Scared vs. Control...STRESS vs being "Difficult"

I butt heads with 80% of my kids. Oppositional Defiance lives, breathes and makes babies at my house...
I NEEDED this reminder today. That all anger really is FEAR based...

This summer my older daughter had a nasty mean rage in the middle of Math time. OUT-OF NOWHERE...(at least that is what most people would think)she was sitting next to her nine year old sister, sharing a Math book, and WHAM..the Math book went flying...
and I hear,
"I am not going to do your FREAKING MATH ANYMORE".

Good thing I have Thunder Cat like reflexes. Missed me by a mile!

She stomped into the living room and threw her caboose onto the couch. Folding her arms in a "Hell no are going to talk about it" posture.

I calmly picked up the book, took the time to find Duct Tape to fix the binding and gave it back to my mouth a gape nine year old..
"Go ahead and finish”, I told her.

Stonewall Jackson sat in my living room, breathing hard, eyes; red laser beams. I calmly walked in sat next to her and said,

"Wow, feeling some pretty BIG feelings, eh".

"F (fill word if you want) Big Feelings, I just don't want to do Math anymore."

Me, "Yeah, ya know what I got that...can you do me a favor though".

"WHAT?"

"If you don't want your Spaghetti tonight, can you just tell me...that sauce is HARD to get off of walls, it stains."

yuk,yuk,yuk I soooo wish my kids got how stink'n funny I am!

She loosened up.
I love what Bryan says here about how under Stress we constrict. HELLO! My back gets so tight when I stress out, and my mind races a mile a minute, that if anyone asks me for a freaking glass of water I am going to lose it...well not really, but I can relate.

Our kids live in that constant state...any movement, any slight bump and that overly full glass spills, doesn’t it, It tips all the way over, heck it goes crashing into a wall and shatters all over the place.

What I have learned to combat the high chance of self destruction is to learn how to defuse the HIGH ALET ORANGE color..back down to a nice blue color..even yellow works...and we do that by knocking them off guard enough to schmooze in and actually talk to them.

When the smile twitched at the end of her lip ...it was the opportunity I needed to ask "Wanna Talk about it?"

"NO."

*Here's the thing some of our kids WILL NOT TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS, won't do it, there is too much danger, too much control to give up if they do that... my teenager is a prime example of this.*

So I project or guess.... (I really have to PRAY I am close to the trigger, to be able to do this)...if you do it wrog, it makes things WAY worse.

"You know, if I was seventeen, and I had a nine year old sister that was doing the same kind of Math as me, it would make me MAD."

She looks at me in the eyes, I am getting close.

"Worse, it would probably make me feel kinda stupid."

An eye blink and a tear. EUREKA!!!!

"But that wouldn't be what I was really feeling."

She bites, "It wouldn't."

"Nope, not even close."

"What then."

"I would be scared, I would be worried that I might NEVER catch up, because what I was doing was already hard to understand...and that would really be a CRAPPY, Scary, BAD feeling."


Ding, ding, ding....winna'...winna', winna'!

We hug; she walks in by herself and apologizes to her sister for the Book that took flight..and sits back down....

As I get the pot out to start boiling the Noodles. I remind her..."Spaghetti STAINS walls"...she giggles and we start over again.

And we will do it again tomorrow, and the next day and the next…….