steps away from the behavior we don't want. So, I would say the next step is to find some compassion--first for your son who was obviously really upset and second for yourself. If you can understand the needs behind these instances of lashing out, then you've begun to find your way out of them.

Have you thought of joining the no spanking list? That might be a really great resource for you: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NoMoreSpanking/

I think stepping outside of the idea "what can I do to show him that hitting is not the way" might be helpful, especially since you just modeled hitting as a solution. This kind of thinking is motivated by the idea of teaching a person a lesson, and it's rooted in conventional fear-based behavior modification thinking. I'm of the mindset that you can't teach a person anything they're not ready to learn, so if a child simply does not have the conflict-resolution skills, then what's the point of the lesson? You're telling him he can't hit, but he doesn't have any other tools at the moment. I think the key is to help with those other tools in place of hitting.

Those other tools need to start with you. What other conflict resolution tools do you have in your toolbox besides hitting or yelling or punishing? That's the place you can affect the most change: inside yourself. Cultivating different mediation tools will not only help with your own anger management, but it will also begin to model for your children how to resolve conflict without resorting to hitting and yelling.

Here are three very different resources that you might find helpful. Each one has a different approach and offers a different set of tools that might be useful to consider and combine and make them your own rather than following them like a formula. Of course, a formula is at least a starting point, and sometimes it's helpful to fake it for a while until it becomes second nature.

Thich Naht Hahn: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Naomi Aldort: Raising Our Children; Raising Ourselves

Marshall Rosenberg: Nonviolent Communication and here's a link to the Center for Nonviolent Communication: http://www.cnvc.org/

I hope you'll find some helpful resources here.

I think, too, it's important to say that if I walked into a situation where I saw one of my children hitting another I would stop them, but I would try to do so from a place of compassion rather than anger. (And I'll admit to not always having been perfect at that, but it's my goal each and every time, and I have become much, much better over the years than I was when I was first dealing with it. I've cultivated lots of tools to help myself stay calm in the moment.) Taking punitive and hurtful tools out of our parenting toolbox doesn't translate into doing nothing, which I know it can feel like sometimes when you're first thinking about these ideas. I still intervene, I still stop the hurting, but I try to do so in a way that understands that a person who is hurting another person is doing so from a place of pain inside themselves. Stopping the pain inside the person is what will stop the lashing out; adding to that pain will only perpetuate the cycle of anger and violence.

I'm glad you're reaching out and searching for more peaceful parenting solutions!

Written in January 2008 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

so i guess i was musing about whether finding calm in the middle of her rages might be like that, too---something she can achieve only when we stop "feeding" the rage with discussion, interaction, whatever?

Oh my, yes. Validation, talking, and whatnot during a rage just infuriates my guy further--still does. That's why getting to a place where there was quiet and privacy--away from the stimulation and situation--was such an important key for him.

I think as parents, we need to learn to read our children's cues. They know what they need, and we need to learn to support and facilitate that regardless of what approach *we* might prefer. The scripted dialog of NVC would drive me nuts; it would drive my guy nuts. So, that's not going to be a particularly useful tool for me in those moments, though some of the principles might be useful outside of the moment.

> or whether it is really better to be present for her and not worry about whether my presence is feeding her rage (or, presumably, whether her rage is draining my presence... har har). >

In my experience, it has to do with what kind of presence I'm able to offer. If I'm not able to get myself to a place of calm, then my presence--even if I may seem outwardly calm--tends to not be helpful. I'm thinking of moments where maybe I have dinner on the stove, so my energy is partly wondering how long I'll need to sit there, for instance. My own energy matters, and sometimes it is better for me to gently let him know where I'll be if he needs me.

You're question about one of my past posts, without going back and trying to find the context of the comment, seems to have to do with what I'd do when Sam used to try to physically attack me. So, when I said "in a non-engaging kind of way," I think what I was talking about was making a calm kind of statement along the lines of, "Please don't talk to me like that. I want to help, but it's hard to help when you're trying to hurt me." I don't think a parent needs to belabor the point, but I do think a clear, firm, gentle statement like that can be important in terms of stating our own boundaries. What that didn't translate into was abandonment, though there were times when I said that I would stand elsewhere to keep myself safe, letting him know where I'd be when he needed me.

I'm not clearly remembering how old he was when he went through the phase of attacking me. I want to say 3 or 4; he was out of it by the time we moved to this house when he was 5. That was a very rough time, and there were certainly no perfect solutions. I just tried to stay as calm as possible, and there were moments when I failed, and those moments were *dismal* failures, leaving us both feeling so upset. My own anger just escalated the situation and made it more about me, my own tools, my own ability to control myself when faced with frustration. Those were important realizations. I know my own ability to stay calm and be the parent Sam needed me to be in those moments was absolutely crucial in our relationship and journey.

Written in January 2008 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

Give the "explosion" as little of your (and the rest of the family's) attention as possible--that will help her to gain what control she can over it. **snip** She would scream and cry at me from there and I would sit in a chair where we could see each other and where I could comfort my younger child. When she calmed down, I would set a timer for 2 more minutes if she stayed calm (it was reset if she started screaming/crying again). It's heart-wrenching when they're upset but it really does work.

I feel so incredibly sad reading something like this. What a child learns from these kinds of situations is that when she most needs help, she won't get any unless she can act the way other people want her to act, and that just is not the message I want to be sending to my children.

I have built a relationship of trust with my intense guy over the years, and while I can't always make things better or even help much by my presence, he *knows* emphatically that I am there to help him when he's ready.

As difficult and draining and exhausting and heart-wrenching as it can be to have an "explosive" child--and believe me, I know and have lived the walking on eggshells feeling--alienating that child will do nothing to stop the behavior but will do everything to destroy your relationship. I believe so strongly that so many of these boys end up in such trouble because for all their lives, all their relationships have been adversarial. Relationships do not have to be adversarial; they really don't. Loving compassion can go such a long way towards helping these kids grow into their own intensity, such a long way towards preserving their emotional cores and sense of self as lovable.

Written in December 2007 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

I read Meredith's posted concern that the statement "Harmony in the home" was bugging her and i understand her point. I read that my son's screaming about losing his game is not him disturbing the "peace of the house" on purpose. I am there for him,rubbing his back,telling him how hard he works on the game only to have lost. But,for how long? He is still doing the yelling,crying,screaming fits. Am i supposed to hear this for a year? It's very bothersome. I think i could handle it better if it only happened once a day but it's constant. Where's the balance?

I think there are three separate issues in this post:

a) how long should someone "reasonably" feel badly about something and express those feelings, and

b) how long should those feelings interrupt others' lives, and

c) how long should parents (esp. mom since that's who's writing) have to deal with it.

The answers are relatively simple, imo:

a) for as long as the person needs to, and

b) not long any longer than at a restaurant, movie theater, or any other venue where the principle of consideration of others comes into play, and

c) for as long as a parent has children since it was the parent's choice to have said children in the first place.

Seriously, a parent's relationship to children is different and special. Part of our job is to help our children navigate difficult and emotional waters; another part of that job is to insulate others from having to do the same. Part of my job is to help my kids be the best people they can be. Part of my job is to create the environment for that to happen, together with creating the environment for *me* to be the best parent I can be.

Written in December 2007 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

In my experience, helping a child get to another space doesn't need to be disrespectful--even when that child might not completely agree to leave in the moment.

Sam often has a hard time moving through his intense feelings when still immersed in the situation. Even more than that, staying in the situation often escalates his emotions to the point where he wants to lash out and either hurt someone or destroy something, whether the other people in the room had anything to do with his outburst or not. Getting him to a place where he can lash out without hurting or destroying others (actions which he would then internalize as "bad" about himself) has been really important for all of us in the family in terms of separating Sam's intensity and explosiveness from who Sam is.

Sam, too, sees getting to a safe space as really important when he's not in the midst of an explosion and he can access his own rational mind. He also most often likes if I go with him, though he's to the point now where he will occasionally remove himself until he feels calmer.

Written in November 2007 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

Someone asked Ren what she meant by the following: I'm not against holding as an option, I do believe people should protect themselves from harm. I also wish I knew then what I know now...to go WITH his intensity (as far as meeting the need and find a safer outlet for all that anger rather than trying to stop it. I'm pretty sure that would have worked better.

I'm not Ren, but I can talk about what I mean by going with Sam's intensity rather than against it.

Finding Sam a safe space to rage was really important for our process because that's what Sam needed to do. All the times we tried to find alternatives--hitting a pillow, ripping paper, having a punching bag, whatever--all those "distractions" never worked because, in my opinion, they minimized or dismissed the very large and real feelings he was having inside that he needed to give vent to or be destroyed. That sounds kind of dramatic, but that's how it feels inside for him, like he'll literally just explode if he doesn't get all that intensity out of his body as the rage and anger it is.

When my energy was directed at controlling that rage, trying to fix it or make it go away, I made it worse. To this day, if my energy is focused on getting him to stop raging, trying to cut short his process, it backfires and prolongs the rage. Those are the times that if I can't get into a mountain space, calm and able to ride out the storm, then I need to remove my energy from his room and allow him his process because those are the times that I've made the situation about me rather than him, and that's not helpful.

The tricky thing to gauge has been on the upswing because there are times when I can step in and intervene in certain ways to defuse the explosion, but that's a very different thing than dealing with Sam when he's in a full blown rage.

Written in November 2007 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

Honestly, I believe that dd does see me as her partner now. I don't know how to convince you of this, but it feels true to me.

You don't need to convince me of anything--that's not the role of this list or my intent with this discussion. I'm not in your home or your family, so I can't possibly know all the different pieces of this puzzle. I'm not saying I have all the answers either, not by a long shot. What I'm saying is that I've been there, done that with this kind of intensity, and that there may be other possible choices, though that's not what you may want to hear, though that may be something you'll dismiss and think to yourself, "yeah but it can't possibly have been this bad or to this extreme."

Yes--it is extremely hard to try to communicate with someone who is not capable of doing so in any of her normal ways when she is upset. Very hard. And dd is extremely intelligent--she's always been one of those "scary smart" kids. And she's very verbal, so it's not the usual state of affairs when she's raging--she can't say any words but those intended to hurt. Truly.

Yes, I know. I get this, though you seem to think I don't. I'm not talking about communicating during a rage, which is nigh on impossible, though it's getting much better on the upswing if I can catch it in time. I'm talking about communicating outside of them, working together to find ways through the rages when they do happen, checking in with the child about our choices in the moment, asking them what we could do differently to be more helpful next time, apologizing even for the choice we made.

