Hi there Martha,
Just spotted your question now. And yes I hear you difficult this is of course! Your days will be so busy and stressful with two preschool aged children. And such meltdowns can really stretch a parent to the limit!
What you describe here with your girl is such a common story! When children get upset, they do tend to make more and more unreasonable requests and it’s all too easy to get into an absolute tizz trying to figure out what’s wrong and trying to appease them. And also classic is that it’s only when you bring in that loving limit that they can surrender and pour out all those upsets.
The reality is that she likely herself won’t know or understand why she’s so upset. Children often instinctively demand that which they know is unreasonable because they need that limit to help them get to that point of intense frustration that allows them to fully feel and hence express those feelings that have been locked inside them.
Dr Aletha Solter (author of several amazing parenting books) calls this the “broken cookie syndrome”; the child demands a cookie and gets one but because the cookie breaks, the child erupts into floods of tears. It’s about the child needing to reach that last straw moment so they can get those big feelings out.
Yet how you respond at that moment will determine whether the situation escalates or de-escalates. And ironically it’s usually us allowing and empathising with our child, while also holding that loving limit, that results in them feeling heard and held and gaining a big emotional and stress release.
The limits units of our Parent and Child Dialogue scrips (Module 2) walk you through what this can look like. This unit is specifically about “holding a limit to unreasonable requests”;
Loving Limits – holding a limit to unreasonable requests
It’s often hard for children when their sibling gets to stay up later than them. It doesn’t mean you should put them to bed at the same time, it’s just where you’re at with your toddler still having the day nap. It’s ok that they go to bed at different times and it’s ok that your older child gets upset about it. There’s actually an opportunity for healing in this.
Bedtime can touch on any feelings relating to separation. When a child’s love tank needs a bit more filling, it can especially spill out at bed time, and especially if there are any feelings around sibling jealousy, gently but firmly holding the limit to the child going to bed often triggers the expression and hence release of a big backlog of emotions.
It’s the parent’s calm, warm, loving empathy that holds a beautiful space for the child to offload these feelings and gain relief and feel heard. When people of all ages feel truly heard and accepted, it can be so very healing.
It’s not easy to be calm and present at these times, but knowing that your girl’s meltdowns and expression of her big upsets can actually release lots of tension from her system often helps a parent to be more patient.
When we see the upset as a problem, parents can feel powerless, which makes it nearly impossible to be calm, patient or present. I hope this reframe helps you to hold space for your girl at these times. Let me know if any of this resonates and let us know how you get on!
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