“Go away! You’re bad!” How to deal with a child’s aggression and your own feelings?

As a child grows up, parents sometimes encounter rude, aggressive and incomprehensible behavior of their children. Katya came to me with exactly this problem.

Katya is divorced and has a 6-year-old son, Kirill. The boy has been throwing tantrums lately and shouting to his mother: “You’re bad, I don’t love you, go away!” I want to live with dad, when will we go to dad?!”

She calms down only when her mother begins to respond with anger and raises her voice, or when she sees that her mother has begun to cry.

The child’s words hurt Katya’s mother very much, because she really is trying very hard. It is difficult for her to raise her son. The child’s father serves under a contract and is on constant business trips. Rarely can he take his son with him.

I ask Katya to say what emotions she encounters when she sees such behavior of a child, and how does she feel?

Powerlessness, misunderstanding, sadness, resentment, fatigue. I feel bad, unhappy, weak, helpless.

I ask Katya if she is familiar with this condition, has she ever felt this way?

Katya is immersed in her memories. Her dad also left when she was a child. Mom said that dad was an asshole, and generally called my father names in every possible way. It was painful and unpleasant for little Katya to hear this.

Katya recalls the episode when she met her dad. Afterwards I saw my mother very upset and decided not to upset her anymore and not to see my dad. Now he understands that he does not want to do this with his child. Therefore, at the first opportunity, he helps Kirill meet and be with his father. These meetings happen rarely, then the boy gets very bored, gets upset that he cannot be with his dad all the time, and as a result expresses his negative feelings to his mother. A mother cannot cope and contain her child’s feelings, since her own feelings echo inside her with pain.

Imagine yourself now as that little Katya who decided not to meet her dad, how does it feel, what does she feel, what does she want?

She wants mom and dad to be together, and if not, then they want to communicate normally, and Katya can be with both mom and dad. He wants mom not to call dad names. Wants to see dad and spend time with him.

Little Katya feels very sad and bad, as if she was torn between her parents. Inside there is resentment, sadness, anger, misunderstanding, guilt (I’m probably bad, since I couldn’t reconcile my parents; I’m probably bad, since dad left). Katya suppresses all her feelings, she is silent and hides herself, the real wounded one. You need to be good, help mom and do everything possible so that mom doesn’t be sad.

And it is her suppressed feelings that her son Kirill is now broadcasting, he is doing what little Katya once did not allow herself to do!

I propose to allow six-year-old Katya to express all her feelings to her parents:

Katya is crying and screaming. She makes attempts to push her parents, as if saying in this way: “Pay attention to me! I’m little, I feel bad! I need you both! You can’t do this to me.”

After little Katya has expressed her feelings, I suggest telling her words of support, those most important and important words :

- “You are good. Are you all right. It’s not your fault what happens to your parents, and you don’t need to save them. You are little, you have a childhood. You can and should be happy, play with toys, read books, take a walk. And now I, big Katya, will take care of you. After all, you are me.”

After this work, Katya shared that Kirill began to behave less often, and most importantly, more calmly. And Katya herself gained the strength and patience to calm her son and talk to him.

Very often, next to our young children, our own early childhood traumas awaken. It is incredibly important to notice and become aware of them so that you do not treat or fix your own children.