I totally get the point about the back side of the rages, too, as that's how Sam is as well. Now that he willingly takes himself to his room most of the time, I often give him about 2 minutes before I follow him back because it helps him to process a bit on his own first.

What I'm talking about are ways to be there during the rage to help support them, giving them the space they need to go through the process. It's difficult and draining and emotionally exhausting, but finding ways to support them through the intense emotions is paramount, and I'm having a really hard time imagining being locked in a room as feeling supportive or anything but scary.

No--I wasn't making that choice for my own benefit. It came after I realized that I was expecting too much of myself. I had endured emotional abuse from dd for years and felt I deserved it somehow because it *must* be my fault that she was saying these things to me.

I think the way you're phrasing this and choosing to look at it--emotional abuse--creates a tyrant/ victim dynamic that is a roadblock to understanding and meeting your child with compassion.

Now, I'm thinking she was just feeling scared, and I wasn't helping in the way she needed (because I didn't know what that was), and she was angry at me for that reason alone.

This kind of understanding and framing, in my experience, goes much further toward creating connection and cultivating the calming energy that's quietly supportive for the raging child. I've talked before about my own tools for coping with Sam's rages, one of which is visualizing myself as a mountain. Mountains are not victims; mountains simply are. Mountains are solid and stable and unwavering.

Actually, although it might seem on the surface that being away from her and not permitting her to rage through the house, breaking things and hurting us, is forcing her to be on her own, cut off, I truly don't feel that this is the case in this situation.

I'm not saying this at all. I have talked over and over again of helping Sam to find a safe space to rage, carrying him against his will at times for only as long as it took for us to get someplace private. It's the *locking her in* that seems so drastically different and where we part company in all this.

Yes--I'm sure that was part of it. And I tried to handle it by being with her, offering her hugs, doing your "mountain" thing. None of it suited her. It broke my heart.

I can't offer hugs or anything like that when Sam's in a rage--I can't offer anything but calm presence, hence the mountain. Sometimes *I'm* not in the space to even offer that, at which point I tell him where I'll be if he needs me. And yes, it is heart breaking to not be able to actively help a child through these incredibly intense moments. Certainly, follow her cues; if she doesn't want you even in the room, then don't be in the room. Be calm and solid somewhere else, on the other side of the door even. All of these are solutions that don't involve locking her in her room.

Yes--we find that, too. But I want to help her have as full a life as she wants, so we're working on making it happen. If there are things away from home that she wants to do, I want to help her do them.

Sometimes a full life doesn't look the way we initially imagine it. I know in my situation that the activities and the other demands on personal reserves would be part of the problem. I used to sit there and shake my head at why Sam was so miserable doing something he'd wanted to do. I remember taking the kids ice skating and spending my whole time on the ice with a frustrated, angry little boy on the verge of a total rage, expending I don't know how much of my own emotional energy just trying to give him what he wanted, but nothing was right. I have many, many memories of what I used to call "wrestling an alligator" through various activities that the kids wanted to do, and I kept struggling through them because I didn't want to take anything away from the girls. Before we moved I started slowing way down, backing way off all activities. Once we moved, we just didn't do any at all. I didn't join any local homeschool groups or get involved in any of those things, no classes, no nothing but our small forays out into the world that we could do in our own space, in our own time, and on our own terms. That's been huge for us all.

From these posts and others, it sounds like your dd is not ready for the activities she's involved in. It sounds like she doesn't have the coping tools in place and that they are taxing her and adding to her own emotional burden, creating a difficult cycle. I think this is something to step back and consider.

Written in July 2007 on the AlwaysUnschooled e-list:

These days I view meltdowns as either an attempt at communication (a need not being met) or simply as a powerful method of expression (letting out and releasing tension, stress and a whole bunch of stuff). I believe that behind either is a hidden plea from my dd for greater connection.

I like what everyone has said about parenting children through their intense emotions, which is by no means an easy feat! I, too, have found that much of Sam's need to process intense emotions meant going through such very powerful methods of expression (I like that phrasing), and when he was through to the other side, he had completely released what had been inside him. *I* was the one holding onto the intense emotion that had just hit me like a ton of bricks. So, what was working for Sam as a release, was draining me emotionally because I would engage those intense emotions, taking them to heart rather than viewing them as a release. I'd be carrying around the things he'd said when he had left them far behind.

Yet, as Christy said, I too found it so important to *be* with Sam in these moments. Leaving him while he was in the midst of these incredibly overwhelming emotions was more than he could handle, and it sent the very scary message that maybe these emotions were more than *I* could handle, too. Sam needed me to be present and calm, so that he could vent and process and come back to a calm space. The key for me was learning how to remain calm and to be the parent *he* needed me to be in these moments, rather than making such moments about me or my parenting, which is what would happen when I'd try to engage those emotions with my own emotional reactions.

So now when the meltdowns come I try to have a mantra to myself of: "eye of the hurricane" repeated over and over in my head. To me that means the more turbulent the storm around me... the more I need to be calm, compassionate and loving .

I like the way Arun's image incorporates the intensity within the visualization itself. What has always worked for me is to visualize myself as a mountain--perhaps because we've often lived near mountains. I can sit down and imagine myself solid, large, steady, immovable, passive and present in the midst of a storm and all those things once the storm has passed and offer myself a very clear vision of what I need to be physically and emotionally for Sam. This kind of visualization and centering technique has been absolutely pivotal and crucial in my ability not to become emotionally engaged with Sam's intensity, which is so, so, so important in these moments. As parents, we do absolutely no good when we meet these children's intensity with our own, I'm convinced.

I've found a delicate balance to be necessary in the way I approach these moments so as to remain calm and view them as a release while also maintaining an awareness of taking these intense emotions very seriously--it's just been a different kind of taking them seriously, and it's been a recognition that the taking seriously part really doesn't happen until after the release. Because, as Christy also said, it's after the release that love and comfort and help will be accepted. Often to offer those too soon is to diminish the intensity of the emotion itself, acting in effect as the opposite of taking the emotions seriously, if that makes any sense. The emotions, in other words, must have their say, must voice themselves, and anything that would interfere with that or seek to stop, silence, or truncate that expression acts as a violation of sorts.

Learning to love and support Sam through his intense emotions has been such an incredible learning and growing experience for me, and this is what I'll be talking about at the Live and Learn Conference. I'm looking forward to sharing our incredible journey with others in the hope that those still in the beginning will draw hope and healing confidence that the time and compassion they spend now really does make an incredible difference. I've also collected lots of my past posts here: http://danielleconger.organiclearning.org/spirited You may find some helpful words in there.

Written in May 2007 on the Always Unschooled e-list:

(((((hugs)))))) I can hear how hard this is for you and how much you want to find a way to work through it. One of the things I'm also sensing, though, is that the way you're wanting to work through it is to just get her to stop saying those things, and I'm wondering if that may be where you two are getting hung up. I'm not sure what kind of words you're talking about, nor am I asking you to share specific details...I'm just putting this out there in case it may be helpful.

You can't make your dd's anger go away, but you can work on your own. Part of what I found helpful in that journey for myself was to talk with Sam about finding a safe place to express his anger, which was his room. I tried really hard to separate my own reactionary feelings in the moment from my over-all goals for helping Sam. Whether I wanted him to or not, he felt *that* angry in those moments and that anger needed to go somewhere--it *needed*, imo, to be fully expressed so that he could release it. When I was able to keep sight of my goal of helping Sam find non-hurtful ways of expressing and releasing his intense emotions, then I could move beyond the angry reactionary feelings inside myself, which were usually aimed at *stopping* the anger. And not hurtful for us meant he wasn't being physical and he wasn't in someone's face; yes, he still hurls the words behind closed doors, but imo that's a huge positive step.

One of the tools I've found very helpful in my journey (and Sam has taught me *so* much about myself!) is the bodhisattva ideal of loving compassion. If I was feeling angry, then I couldn't practice loving compassion. The key for me was figuring out how to access that ideal within difficult moments. Of course, as a parent, I love Sam and don't want to feel something so violent as anger towards him--my baby. Yet, in the moment, as we all know, that's easier forgotten sometimes than done. I guess the round about point is that by working on the anger within me, the only place where I could really change, I found that the anger outside of myself dissolved a bit, too. Time, maturity, and seeing me as a source of loving compassion have all made a tremendous difference for Sam in his own journey. Here's something I wrote a little while back, and it speaks to someone else's issues, but it sums up what I'm trying to talk about here, too, in terms of anger:

"Supporting Sam in his intensity isn't about letting him pummel anyone; it's about seeing the pain and suffering that drive his need to lash out and knowing that when he can access better tools, he will. Until then, however, he needs me to love him and trust him and help him when his emotions threaten to overwhelm him.

If you don't embrace or accept her anger, where is it going to go?

You can't change her—you can only work with her or against her. You cannot change the wind or the mountain, but you can learn to appreciate them for what they offer. You can choose between loving compassion or disapproving judgment—which do you think will help your daughter more in her growth as a compassionate person?

If she has no one to love her and help her when she's angry, how will she see her way out of it? How will she feel safe enough to begin to let the anger flow through her and out of her body without hurting others if it only makes her feel alone, scared, ashamed and guilty when she feels it? Anger is an isolating emotion; it is an emotion born out of helplessness and frustration. If parents add to the isolation, helplessness and frustration, then they are feeding the anger, too. Loving compassion, however, has the power to defuse anger because loving compassion removes the fuel that isolation, helplessness and frustration provide."

I've found it helpful to think in terms of the ways I might be inadvertently feeding the anger as well--not just in terms of autonomy, but also in terms of my attitude and thoughts and body language surrounding the anger itself.

Written in February 2007 on the Always Unschooled e-list:

Just wondering what makes a child "sparkly"... I sometimes wonder if my dd is. I was thinking though, that if I have to ask: she isn't . LOL But I was curious. Yeah, probably. People's definitions of "sparkly" or "spirited" are individual, obviously.

Sam has what I call an "internal autonomy meter," which others might view as "contrary." Even when he likes something, if it comes from outside himself, he resists it completely and totally with his whole being. He's extremely intense emotionally—going from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye. He can be intensely happy then intensely angry the next moment, and it's not at all unusual for him to go directly from "This is my best day ever!" to "This is my worst day ever!" and back again to the point where it can get really exhausting to be around that emotional intensity.

