Earlier this year, my four-year-old daughter stopped sleeping through the night and started experiencing significant emotional distress every time my wife or I left the house.
On the one hand, the change came out of nowhere. Maggie is our best sleeper. She started sleeping through the night at three months old and never looked back. And she had plenty of experiences of being without mom or dad. I travel a decent amount for work and my wife, Katie, works part-time. So Maggie has spent a lot of time with her grandparents and, at times, a nanny.
On the other hand, it made sense. About a month before this change in behavior, Katie and I had to unexpectedly travel for a family tragedy. We woke up thinking it was a normal day, and we finished the day in a different state, uncertain of when we would return home. All in all, we were gone for five days, and though we didn’t share what had happened, Maggie has always exhibited strong intuition and emotional intelligence. So, she didn’t know…but she did, if you know what I mean. Her emotional outbursts, her clinginess and the constant middle-of-the-night wake-ups rivaled a newborn.
We were exhausted!
In response, Katie and I started asking the wrong question. At night, after the kids were asleep, we’d look at each other and ask, “What’s wrong with Maggie?”
It’s an understandable question and a natural way to respond to such a drastic change in behavior, behavior that came with significant consequences for us (less sleep matched with the demand for endless patience).
After a few days of things worsening and separation anxiety becoming increasingly intense, I reached out to a friend of mine who I’d gone to for parenting advice in the past. And she reminded me of something I’d forgotten in the midst of all the chaos.
She told me, “Instead of wondering what’s wrong with Maggie, start asking, ‘What does she need that she isn’t getting?’”
How Children Enter this World
When we’re born, we’re not equipped with the tools to regulate our own nervous systems. When things go a bit haywire within us, when we’re flooded with emotion, or when we experience something new, we don’t know what to do! And, when we’re young, we don’t really know how to talk about it either.
What we need, from the beginning, is a parent who can see me, understand what I’m going through, offer a stabilizing presence, and help me navigate this new experience or flood of emotions effectively.
In other words, babies and toddlers (sometimes adults too!) cry when they’re tired or hungry because they’re not yet able to verbalize I’m tired and hungry. They can’t recognize the hunger or exhaustion they feel and connect it to the inner negative emotion. So, they need mom or dad to see the emotional dysregulation, understand it, and get them a snack or a nap despite the resistance.
As emotions become more complex, the same process matters. Naming what’s happening really does tame what’s happening. And until a child learns how to identify these feelings and speak about them, they’re left confused and dysregulated.
In other words, Maggie was experiencing something new and intense, and she didn’t know what it was. She needed mom and dad to step in, understand what’s happening, and give her the emotional equivalent of a banana to a hungry kid.
Dysregulation Versus Disorder
In our modern world, thanks in large part to social media, it’s far too easy to rely on sound-bite psychology to solve your problems or provide insight into what you’re going through. I’m sure some good has come from that, but there’s also been several unregulated challenges that emerged from it.
One of the challenges is the tendency for parents to start trying to diagnose their child instead of figuring out what they need.
When a child keeps having outbursts over having to eat their veggies, or keeps doing the exact opposite of what you command, it’s easy to wonder if they have the beginnings of some sort of personality disorder or anxiety due to their behavior.
But that isn’t the right first (second or third) response! Most of the time, the child is simply expressing some level of dysregulation – something feels off and overwhelming inside – which is developmentally normal. There isn’t something wrong with the child, Instead they’re likely testing the waters. Pushing boundaries. Discovering for the first time what it means to have emotions and to deal with them.
By helping them identify what they’re feeling (you must feel really upset right now) and regulate (why don’t you take a few deep breaths with me), this child will eventually learn to respond accordingly to said emotion. That doesn’t mean they won’t fail to regulate themselves sometimes. But as they get older, their dysregulation becomes more manageable.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not denying that kids can be diagnosed with ADHD, ASD, or OCD. They can. But for most kids, their “bad behavior” is not a sign they need to see a psychiatrist, but that something is off in their environment. Perhaps they aren’t getting as much undivided attention as they need. Or maybe they need more reassurance and affirmation. Or perhaps they just need more sleep and more food!
Be Steady
As much as I wish this weren’t the case, I can’t shield Maggie from all suffering. It’s impossible.
What I can teach her is how to regulate herself in response to suffering. I can teach her how to view negative emotions, not as a bad thing, or something that proves something is “wrong” with her. Instead, Katie and I can teach her to treat her inner life with curiosity, with compassion, and with one foot on the shore of eternal hope.
It’s easy as a parent to want to immediately subdue, distract, or ignore big feelings when they bubble up in a child. It was natural for me, in response to Maggie, to offer incentives for staying in bed (both positive and negative) or to speak sternly to her when she threw a fit every time I tried to go to work or the grocery store. But even if those things work, they fail to teach her how to deal with these feelings in a fruitful or healthy way.
As I continued to talk with my friend, she encouraged Katie and I to rally around Maggie in three ways:
- Offer her a steady, loving presence in this season of turbulence.
If we don’t treat our own inner world with kindness and gentleness, then our children are unlikely to treat themselves that way either. But if we can live what we hope to teach, then not only can we provide a strong example, but we can also offer her an authentic, steady, and loving presence regardless of how she is acting.
- Seek to understand and name what’s happening within her.
Maggie hated the uncertainty of mom and dad leaving without a clear expectation of when we would return home or a clear explanation of why we were gone in the first place. It upended her inner world. If she couldn’t count on having confidence that mom or dad would leave and return within a reasonable time, then she would do everything in her power to make sure we were never separated at all. That kind of fear deserved loving attention, affirmation, and reassurance to rebuild her sense of confidence.
- Patiently allow love to win in the end.
Maggie didn’t just need one good conversation or one afternoon of tender care. She needed a few weeks of steadiness and connection with mom and dad to recover. So, she went to work with me in the afternoons when Katie had to work. Katie started a new bedtime routine that helped Maggie ease into the time of separation. And, as a family, we created more opportunities for Maggie to have special one-on-one time with her mom. And slowly but surely, Maggie returned to herself.
Parenting isn’t easy. In many ways, it will be the hardest thing we ever take on. I don’t pretend to have all the answers (or even any answers), but I do have stories like this to share. One where it’s okay to not know everything as a parent. Where it’s good and healthy to seek advice from real people whom you can see, interact with, and are loved by. And one where it’s normal for a parent to struggle to connect with their child.
If you are reading this while searching for how to accompany your child through a particular season, let me know. I’d be happy to help or point to someone who can.