Sam has been Sam since before he was born! Although he was premature, he's always had an amazing body awareness, so Sam was the child that when I'd bend down to help Em with her rollerskate buckle at the park, by the time I'd look up again, Sam would have his scooter off the scooter path and up at the highest point of the climber. We learned that Sam was mobile before he could crawl because when I came back into the living room from getting one of the girls a sippy cup, he'd rolled all the way across the room and was chewing on the Christmas tree lights. When Sam was just learning to walk, he was already an avid climber, and I'd frequently turn around to find him perched precariously somewhere like on top of the woodstove or the kitchen table. Once, I turned around while making dinner to find him midway up the refrigerator shelves, tossing raw eggs down onto the floor to watch how they splat. He's the kid who will immediately take his bike to the top of the mulch pile, though great credit goes to his developing trust in me not to thwart him because he did wait and agree to put a helmet on first.

Sam has little veins that bulge out like crazy on his neck when he's mad or excited—it's a little scary. We were once sent to the ER by my ped on a Sunday because he spikes really high fevers when he's sick, and he had a little purple spots all over his face and neck that were really hard to describe over the phone. Erring on the side of caution, our ped sent us to have it looked at in order to make sure it wasn't meningitis. Turns out, they were little burst capillaries from one of his rages. :-/

Sam is highly sensitive—he feels things more acutely than lots of people, and he gets overloaded by too much sensory input. Between about 6 mos. and 2.5 years of age, he needed a perfectly quiet, perfectly dark room to sleep. He requires very particular articles of clothing and needs them in a certain way or it makes him crazy. If he gets too hot or too cold, he loses control. He loves to play with water or paint or mud, but he has a sensory threshold that once crossed, whoa! Once he decides it's too much, he needs to be clean NOW (which has always been kind of a double-edged sensory sword for him—at first the activity is really soothing and reorganizing, but when there's not a tub around instantly, he freaks.)

It's kinda hard to put into words what makes Sam Sam. He literally climbs and bounces off walls—dh used to joke about why I was feeding the boy crack. (He has kind of a sick sense of humor.) Sam can be like one of those little cartoon characters that drinks the potion and then whizzes around the room like a pinball, ricocheting off everything in sight.

Written in January 2007 on the Always Unschooled e-list:

It could certainly be a food sensitivity issue, and Doris Rapp's book Is This Your Child? is really helpful in terms of considering either food or environmental sensitivities.

The biggest tool I can suggest, however, is something I just brought up in a different thread: do an autonomy inventory. For several days or even a month, spend time observing and thinking carefully about all the ways your guy is disempowered in his life. Look at *all* the "have-to's," the "can'ts," the "won'ts," the "not right now's." Look at all the things he can't do for himself whether he *wants* to do them or not. What can he not reach, see, do and why?

This is where to start. Intense kids, at least my intense guy and others I've seen and heard about, have what I've always called an "internal autonomy meter." They feel *very* acutely all the minor injustices of life and resent *deeply* outside attempts at control.

Intense kids, too, tend to have lower frustration thresholds and difficulty with transition and integrating reality that doesn't fit their expectations. So, if parents can minimize the number of times a day, a week, even a month that these kids use up their resources, then they are better able to find successful ways of dealing with frustration, transition and thwarted expectations. If, otoh, they're having to deal with those things several times a day or week (and lots of times when parents look carefully, they'll see it's more like several times an *hour*), then they're not going to have the resources to discover and learn to use more successful tools. Basically, they're just walking around frustrated at the whole world, like a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off, and everyone around them feels like they're walking on egg shells.

Are intense reactions "just" part of being an intense person? Sure, to a large extent, and we shouldn't expect anything to be a magic fix. In fact, thinking in terms of "fixing" at all can be really detrimental to parenting these children who are who they are and need help loving themselves in all their intensity, need help seeing all the really amazing and positive aspects of their passionate intensity, need to feel our trust and faith that they will grow into amazing, passionate, intense people with a toolbox filled with coping strategies and so very much to offer this world.

Written in December 2006 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

Yes, I can understand that feeling of looking for an explanation as well as the desire to look for some kind of fix. I've found, though, that as long as I was looking for some kind of fix or overarching explanation, I wasn't seeing Sam. I wasn't seeing who he is in all his glory--I was only seeing one narrow part of him.

One of the things I did that was really helpful to counteract a food journal I was keeping that only focused on the negative was to keep a two sided journal of triggers and shiny moments. I was able to create a pretty good list of all the things that seemed to set Sam off, but also all the thing that made him feel good in himself. That helped me be better equipped to find solutions that might work for him.

"In order for Sam to be his best self, he requires nothing less than full autonomy." How do you manage to provide this? Even in our small family, there is often conflict over the how/when/where of day-to-day, nuts and bolts living. I am learning to let go of my need to control, my dh is somewhat further behind on that path (ha!), but dd? She often seems to have an overwhelming need to control everything within her sphere. She loves to tell us where to sit, where to stand, what to say (or not to say). I don't know how to respond to these demands. Discussion is NOT appreciated. In fact, anything other than immediate compliance leads to meltdowns. She also often seems to have an unwritten agenda and is hugely frustrated when we aren't getting with the program.

Ahhh, but autonomy is power over oneself not power over others. So, yes, there are still conflicts, which are opportunities for learning and growing. The trick is to be sure that you've really eliminated all the power struggles over autonomy. Sam often wishes he could control his sisters. Heck, his dad often wishes he could control those around him, too, yet he's had 30 more years to try to work on that.

Besides autonomy, creating an environment that lets the child be his/ her best self is really important as well, though I don't think that's the same thing as "immediate compliance" from other people. For Sam, one of the things he needed was lots of time and space to be home without having to go a bunch of places. Another thing he needed was lots of opportunities for water play and physical play, so he takes lots of tubs and plays in an exercise room we set up in the basement.

The unwritten agenda thing--I think intense kids often have expectations in their head and have a difficult time when reality doesn't match up with those expectations. Transitions are particularly difficult and this is another kind of transition, so keeping that in mind can help a parent be in a calmer, more validating space when these kinds of things happen.

I've been reading your spirited child page, and I have to say that I am a bit in awe. How do you maintain that loving calm while in the midst of the hail storm?

In large part from experience and practice. When he was little, I wasn't as good at it as I am now because I didn't get that for Sam this intensity is part of his process. I would engage his energy, feel frustrated when I couldn't help him, even take his emotions personally at times. I'd see that once he was through processing, he'd go on as if nothing ever happened, completely discharged and ready to deal with more sensory input, more learning curves and more frustration. I, on the other hand, felt like I'd been run over by a mack truck because I'd allowed all that energy to pour into my own psyche.

Seeing that his intensity in the moment was merely that--how he felt *in the moment* and not some kind of commentary on his life overall was a big step. Seeing, too, that he seems to go in cycles, which I've yet to figure out in terms of any external explanation other than they must coincide with some big internal learning leap. "This too shall pass" became one of my mantras.

I've found meditation and visualization to be really useful tools as well, enabling me to stay calm in the face of his intensity. I will literally sit down and be a mountain. I do this at home and I've done this on strip mall sidewalks. When he's ready, he will calm down and curl in my lap.

And the simple answer to that question is that I don't *always* stay calm. There have been times when I've met his intensity with my own, and that's a really clear lesson in futility, which makes it easier not to choose. Part of not making that choice, for me, is making sure that my own reserves are full--if I'm stretched too thin, then I have a harder time staying calm and focused. I've gotten to the point where I can handle most anything well except being really sick--that's kind of my final frontier.

It's not always easy to get past that picture you have in your head early on about what kind of parent you'll be or what kind of child you'll have. As uncomfortable as it is to admit it, I did have a period of mourning for the passing of my fantasy kid. It's important to let that fantasy go so you can see the beauty of the real child in your life. Although I truly don't want to "fix" dd, I do want her to be able to function in the world, make friends, find a partner, find and keep meaningful work, all of that. Her intensity can be a huge benefit to her, but it can also get in the way. Connecting with others is hard for her, and right now it's not presenting a problem because she doesn't have an overwhelming desire to connect. Given that, I think it's a good time to find tools for her to deal with the world without a ton of pressure involved. I want her to have a full tool box. That does NOT mean I want to turn her into some model citizen, blandy-bland vanilla version of herself. I just want her to have choices.

No it's not easy. I'd already had a lot of insight and practice at seeing children as individuals hardwired with different needs because I have two older children. My crippling thought besides trying to fix Sam was getting past the thought of how easy life was before Sam came along. That kind of thinking wasn't helpful for either of us. Sam has taught me so much about myself, about life, about love and compassion--my life would be a poor comparison without him.

Trust is the single most important aspect of unschooling, and unschooling saves these kids lives because of that trust. I trust that by meeting Sam where he is, by supporting him and loving him for all that he his, by helping him find tools to live with his intensity, that he will do all those things you mention. He will grow up full and happy in himself, which is what will enable him to function in the world, to find a partner and to follow his passion to meaningful work.

The foundation of all that, though, is the strong emotional core, which I don't think he can develop if his parents and those around him are all expecting him to be able to do all those other things before he's ready. As parents, of course we have hopes for our children, but letting go of expectations and stepping back to play a supportive role rather than a defining one is really important, imo, for a child to find his/ her own path in life.

Written in October 2006 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

I think the more flexible, the better, personally.

What works for us is a bed--a soft space, where Sam can release and I can be calmly available. He can pretty quickly and efficiently move through his intense emotions, which tends to be a multi-stage process for him.

First stage--intense rage. At this point, I am the mountain. I say nothing, I think nothing but calm, solid, mountain thoughts.

Second stage--still angry and upset, but becomes more rational and ready to interact. This is the validation stage, where he's ready to hear my voice, let in validating words and allow me to touch him, rub his back, whatever. (There's sometimes a transition stage between the first and second stage where singing his song can help--but that's a tricky thing to gage and totally dependent upon what the upset was, whether injustice or frustration.)

Final stage--comfort stage. He's ready to crawl into my lap, be cuddled and discuss options for reintegrating--possible negotiation strategies, solutions or just releasing the issue altogether.

We've gotten really streamlined. ;)

The other crucial aspect of a safe space is quiet with no sensory input--a kind of shutting out the world thing. That's why the van works so great for Sam. Once the doors close, it's like he breathes a sigh of relief. His whole body relaxes. Then, he and his dad just hang out and play gameboy together, and the world's a beautiful place again.

I can make light of it, but I just want to take a moment and say how intense and, at times, intensely difficult this kind of life is. My heart aches for Sam when he's hitting himself in the head, saying something like, "I don't know what's wrong with me! I just don't know! I can't figure out what my body is telling me!" like he was last night at dinner. We were able to go back to my room, and he calmed down quickly enough for us to go back to the dinner table, and my pasta was still warm, not hot, but warm. Last night was one of those nights where I could sing, and it helped a lot because it was an internal angst without an external stimulus, so my voice soothed rather than rankled.

*sigh*

In part, I believe that food triggers a lot of this difficulty, but we're not in a space right now where we're able to figure it out. Sam also tends to go in cycles, and he's in a cycle right now where he just doesn't know what he wants--he knows his body is hungry, but no food appeals to him; he knows his body needs to move around and release, but it's too cold outside and nothing downstairs is fun. He's in a space where nothing feels quite right for him--a stage of really uncomfortable transition that I can do little to help with other than to support and validate and honor how difficult it is for him to feel that way and help him the minute he figures out something that might work as a solution.

Written in July 2006 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

yes they are. You nailed it right on the head. I think I have not given enough informationabout crossing the line. Or maybe I am doing it at the wrong times.

Perhaps think about timing, but also think about what "crossing the line" means and how he's to discern that. That's a really individual issue, so rather than hard and fast rules, the cues from the other person are what need to be noticed and followed to determine where the line is, imo. I think some kids are better than others at picking up on these kinds of cues, and we can try to help kids see these more readily. Having a specific phrase has really helped us to avoid the whole going so far overboard that feelings are really hurt.

I'd also suggest looking carefully at your own expectations. How often are they having conflict? Are you expecting conflict never to happen or are you being realistic in your perceptions? I think sometimes it's easy to wish siblings always got along, but that's just not a reasonable expectation, imo. As you pointed out, focusing on the positive rather than the negative can go a really long way. Obviously, too, pinpointing what kinds of situations seem to cause stress can help reveal preventative solutions for next time. If, for instance, late night or dinner time presents a problem, then you can find ways to keep things more quiet or more separate may help.

About me not being able to be the mountain. I will be right there in between the 2 of them, and they just kind of lock horns. They are saying things to each other that they don't mean. And then dd will say something to set ds off and he will kind of rahhhh and go at her but not hit her (now that I am really thinking about it, he has not physically hit her or me in awhile, and when he has i can see in his face the sorrow, so i know he has come along way with what to do, maybe we are just at another part of him understanding emotions, hmmmmm) So while they are arguing and I am between them I can't get a word in, I can't do anything. They don't see me at all, they will make faces at each other (in anger) and just flat out be mean to each other. I just feel very stuck and maybe I need to explore more out of the box ideas (i guess that is why i came here :)

In my experience, this kind of thing can't work in the original space. Sam needs to be away from the original sensory input and conflict situation if he's to begin calming, which can be very tricky. If the conflict were between two siblings and Sam was spiraling, there's no way I'd sit down and try this in between them while they were still able to go at each other.

We talk about getting to a "safe space" where anger can be released without causing harm to anyone, including himself. We talk about the best way for me to help him get there, what he would like me to do or not do, and then I follow through with that in intense moments, reminding him that it's what we agreed upon. Then, once he's calm again, I'll say he seemed unhappy in the moment with the solution and ask whether he'd like to find a different one for next time. I'd like to point out, too, that Sam's intensity can be really over the top to the point where I wouldn't want people hearing some of the things he screams, and we've talked about that a couple times, too, in a way that I hoped wasn't fear-inducing but more matter-of-fact certain things we don't say in public because....

I think this is where I get stuck too, because apart of me just wants to enjoy the calm moments without bringing up the hurtful ones. So *I* need to work through this, so that everyone can feel safe in our house. I need to press it more, so that ds knows that it has to stop.

We'll often talk about these things in the aftermath, once his strong emotions have been spent, not in really happy moments when I bring it up out of the blue, kwim? One of the nice things about using a bedroom as a safe space is that afterwards we often cuddle on the bed together, and we're able to talk about some of the issues. I can ask how I might help him the next time, what he could do differently next time, etc. The other time I might bring something up is when we're both laying down to sleep, and we can pillow talk about the issue if it's not too late.

Written in July 2006 on the Shine list:

I'm reading backwards and haven't gotten to the OP yet, but wanted to comment on this point...

It *is* so hard, I know. I know.

The visualization (and I apologize if you read this already over on AU) is myself as a mountain--strong and solid and calm, which has been really helpful both to me and to Sam in moments of intensity.

Sam can go from "this is the worst day of my life" to "this is the best day of my life" in about 60 seconds flat, and being very sensitive myself, I had a tremendously difficult time (as many here are familiar with my journey) not going on that emotionally roller coaster with him. The mountain visualization has really helped. "Breathing in, I am a mountain; breathing out I am solid/ strong/ calm."

I also shared with Sam in a calmer moment my sadness at hearing him say things like he hates his life because I work so hard to create a joyful home. I tried very hard to talk about this with him in an open and non-burdening way, and asked if he felt that way in the moment because he was so angry or so frustrated or whether he felt that way a lot. Having this conversation really helped us both to connect more deeply because he was able to articulate and to see that this was how he was feeling in intense moments but it was not a Truth for his life. It was an expression of the intensity inside him, and for us both to see and understand the difference has made moving through those intense moments easier for us both. He sees that they are momentary and will, indeed, pass while I can see that it's momentary and not a commentary on his life.

It's still really hard when he hits himself, and I've taken a page out of Anne's book and asked him not to hurt my son because I love him very much. That does seem to help defuse the hitting and make him feel loved even in the midst of his intensity. Another thing I often say is "you are loved--every moment of every day, you are loved." That's a saying that he adores and will often say to me as well, as he lovingly caresses my cheek.

Written in March 2006 in response to the following post on the AlwaysUnschooled e-list: I originally wrote: "If instead, I focus on supporting him in his intensity, loving him through his intensity, then we're back on the same page, back to being partners working together."

Poster: "Something that I've been thinking about since you originally posted the idea of loving children for who they are, the good and the bad, is that I just don't know how to do that when dd1 is pummeling dd2. I know dd2 is a very, very passionate person about everything in her life. I try and respect this passion, but not if it is hurting others. I don't know how to embrace or accept her anger, maybe because my family hid anger and you were punished for expressing it."

I can hear your pain through your words, but so, too, can I feel your daughter's pain. (deep sigh)

Supporting Sam in his intensity isn't about letting him pummel anyone; it's about seeing the pain and suffering that drive his need to lash out and knowing that when he can access better tools, he will. Until then, however, he needs me to love him and trust him and help him when his emotions threaten to overwhelm him.

If you don't embrace or accept her anger, where is it going to go?

You can't change her—you can only work with her or against her. You cannot change the wind or the mountain, but you can learn to appreciate them for what they offer. You can choose between loving compassion or disapproving judgment—which do you think will help your daughter more in her growth as a compassionate person?

If she has no one to love her and help her when she's angry, how will she see her way out of it? How will she feel safe enough to begin to let the anger flow through her and out of her body without hurting others if it only makes her feel alone, scared, ashamed and guilty when she feels it? Anger is an isolating emotion; it is an emotion born out of helplessness and frustration. If parents add to the isolation, helplessness and frustration, then they are feeding the anger, too. Loving compassion, however, has the power to defuse anger because loving compassion removes the fuel that isolation, helplessness and frustration provide.

I believe that only by learning to love Sam wholly and compassionately even in his anger have I been able to be the parent he needs me to be. Just yesterday, he got very angry—I can't even remember over what—and began screaming. "Everybody hates me! Everybody just wants me to be miserable and die!" This boy has intensity that's overwhelming, but in the midst of it all, even he began to temper it, he took a small step in refusing to feed the anger and said, in a much smaller voice, "Except for you mostly, mama, only you mostly be kind to me."

Of course, none of that is "true"—no one in this family wants him to be miserable; quite the opposite, in fact. His sisters are quite kind and compassionate with him. He just gets overwhelmed by life sometimes more than other people. But, he *feels* this anger and helplessness deeply—and that's really what matters—that, and the fact that he sees *me* as a way out of the anger, as an anchor and source of love even in the midst of that incredibly overwhelming emotion.

Sam can be exhausting to parent. Plain and simple. It's not easy—it's damned hard, in fact. But, he *needs* me to parent him and to be there for him *especially* when he's overwhelming and exhausting.

At times, I've worried about the messages I'm sending to the girls when I spend so much time with Sam, and it's really important to me that they *know* they are loved just as much and that it hurts me when they are hurting—even more so when it's another one of my children who's hurting them. We spend important moments talking about it, too. Jules is *crushed* by Sam's intensity; she just cannot stand screaming or confrontation or high emotion—it physically pains her. That can be *really* hard, and wow, to have them in the same household. Whew!

There are times, like yesterday, when I just hug her tightly and say over and over again, "You are loved. It's not you. You are loved."

There aren't really any answers; there is only life and love. When love is expansive, I believe it can hold all things and heal all things. I've come to see the messages I'm sending to my children are about loving deeply and compassionately. I've also seen Sam take small steps each day as he gets older, and I trust that he is an amazing person in all his intensity—he's just a little person very new to this world and trying the best he can to handle very strong emotions and learn to use them.

Written in February 2006 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

I'm thinking this is just him experiencing being normal PLUS, again.... This is kinda reminding me of when he was having night terrors and how he was obviously feeling more than he could communicate to me and I just didn't know what to do to help him through it. We ended up putting "an upbeat talk about what we wanted to dream about" into our bedtime routine just as we are dozing off. I'm thinking this is part of that toddler thing of imposing their will upon the world and seeing how the world responds. :sigh:

Didn't your kiddos just have the tooth surgery? I went back to the archive to find your update, and I saw that Quin's was the easier of the two. But, it could still in some ways be a delayed reaction and working through of some issues surrounding all of that.

He may simply be at a stage where he's trying to come to terms with the things that can be controlled and changed in the world and those that can't. That's a really hard concept to grasp, especially for some of us who tend to need more control in our lives. ;)

I posted not long ago about Sam raging outside on the trampoline because it was cold out. He didn't want me to get him shoes and a jacket, he didn't want me to carry him back inside, he just wanted the warm weather we'd enjoyed back again.

I've also posted about going through certain check lists and once I've checked everything off assuring there's nothing I can do, I just sit back and *honor* Sam's *process*. Sometimes there's just a kind of grieving process in letting go of ideas, and I feel it's important to validate and honor that process. When I try to fight it or change it, I just end up prolonging the whole thing rather than allowing Sam to move through it.

I don't ignore him in these moments, but I stop fussing around him, too--and by fussing I mean trying to fix and offer solutions or saying too much. Sometimes, I simply sit down and breathe or wait close by or just lay quietly next to him. This seems to be *exactly* what he needs in those moments because he moves through the grief/ rage/ frustration so much more quickly and shortly initiates the nurturing and communicating stage on his own. *Then* he's ready to talk about it and consider alternatives and let go of his original ideas, but only then.

Saying something like, "You *wish* blah, blah, blah" that I think Su mentioned? makes this kind of thing even worse--btdt. And, if we stop and think about it, how many of us would really want to hear that? It sounds really condescending and feels invalidating at the same time. I usually try something much more non-committal like, "You think so, huh? Interesting." Typing it though, it sure looks just as invalidating, but somehow leaving it open as his best theory and not imposing my perspective on it whenever possible seems to help head off some of these issues.

Age, too, I think helps. It seems that the older Sam gets, the more flexible he's able to be and the less often he rages when what's in his head doesn't coincide with reality.

When Sam was really little, there were absolutely *no* do-overs with him. If I didn't get things right the first time, that was my only chance. Dh and I used to joke about it amongst ourselves with the movie line, "It's already out there. You can't take it back if it's already out there." That was really hard and frustrating for all of us--for Sam no less than us. Language acquisition helps a lot, too, though that process can be rather painful as well. I remember saying many times as my mantra, "I know it's really frustrating when I don't understand you. Can you say it again for me just one more time because I really *want* to understand?"

The best words of wisdom I have are to be close, be quiet, be calm, be a soothing presence--it's really Zen like--be the rock, be the mountain, grasshopper.

Written in January 2006 on the AlwaysUnschooled list:

I wanted to talk a little bit about helping kids find coping strategies and solutions...

Sam has had two rough periods this morning. First, he was upset because Emily announced she was going to go play a game on her computer (a Mac, which has different games than the PC). He decided he wanted to play that particular game at that particular time and asked if he could play instead. Em said no. I suggested he ask if he could play when she was all done, but he'd already begun spiraling.

I quickly crossed over to where he was, got down to his height and rubbed his back as the girls went downstairs (running a buffer). He let me hug him. I picked him up and carried him back to his bed where he continued to scream at the top of his lungs how much he hates Em, how he loves everybody else in the family but not Em, on and on, hurling these words in his rage.

I stayed close by, listened, validated by placing just a couple slight rephrasings along the lines of "you really hate it when Em says no". Basically just stayed there to support him as he vented because I've learned that he just needs to be angry and release it. Once it's released, he's done.

He went downstairs with the girls and played happily for about an hour.

Em came upstairs to play in her room. Sam and Jules came up shortly to ask her to help them get to the next level on this marble game, but she was in the middle of something and didn't want to help. I'm useless in such situations—the kids help *me* play games. Sam started missing his dad, who is the game guru. I helped him call dh on my cell phone, but there was no answer. Sam began to melt again, kicking and screaming. I listened, loved and validated and when I saw an opening, I offered to run him a tub and sweetened the deal with the offer of a candle.

We have some Aveeno lavender stress-relieving bubbles that we use, so that's one of our coping strategies. Sam begrudgingly said he didn't want just one candle. Okay, lets find some more. Maybe 4 or 5 is what he said, and we became partners tracking down the votives. I lit them as he climbed happily into the tub. I gave him some time to himself with the lights off and 4 candles glowing—one on the edge of the tub and the rest up on the counter. When I came back in, he was happily squirting the candle next to him with the spray bottle. He told me how it went out, what sound it made, showed me how cool the water was, felt that the wax was still soft but not hot. Happy as a clam.

He's now dressed, happily playing on his computer again after asking if the girls wanted to get in his tub. Now, the girls are playing Bratz in the tub by candlelight, and I'm off to make a snack plate to take down to Sam—at least ensuring that food is not a problem.

Helping him create a checklist of strategies—calming activities, safe places to vent, ways to ensure his body's needs are being met—all in a loving and supportive environment: that's my job. No, he's not happy 100% of the time, but he is safe and loved and respected 100% of the time.

Written in August 2005 in response to the following post on the AlwaysUnschooled e-list: "I am finding myself more and more at a loss on how to deal with my daughter and I would like some advice. DD is 3, and a very violent child. She hits, pinches, kicks, pulls hair, and sits on her sisters, ages 9, 6, and 18 months, and me. The older two usually end up coming to me crying because they know better than to hit back. When dd doesn't get what she wants, her first recourse is to hit and shriek at the top of her voice. I try to talk to her and she shrieks some more. Her response is the same whether I have asked her to not snatch the toy from her sister or said she can lick the bowl *after* I'm done cooking with it or her sisters don't want to play with her because she has been disruptive or destructive while they were trying to play."

It sounds like your dd's environment is greatly attributing to her discomfort and need to lash out. Why is she alone with her sisters? Kids who tend towards explosiveness really need a parent constantly available when they are with others; a parent can help interpret and intervene to help find solutions *before* the lashing out occurs, and finding ways for them to have quiet and room to move around without always having to negotiate with others can be really important.

My Sam needs *lots* of space, lots of attention, lots of opportunities to decompress and blow off steam. Much of his lashing out stems, I believe, from sensory overload and by being overly taxed with transitions or demands—going places, waiting, things like that. Minimizing that as much as possible is absolutely key. I no longer take the kids grocery shopping, for instance, finding that activity in particular is difficult for Sam with the fluorescent lights and constant sensory input.

Giving time with transitions and allowing the child to come to terms with the transition is absolutely crucial. A three year old is not going to remember what you had agreed upon earlier when she's in the moment. Find tools to help ease transitions for her; don't expect her to conform to everyone else.

I'm betting she feels she's not being heard. Her first recourse may be to hit and shriek because she doesn't trust that those around her are listening to her needs and dedicating themselves to helping her find ways to meet them. Once she develops this trust along with more verbal skills, she will have more patience and tools at her disposal. Make absolutely certain she doesn't *need* to shriek to make herself heard. This is particularly important for younger siblings who have more competition and are far more likely to be carted around meeting everyone else's needs.

Remember, there are many solutions to any need. Sam is sometimes more willing to entertain alternate solutions than other times, which largely depends upon how depleted his resources are at the moment. His resources can be taxed by lots of things over a period of time; checking back over the past two weeks to get a broad overview tends to be really helpful.

DD wants to lick the bowl while you're cooking. Say okay and try substituting a dollop in a different bowl to lick without waiting. Try transferring your contents to another bowl so she may have the original bowl she wanted. You can still finish and another child with more patience or distractions can have the joy of licking the new bowl. Lots of solutions. If you're still stuck on the one solution, then you're creating a power struggle between yourself and Lauren. She's 3, she's going to be stuck on her solution unless you can show her the Truth of other options.

"Sometimes when she is abusing her sisters, I ask her why she is hitting them. She answers, "I want to." I point out that her sister doesn't want to be hit, and she says "Yes, her do." I ask if she would like it if someone hit her, and she answers, "Yes," then cringes as if expecting to be hit. I don't ask her that in a snarky sort of way, but as a way to try to help her understand how her sisters feel."

Yes, but she *has* been hit in the past. It doesn't matter how you're saying it now; it sounds like a threat—a threat that you and dh have demonstrated you're willing to follow up on. Don't say that anymore. Find another way to get the information across. That's one of the reasons I choose to say "hitting hurts"—a logical follow up to that is that people don't want to feel hurt, people don't want to suffer.

"Another thing that I am struggling with is her running away. Today we were waiting at the clinic because she had to have blood drawn to test for lead. She was really having a hard time sitting still and there were absolutely no toys for her to play with. She was climbing on chairs, and crawling on the floor and running around. Our appointment was running late and we weren't called in until 15 minutes after our scheduled time. Dh was yelling at her stop running around and a security guard came up and said people were complaining. Dd took off down a corridor and I took off after her. She can move, so I sprinted down the hall to catch her. This was the second time today she had done that; the first was in the midst of a parking lot. She giggled when I caught her and I was so frustrated with her I stuffed her under my arm and strode back to the waiting area. She does this (running away) a lot whenever it is time to go somewhere, too."

Did she know why she was there? Did you prepare her before hand? Did she want/ agree to be there? That's a pretty intense thing to deal with; she needed lots of support.

If you have a child who has difficulty waiting places and has difficulty expressing displeasure without using violence, then you need to be sure that she is not in these kinds of situations. That is part of your responsibility as her parent—to help her be in places that allow her to be the best Self she can be. If she is constantly put in situations that tax her resources, she will react. Bring food where ever you go; bring toys and things to interest her where ever you go. Don't expect the environment where you are going to be conducive to dd's needs; instead, find a way to bring the things she needs to turn any environment into what she needs to be settled in herself. If that can't happen, then find ways for her to stay home.

15 minutes is not a very long time. What were you and dh doing to try to entertain her? What were you offering her in place of sitting still on a chair?

"I would like to get to the point where we are non-coercive, but for now, my goal is to find alternatives to spanking and screaming at her, which obviously have done a world of good thus far (read sarcastically). Can someone help me? How do I communicate with a screaming mouth in my face?"

The communication has to happen a thousand times a day, day in and day out, before the screaming mouth is in your face. Learn to read dd's needs and dd's cues, learn to make her environment conducive to meeting those needs 99.9% of the time, learn to read her cues and disarm them 99.9% of the time and be there to do that, learn the kinds of activities or strategies that help diffuse and disarm so that you have a *full* toolbox of non-coercive tools available to try. You need new tools to replace the old ones; start finding those tools as soon as possible. Anne Ohman talks about becoming a student of your child—do this so you may help your child be the expert on herself.

Here's a list of calming/ reorganizing activities Treegoddess posted a while ago. It's a good place to begin, but the expert is your dd. Go to the source and see what she naturally does to try to calm herself. It sounds like running is a good place to begin. And, please, remember that these are things to try *if* she wants to, not things to force her to do for her own good or because you think it will help.

All of these things I've talked about and some of the strategies below help tremendously, but there is *no* easy fix for intense children. I'm convinced that as long as parents continue to search for a *fix* rather than embracing their intense children for the amazing people they are and helping them to channel that intensity in non-destructive ways, parents do more harm than good. The best thing we can do is to become partners not adversaries, celebrating them every step of the way. Just as every child deserves and needs and can have with radical unschooling.

Calming Activities: Experiences that may help to relax the nervous system

• Stretches
• Deep pressure massage
• Slow rocking or swinging
• Fidget toys
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Quiet music with a steady beat
• Bear hugs
• Reduced noise and light levels
• Lavender, vanilla or other soothing smells
• Snuggling in a sleeping bag, large pillows or bean bag chair

Organizing Activities: Experiences that can help an individual become focused and attentive

• Sucking or chewing on hard candy or gum
• Adding rhythm to the activity
• Vibration-toy massager, vibrating pillow, wiggle pen
• Heavy work tasks to include hanging, pushing, pulling or carrying heavy objects
• Swinging on a swing or climbing
• Rhythmical sustained movement: marching, washing a table, or bouncing
• Rocking in a rocking chair
• "Squeezie" toys (koosh balls, balloons or rubber gloves filled with flour or cream, soft balls, gak, silly putty)
• Hanging by the arms on the monkey bars (20-30 seconds)
• Pushing/carrying heavy objects
• Carrying back packs weighted with books or bags of dried beans (this should only be worn for 15-20 minutes with an hour or two between)
• A reading corner with a bean bag chair makes a wonderful place for escape when there is too much stimulation. Some children may like the bean bag on top of them.
• Play dough
• Tactile Bins (cornmeal, oatmeal, water, sand, rice, beans)
• Kitchen time (mixing, tasting, smelling, washing up)
• Finger painting Some children also need extra sensory input in their mouths and hands in order to organize their behavior
• Drinking from a water bottle
• Chewing (you can use a straw, rubber tubing or coffee stir stick)

• Being brushed with a corn de-silking brush (in one direction approximately 10 times with pressure brush their arms, back (but not over the spine), legs (on the top, outer parts and underneath, avoid the inner thigh area), top of the feet and the hands)
• Sucking on hard candy, frozen fruit bar, or spoonful of peanut butter or marshmallow fluff
• Licorice tug-of-war, blow pin wheels or various types of blow toys, bubbles and whistles
• Pushing against walls with the hands, shoulders, back, buttocks and head
• Cuddling or back rubbing
• Taking a bath
• Being rolled tightly like a hot dog in a blanket
• Being squished under a therapy ball, mat or couch cushion
• Tug-of-war
• Wheelbarrow walking, jumping games like hop scotch
• Crashing games-run and dive into boxes, bean bags and couch cushions
• Pulling a wagon, carrying a heavy book bag, digging in the yard or carrying groceries
• Sports such as wrestling and football
• Deep pressure (giving a massage) and joint compressions (holding above one joint and under one joint then doing a quick 10 repetitions of compressions, pushing and pulling)
• A mini trampoline
• A sockem bopper or whatever they call those weighted kid-sized things that spring back up after you knock them down, or a hanging heavy bag

Written in August 2005 in response to the following issue on the Shine e-list: "From what I've read in other posts of the "increase in aggression" thread, I think that I'm not doing a good job of validating his feelings—rather I'm trying to offer solutions. So I definitely need to work on validating his feelings and not offering solutions unless he asks for them. When he was telling me today that he was stupid for forgetting about wanting to go to the game store, rather than telling him he's not stupid and that everyone forgets things sometimes, I should've said that I could see he was really upset with himself for forgetting? Is that right? Anything else?"

It sounds like you're checking out all the really important and obvious triggers. I do the same thing and try to really verbalize them so Sam can begin to go through his own checklist when he's ready—it'll just automatically be there, kwim? I do that both with myself and with him, so it's not always about him. If I'm feeling really tight, I'll verbalize that and wonder aloud what I've eaten. If I'm feeling really tense, which sometimes happens when we're trying to get out the door, I will likely say to the kids once we're settled in the car, "Guys I really need to take some deep breaths right now because I'm feeling really frustrated. Can you give me a few minutes, please?"

If we're running into a sibling conflict, Sam has pretty much a two-solution limit, which can be tough because Julia is all about problem solving and keeping the peace. There are times when he can go longer, times when he screams at the first mention of an alternate solution. Just depends. I do find that validation before any proposed solutions helps a lot. With two older sisters, Sam can sometimes feel like he's just not being heard, which understandably leads to more frustration.

Validation, for me and the way I practice it, is all about empathy. So to negate someone's feelings by telling them "no you're not" is absolutely the wrong approach in my mind, though I do try to work the conversation around to "wow, you figure lots of things out, don't you?"--a slightly more subtle rejection of the original "I'm so stupid."

So, for instance, in your example, I probably would've have said something along the lines of, "Oh man, and you really wanted to go! You really wanted to get that new game (or whatever)!" Then, kind of thinking aloud to myself, "We were going to go after lunch but then we got caught up in doing x." Assuming the store was closed by the time he realized, I would say, "hmmm...they're already closed, but I think they open tomorrow at 9. Could we go then before we get in the middle of something else?" That's the solution—he may or may not be ready to move into solution mode, and I would very carefully gage his reaction to the initial validation to see if he were ready to move onto that. If not, I would continue by asking him about the game and what he was going to do with it if he felt like talking about it some more. If he just felt like emoting, I'd keep quiet and let him do that before moving into the let's imagine it phase.

Let's see, writing the above, I see that I have kind of a pattern of responses based on my guy's needs in the particular moment: 1) validation—verbalizing what he's feeling, trying to connect over the valid nature of that feeling through empathy 2) imagination—imagining the way he wishes things were, allowing him to mourn, in a way, the loss of that image in his mind 3) solution—finding a way to meet his need I think many times Sam absolutely must go through that mourning stage—which is part of what I see the rage as, that cathartic release—before he can be ready to problem solve.

Written in August 2005 in response to the following issue on the AlwaysUnschooled e-list: "While reading what I wrote here ds said "I try not to get angry but I can't *control* it". I have wondered over the years sometimes if he enjoyed his anger but I couldn't comprehend how then and so didn't think to much about it. I have to admit when ds actually did say he did like his angry feelings it stumped me for a bit. He seemed just as surprised that I don't remember ever liking the powerful angry feelings. As long as *I* can remember I've always thought of anger as a negative things people have and 'control'. I've read about letting anger flow over you or other ideas but I think I was still thinking of the flow, ect. as learning to 'control' it."

I think for Sam anger is a default emotion in part because it makes him feel powerful and the anger generally arises because he's *not* feeling powerful. So, Sam's need, as I see it, is to feel powerful in the face of powerlessness.

My goal has been to help minimize the number of times in a day when he feels powerless, which is not easy with a perfectionist youngest child. :-/ Every time a sibling can do something he can't or do something "better," every time he loses in a computer game, every time reality doesn't match what's in his mind. Of course, these remaining moments are, imo, still really important because they provide him with valuable opportunities to work through his intense emotions with lots of reserve resources that haven't been taxed by useless rules. So, it's all good.

Another goal has been to help him get to a safe place to express the anger. Raging for him is cathartic in the same way someone else might just need a "good cry." What we try to convey is that having a cathartic rage (and I've been known to let go a couple primal screams myself) can be done somewhere and in such a way that we don't hurt people or things, where we don't do things in the context of the rage that we later wish we had not done. The problem, as I see it, is when we do something we wish we hadn't, that damages our emotional core, fueling a kind of self-loathing that, in turn, fuels more angry episodes as a way of feeling powerful. It becomes a negative cycle. If, instead, we can get ourselves to a safe place where we can scream and let it all out without hurting others, we move through the rage and beyond it without it necessarily fueling subsequent rages because it's another reason to feel bad about ourselves.

The catch is that if one is raging in order to feel powerful, then removing an object of that rage reduces the momentary feeling of power. That has been the real struggle—finding ways that he can feel powerful that don't require an object for his rage. Finding a way to have the catharsis without the object, if that makes any sense. That remains our biggest issue.

Written in August 2005 in response to the following issue on the AlwaysUnschooled e-list: "Actually, does anyone have any strategies that help when a child gets an idea in his head and just can't let it go, no matter how much validating is done?"

Well, the obvious answer is to ask whether I've *really* done everything I can to help him get to that idea. Are there any other ways to get to that idea? How creative is he willing to be? Unfortunately, often he's only willing to be creative and think about it *after* he's raged. It's almost like the rage is equivalent to grief in letting go of the original idea. It's very cathartic for him, very draining for me. I find my own meditation helps fill me up and give me the patience and loving kindness I need to parent Sam.

For instance, Sam really wants to build a robot, but the first time he wanted to do that, he wanted to do it on a grand scale, right then. He was not interested in listening to building a robot out of legos; he wanted to get started building a robot right then. He wasn't interested in listening to me say that I didn't know much about how to build robots but that daddy would be a really great person to talk to about it. He didn't want to look at robot pictures on the internet to learn more about it, draw robot pictures or call daddy to talk about how to get started building a robot, and each suggestion sent him further along. Yet, once he'd raged a bit about the injustice of not getting to build a robot right then and my inability to help him get there, he was sweetly able to talk about all those options and pursue a couple of them.

Sam has about a two suggestion limit before he starts to get mad. This can be very difficult in terms of going through the problem solving process, and I'll sometimes have to remind Julia, who always wants to fix things and keep people happy, to tone down her suggestions a bit.

Somebody brought up the idea of "justice," and this is *huge* for Sam. Unfortunately, much of what he perceives as injustice has to do with things that are developmental and cannot be changed. He'll be having fun with his sisters as we're drawing, playing games, whatever, and the minute one of them is able to do something he cannot, he spirals into "I can't do anything, I'm so stupid..." He doesn't want help, he doesn't want handicapped rules—he sees all that and despises it. He wants to be able to do everything they can do, exactly when they can do it.

That's why I say these kids need as much autonomy and control over their lives as possible because life has enough natural limitations without overlaying artificial parental limitations. The kinds of things Sam rages over are the kinds of things I cannot change like making grand ideas happen immediately, being developmentally behind his sisters (even though he's physically very advanced despite being a month premature), and not getting something on his gameboy or a computer game.

Very once in a while he rages because I'm taking care of someone else's needs, and that's always tough. Just the other night, he had a minor meltdown over his gameboy, I think, and I was in his room with him, just rubbing the hair back off his forehead and blowing on it to cool him down, which he likes me to do. As he began to calm down, I reminded him that I'd found the book Each Breath a Smile earlier that day (we just moved for those who don't know) and that I'd be happy to read it to help him find his breathing again. I began reading it and he's flopping around every once in a while, letting out a "But I caaaan't do that!" I paused and asked him why not, but he didn't know and seemed rather agitated by the question, so asked if he wanted me to keep reading. He did. He continued to flop around a bit during the reading and I'd ask if he wanted me to be reading it, and he'd say yes. At any rate, he felt better by the end of the book, ready to go face the world again. This was probably his 4th or 5th meltdown that day, which had prompted me to really dig for the book during the day.

Julia goes to bed earliest—she's happy to brush her teeth, have a story from Papa and her song from me and close her eyes at around 9:30 or 10:00, generally speaking. Well, all the kids are having emotional adjustments to the move, not just Sam, which is to be expected. One of the things Julia had been looking forward to was getting a kitten. We had asked to wait until we'd gotten most of the painting done, to which she agreed, but she decided she didn't want to wait until the kitchen was all put together. I backed off because it is so important to her and she's always the one to give something up or go without for those around her, and I try to make sure she doesn't *always* have to do that, kwim?

So, we went this weekend to pick out her kitten at the adoption day, and I'd called ahead and made the process really clear to Jules so she didn't expect that we'd be coming home with a kitten that day. She picked one out, we made sure to take pictures that we could print out, and we came home. The interview counselor was really nice, as was the foster family, especially the 10yo or so little girl who talked to Jules about the kitten. Sorry—long story. At any rate, Jules was tired and was crying because she really wanted her kitten now, and I was spending time with her when Sam barged into the room. We asked him to please wait because we were having some private time and I would be there in a minute. He launched into the whole "You never give me any private time, yadda, yadda." I briefly tried to point out that I'd been in his room with him reading a book, but that's not what he wanted to hear. Jules didn't feel ready to let me go even if I were to come back. I stayed with her until I'd sung her song and tucked her in.

It's very hard to feel split in two, and Sam definitely gets the lion's share of my time and energy. I'm grateful that the girls have each other, but I try to listen and honor when they do need me and to do little things to let them know how important they are. Most of the time we do pretty well and we have a really wonderful, peaceful, joy-filled life. Just last night, we ordered in pizza because I'd been working hard all day trying to get the house ready for the carpet installers to come this morning, and we still had all the carpet to rip up. Sam was gracious enough and quite pleased to lend us some cash, trilling "Mama's in debt to me!" When the pizza came, we made a point to thank him again, and he was so pleased with himself. He then came up with a game for us to play, a variation of "What animal am I?" that we've played for years. He kept changing the rules as we progressed through different levels. The first level was making the noise. The second level was a verbal riddle. The third level was charades only using hands. Then we had to use our hair for one level. It was hysterical and he was having so much fun. He shines quite brightly and rages just as hard—intense. Just like his mama.

Written in August 2005 in response to the following issue on the Shine e-list: "Well, recently and especially tonight, I'm really struggling with an increase in aggression with ds(who for anyone who doesn't know, is inflexible-explosive and has periods of many many good months and then some more challenging ones)...lately even when I am just "being" there during one of his frustration rages and saying nothing he'll come after me and try to kick or hit me. If I move away, he follows me (used to be he just needed his space) to try to hit me more. If I try to hold his hands so he can't hurt me, he gets crazy and kicks and bites me."

Big, huge, giant (((((HUGS))))) out to you because I so know how heart-wrenching this is. There are times when I feel so sad and defeated because I work so hard to create a free, loving, joyful environment for my children and I need for that to be recognized and validated and, quite frankly, to work! The need inside me is to have my efforts actually produce free, loving, joyful children. That's a pretty big burden I place on my kids I'm coming to realize—Sam in particular.

Sam needs to release, which he does through raging. He also needs to feel powerful in the face of powerlessness—rage seems to do that for him. Being highly sensitive myself, I can both totally understand the catharsis involved in a primal scream and explosion and totally feel crushed and crumpled being on the other end of that catharsis.

Sam, too, has been having a really hard time these past several (maybe 6?) weeks, though his rage for the first time is turning inward at himself—punching himself, saying he hates himself, wishes he'd never been born. Ugh, so many totally heart-wrenching things that are, in many ways, far more difficult for me to deal with emotionally than the outwardly directed rage which I can dismiss as so much mental debris (like Greene talks about).

At any rate, when Sam was really coming at me, I got to the point where I would walk away out of self-preservation, leaving the room while telling him that I wanted to help him but I couldn't let myself be hurt. I'd tell him very specifically where I'd be when he felt ready to have me with him or have my help. That was very hard, but I began to realize that my presence, my energy, was making it *harder* for him to move through the rage. Even though part of him was scared to be left alone, my presence was exacerbating rather than calming. I think just knowing where I was and that I was *immediately* available was enough.

But, that doesn't address the following you part. Yes, Sam does that every once in a while; thankfully, not very often. I have, personally, always had a problem with closing myself in anywhere—part of that is my concern about other children as you point out, part of it, too, however is a feeling that it does more psychological damage than the approach I've chosen. *sigh* None of this is ideal; none of it.

I don't hold Sam's arms, period. Holding him gives him something to fight against and it doesn't work; it escalates. When I'm removing him from a common space, I hold him long enough to get him to his room or my room, some place soft and quiet and safe, and that is it. I immediately let him go so he may have freedom of movement. I think this is really important.

Okay, all that said, what I do when he insists upon following me and none of the other, preferable, options are working is to push down firmly on each of his shoulders so he goes into a sit. I don't hold him there; I just get him there and step back a few paces. From that position, he cannot hit, kick or head butt without first getting back up and coming towards me again. As I do this, I say very clearly, calmly but firmly, "This is force. I don't want to choose force." Plain and simple. When we've gotten to this point, it takes two or three "sits" before he stops coming at me.

As I said, this is not anywhere near an ideal—the is a last-instance kind of thing. I don't know if it will work for you and Nicky. I don't know that it can be said to "work" for me and Sam. It is what it is. It's not the way I would choose to solve the problem, and I try to emphasize that. I try to keep the emphasis on "choice." When he's calm, we can talk about other choices we could make at the time, other ways to solve the problem.

I just asked Sam what he feels and if he could help your ds in anyway, and the things he offered are the kinds of tools we work to use (and I'm sure you do) but that fail in the moment or become somehow inaccessible: he could try deep breaths, he could go to his room, he could say sorry, he could do something nice for you that kind of thing. They are tools to use before the rage or what he tries to make amends after the rage; he couldn't, in fact, remember what we've done in the midst of a rage or articulate what he would like to have done in that moment. I just don't think the rational part of the brain is accessible in those moments—he doesn't remember really.

No words of wisdom, surely. Just loving compassion coming your way.

Written as part of a follow-up discussion to the original post: "I know that my own HS child and I would be completely HUMILIATED and at the same time OUTRAGED with someone trying to hold us and contain us ~ whether or not there was just cause, it feels like something HUGE that would hurt our spirits deeply. Clarifying that I'm in no way judging those who DO this, as I completely understand...I really was just trying to give the *receiver's* perspective of it."

Well, for me it's deeply personal, as I would feel humiliated and angry and like I needed to fight back—and Sam, I think, gets many of these traits from me. I don't want to say that no one should ever hold anyone's arms because I don't know what anyone else's situation is, kwim? For us, it simply does not work.

For me, it was very hard to realize that my presence was not necessarily the best thing—this is the same thing I had to realize when Sam was an infant and needed to sleep alone in perfect quiet and darkness rather than being with me. It's really hard to not be able to mother in the way that feels right for me, but I had to learn that it wasn't really about me.

For some people, being present is very important, and doing so without being hit has meant holding hands. For me, I chose to stop being present if that was the only way I could do so without being hit. For some people, walking aways seems very punitive no matter how it's done, and I can see their point.

I'm now facing the dilemma of what to do when Sam hits *himself*. That's awful and so very, very hard. Walking away or watching it continue don't seem like options to me. I have grabbed his hands a couple of times and told him I needed to keep him safe, that I wouldn't allow anyone else to hit him. I've grabbed quickly and immediately let go multiple times rather than continuing to hold. *deep sigh* We've talked about how deeply sad I feel that he would hurt himself like that and how badly he must be feeling inside to want to externalize it like that, but I will admit to being at a loss about it.

In these situations I am convinced there is no right and wrong. It *all* feels wrong, quite frankly.

*An article on the Dangers of Holding Therapy written by Jan Hunt.

Written June 2005 in response to the following issue on the Shine e-list: "I feel like I handled it well when his rages involved crying and yelling. He responded positively to validation and me being near me. Now he is more violent in his anger and I can't say anything without it making him angrier. I also can't touch him. His anger used to be more directed inward, him hurting himself or trying to punish himself. Now it is directed outward, mostly at me."

With Sam, I totally notice things go in cycles or waves or whatever. He has relatively smooth months and he has major short-fuse anger months, and I can't seem to figure out what triggers the differences, whether they are developmental, situational, I don't know.

Remember T. Berry Brazelton, the pediatrician? While I was much more a Dr. Sears fan, the one thing I really liked of his was his concept of "touchpoints," those moments of outward regression in mastered skills as a new skill is being honed and assimilated. I sometimes think of Sam's rage cycles in this way, too, and try to see what skills he might be working towards that are taxing him and creating an outward regression into anger as his default emotion. Sometimes when I can't find the triggers or see where his cup is getting too full, the idea of new skills taxing his coping mechanisms makes sense, and I can see how he'll move through this rage cycle more clearly.

The other day, Friday I guess, we did some errands locally and Sam fell asleep in the car about 2 minutes from home. (I think he would benefit majorly from a nap, but he hasn't taken them in 3.5 years.) He's the kind of kid that once he falls asleep, we do *not* wake up. It's like rousing a titan. :) I had made dh manicotti, one of his favorites for dinner, put in good bread that everyone loves and made sure that I had plain buttered spaghetti for the kids if they didn't want the manicotti. Sam woke maybe 15 min before dh and I sat down to dinner, and he started watching tv happily enough; the girls were off playing somewhere and weren't ready for dinner either. Sam wandered into the kitchen and I invited him to join us and offered him some buttered spaghetti or manicotti, bread and hard cheese--things he really likes. He screamed and stomped off. Couple minutes later, same thing, he wanders in, says he's hungry; I emphasize the *plain* pasta and bread. Again really angry stomping off. Third time he comes in says he's hungry; I say, "Well, why don't you tell me what you're hungry for. I've offered things twice and you got angry." Storms off again (yeah, I probably shouldn't have added that last part). Fourth time he comes in, asks sweetly for some buttered pasta and some bread with some grated hard cheese on his plate. Go figure. Why he needed those four times to make the transition, I don't know.

The only explanation I can come up with for this whole episode is transitioning is so incredibly difficult for him. He had not completely transitioned from sleep to awake even though he used the tv to help with the immediate transition; he simply wasn't ready to deal with talking to people or even with transitioning into meal time despite the fact that his body was telling him he was hungry, and that was particularly frustrating for him.

Sam's reactions at this point were less than friendly, but they were not hurtful. I let them go, though I didn't extend myself with offers that third time. If Sam were being hurtful—throwing things or trying to hit, or the latest clawing like a lion, I would stop it in the same way I would stop him from lashing out like that at his sisters. I tell him it is not okay to hurt or destroy and he needs a safe place where he can be angry and not hurt people—he knows that can be his room or my room. If he doesn't choose either to stop hurting or remove himself, I pick him up and take him. He has gotten *lots* better about removing himself many times. I'm happy to lay down with him on his bed as long as he's not hurting me. If he continues to try to hurt me I tell him that I will walk away rather than stand there and be hurt but that he can come get me if he needs me. I don't go far and I tell him exactly where I will be, but at that point our energy is horn-locking and I'm not helping him by staying and being his punching bag. I think this is very different than abandoning him with time out or something punitive. My actions aren't punitive; they are self-preservation. I am immediately available. I've only started walking to another room in the past 6 months or so. Before that I would stand across the room, but it got to the point where he would continue to come at me regardless of where I was in his room, so I began leaving. He'll usually call me back in a few minutes when he's moving past the rage and into the need for comfort, but as you well know, the comfort part doesn't coincide with the rage part!

For what it's worth, we have tried many things: breathing, hitting pillows, ripping paper, punching bag. None help in the moment—he does not shift the anger from a real person to an inanimate object.

What *does* help is preventing these rages from getting full blown, for which I've found several successful strategies—any kind of water play (tub, hose, sink and sprayer), bouncing him by his shoulders into his bed (carefully avoiding whiplash!), sitting/ laying on him gently, holding him and rolling back and forth with him on his bed, kind of like a giant rolling burrito. These kinds of physical things can usually defuse and reorganize him pretty quickly, and they are lifesavers when we're traveling. None of them, unfortunately, translate too well into public places, however. Those situations are much harder. I can sometimes get him to hold my hands and jump up and down really high, but this does not work consistently and is getting harder as he gets bigger!

We also minimize corn syrup (not sugar!) in his diet. We've tried the Feingold but didn't see much difference, but the corn syrup seems to help significantly. I suspect that he reacts to something else as well, but he doesn't want to go to an allergist at this point and the corn syrup is difficult enough without adding something else to the mix. He does what he's willing to do, and that's it.

Written as part of a followup to that same discussion in June 2005: "I guess because his rages had gotten so much better, I thought we were past them. Silly me! So he is back in a rage cycle, but with aggression added this time. He has always screamed at me, but in the past I could calm him down by validating what he wanted and being near him. Now my validating escalates his rage. This is my main problem, I don't know what to do know because nothing I do helps. I used to have tools that helped him, now I feel helpless."

I completely second Mary's post—the moment I let go of thinking that Sam would "grow out" of the rages, which are a part of his personality, the better off we both were. Now, I accept that as part of who he is and try to find ways to help him channel that rage energy, to work with it rather than against it, if that makes any sense. I used to have moments where I'd think, "Oh my god, my life would be so *easy* if it were just the girls." I tried really hard to shift that because it's true that Sam takes a *tremendous* amount of my energy, but my life would also not be nearly as full if I didn't have Sam. (Not that you're thinking any of those things!) The shift away from thinking that I would find some magic solutions that would turn Sam into a child more like his sisters was the single best thing I did, and this list has really helped me continue that work.

Dh said to me just last evening that it's like taking two steps forward and one step back with Sam, and that's a really accurate description. But, I also know how much more difficult things would be if we were living conventional lives with school, rewards, punishments, etc.

Sam and I do a lot of talking about different choices he could have made along the way once he's calm enough to engage in that kind of dialogue. I think that is helping in the long run if not the short run. If we can brainstorm strategies when he's calm that gives him potential choices early in the frustration the next time or at least lets him know that there's never just *one* solution. If he's accessing those different possibilities 30 percent of the time, then that's a real step forward, and I think it would be fair to say that this is one of the big reasons his rages are reducing.

I know exactly what you're saying. With Sam, predicting a rage is very dependent upon the space he's in. When he's in a good space, there's a lot more time for intervention; when he's in a bad space, the shift is instantaneous. This is where I haven't been able to do much at all in trying to figure out why he seems to have more reserves at one time rather than another. I've tried to shift to a really big picture kind of view and see what has been going on over the last several weeks. This sometimes helps me to see the ways he's been over-taxed in terms of his transitions and challenges.

I often find that when Sam's having a difficult time, if we slow down and just hang out at home without lots of activities or friends coming over that we get back to an equilibrium. When it's just *us* we do so much better—all of us, not just Sam. When we get into the rhythm of our days without all kinds of outside distractions, doing the things we love, connecting, our relationships fall back into place. This list has been really helpful towards letting me see that as well.

No, nothing stops things during a rage. But, I still think it's important to stand up for oneself in a non-engaging kind of way. I think it's important for my guy not to equate love with a willingness to endure abuse. I just feel really strongly about that. I know you're not saying that you allow your son to make that connection—I'm talking about me now, not what's going on with you guys. So, I guess I've struggled quite a bit with how to let Sam have his feelings without hurting those around him. I don't have any real answers. He's been doing a lot of "I hate you. I'll never snuggle with you again." kind of statements in the heat of smaller rages, but he'll often circle back around by the time he's done saying them to hug me and apologize. He seems to stomp off more when he just growls, whereas he melts more quickly if he says something hurtful, like the weight of it is pulling him out of his rage more quickly.

When Sam says that kind of stuff, I usually just say "I'm really sorry for that." Depending upon where I gage him to be emotionally, I may ask him, "Please don't use your words to hurt." If something hurtful is directed towards someone else, I will ask him not to hurt with words no matter what as I remove him from the situation. I don't worry so much about the words at me, though we have talked very specifically about why I would not let him yell hurtful things out the window at the neighbor (the father) after an incident not long ago. I told him he could say anything to me in the safety of his room, but that my job was to keep our family together and I wouldn't allow him to do something that could jeopardize that. We talked a little bit about the kinds of things that could cause people to call the police (or CPS, though I didn't specifically mention them) and make it very hard for us to homeschool. I tried very hard to do it in a non-threatening way, but in a way that also got across to him that there are serious consequences to actions within society. (Whole 'nother story!)

With the hitting and bull-dozing, which he was doing a lot of and is part of what led me to begin leaving the room, I would just say "I'm not going to stand here and let you hurt me. I want to stay with you, but I won't let you hurt me." I hear what you're saying about the hysterics, and it is so hard to find the right line to walk in those instances. I know! I guess my big question would be what happens after that? If you go back will he begin lashing out again or does he move beyond it?

I can't stress enough how important I think it is to make the walking away a matter of self-preservation and not punishment, even though it may be a difficult distinction for the child to make. For me, I talk it out as I'm walking away and I try very hard to empathize with Sam as I walk away even though empathizing may not have been the thing to do prior to that—I want to make it as clear as possible that I understand he is suffering and I'm sorry for that. I say things like, "I hear how much you hurt inside and that you need to get that hurt out somehow. I want to be able to help you, but I'm not going to let you hurt me. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

Obviously, the short answer to that is he needs me the whole time, not just when he's not lashing out. I totally understand that, but it's important to me to draw the line about how I will be there to support him. I try to let him know that I am always supporting him even when I'm not physically next to him, that I understand how much he's suffering and that's why he lashes out. I try to provide support through that understanding even as I remove myself from harm's way. Again, a really difficult line to walk.

My kids are 7, 5 and 4, and my 4 yo is extremely intense and explosive, very much like you describe. When he was younger, much of his anger would come out as aggression. Now that he's a bit older, he has shifted into verbal aggression, which is a step better, but still aggression nonetheless. Part of my job as a mother, I believe, is to provide a safe, nurturing environment for *all* my children, and it breaks my heart that there are times when it's a sibling I must protect them from. It's so much easier when it's us against the world! *g*

I didn't reply to you right away because I've been dealing with this very issue myself and had no words of wisdom. I was soul-sick and looking for my own support... I still have no words or wisdom, but I do now have the energy to commiserate and share some of what we're trying to do here.

I have to say that my guy's rage seems to come in cycles. Things will be really good for a while, then really bad for a while. I'm still not quite sure what sends him into a tailspin. It may be that we get too busy and stop honoring his need for down time; it may just be that he has a threshold and once crossed needs to blow off steam for a while.

I agree that controlling and time-outs don't work—in fact it escalates the behavior. I discovered a long time ago, that walking away from my guy while he was in one of his rages was the worst thing I could do to him. The fear behind his eyes cut to my heart, and I could see that I was abandoning him when he needed me most. That need can be difficult to see when he doesn't want a hug or any kind of nurturing that I might try to give, but the need is for my presence to reassure him that he is not alone and that he is loved and that I will be there for him when he is ready to be loved.

When Sam says hateful things, my response is often, "Please don't hurt me/Em/ Julia with your words. You must feel really mad to have to get it out like that, and you just need to get that hurt out, huh? Is there something I can do to help?" Yes, lots of times the response is a guttural, back of the throat scream or a stick the tongue out raspberry. Some of the time, it's a melting, "Yes, sorry mama" and curl up in my lap. I wish I could make the latter response the norm, but that's up to him not me.

I think the important thing with small kids is just being there to calmly, gently, immediately intervene, letting them all know that this is not how people can be treated within the family. Reasoning with Sam when he's raging is impossible, but talking with him after the fact about his need for respect and the need for respect to work both ways is, I believe, helpful for the long run if not the immediate moment. With younger children I really do believe that much of the work we do is groundwork, the effects of which are long term rather than short term. You're welcome to join us over at AlwaysUnschooled, where we talk a lot about Unschooling issues with smaller children—under eight: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlwaysUnschooled

Hope this is a bit helpful.