How to maintain patience

How not to make your child's reactions personal so that you maintain a good relationship with your child.

In this lesson, I share one of the keys to keeping your patience and that is your child's behaviour don't make it personal.

When my son was 7 or 8 years old, he did not want to ride a bike. This was not just once, it became a pattern. One day, I wanted to cycle with him and persisted despite his resistance. He got angry. I used to be very patient initially, but I would be done with it after a while because I was making it personal: "Come on, don't whine, you go cycling now!" or "If you don't go cycling now, then ..."

This time, I reacted differently. By listening carefully to what he said and watching what he radiated, I was able to ask questions like, "What are you afraid of?" beyond his anger. He told me he was afraid of falling. Together with him, I looked at what he needed to avoid falling. We agreed that I would hold him and it worked. We rode away quietly and at the end of the street he cycled on alone.

Dealing with resistance is reducing anxiety!

Underneath every anger is a fear and when you discuss this, you help your child get rid of the anger and discover the cause of the anger.

Don't make it personal!

The entrance is, not to make your son or daughter's anger personal. Your child is experiencing a fear and reacts to it with anger and sometimes swearing at you. So all sorts of things are happening in your child, which have nothing to do with you. Especially young children are mainly focused on themselves. Is your child playing nicely and does it have to go with you to pick up its brother or sister? Chances are it doesn't feel like it and gets angry.

Is your child angry, unreasonable or unkind?

Bear in mind that he is overcome with emotion and does not mean it.

Taking anger or other emotions personally is a trap that many parents fall into. From there, you react primarily and get angry too, escalating the situation and getting further and further away from the solution. Your child wants to keep playing, starts moaning, throwing toys and you think; he never does what I want, when is he going to listen to me?

The moment you make it personal, you also step into one of the twelve communication blocks. So you can start distracting, reassuring, punishing or using power and commanding your child what to do. Do you want a lollipop? It's all right honey, if you get angry like that again, you won't be allowed to play games for a week. Now cycle you!

This may seem to solve the problem in the short term, only underneath, the problem only gets bigger and the connection with your child less. Your child doesn't feel seen on an emotional level.

Back to the cause

Ask yourself. What is the reason why my child is so angry or reacts angrily?

Does he know how to deal with emotions? Or because of autism? Or following the example of parents? Or feeling emotionally unseen? Getting mad about the straitjacket or constantly having to fall in line to meet his parents' agenda. Good intention, only see the effect here.

The trick is not to make it personal. This sounds easy, only it is not if you are not yet conscious. It is the way to leak less energy in a day and also keep respect for others. If you are quick to make things personal, you will not only do that to your children. Here are some examples for greater understanding and recognition.

Do you quickly relate criticism to yourself? Do you notice that you often take critical comments from others very personally? Do you quickly feel rejected, undermined, attacked or pushed into a corner? Do you find it difficult to deal with criticism? Can it keep you awake, so to speak? Would you like to learn how to deal with criticism and work towards your own learning goals? In this lesson, you will learn how to make it less personal.

Examples of making it personal

An example is that you are doing an important project and your boss comes out blunt and says he doesn't like it. You know your boss is a critical person and yet you are shocked. You try to fix the situation by pleasing and going along with what your boss says. Several things happen inside you. Doubt arises about whether you have done your best enough and on the other hand, you are angry with your boss because you feel you can never get it right. It feels just like the old days with your mother...... the rest of the day you are analysing and mulling over where things went wrong, start talking about it with others and thinking about how you are going to fix it. The doubts increase further; will this also impact my promotion? See here the recipe for an energy leak. With a negative impact on your effectiveness and job satisfaction.

Another example is if I say something negative about your hair. Who is it about then? About you? About your hair? Or about me? It's about me, even if it's something positive. The only thing that often happens is that people start making it personal and think there is something wrong with them. However, the trick is to figure out for yourself what you think of your hair. Perhaps you like it or you recognise what the other person is saying and you haven't been to the hairdresser in a while. In short, take it at face value and don't assume.

After all, your boss may have gotten his ass kicked by his boss or his little son may be seriously ill. He is experiencing great pressure and he is afraid he will fail. This makes him insecure, but he does not want to show it and takes it out on his environment and thus also on you. So these are issues that have little to do with you.

5 steps to make it less personal:

1. Give yourself time to slow down the moment you are triggered. Stop working for a while and go for a walk. This is a great time not to react (emotionally), but to reflect on what is happening inside you. A helpful phrase is "what else could it mean what is happening?"
2. In doing so, examine which old film you have ended up in. To what extent have sensitivities from the past been touched? Look for patterns in this. In which situations did you feel this way?
3. Realise that the other person also has their own film. Therefore, check your assumptions. "I get the feeling you think the project is insufficient. Is that correct?" Often, the assumptions not, but should it be true, you can also work on it much better through the explanation. When doing this, keep listening on multiple levels. So focus on the other person, listen, summarise and question through and also listen to his non-verbal communication.
4. Then focus on the desired outcome and what your similarities are. You both have the desire to achieve a good outcome. What is needed from you to achieve that desired outcome?
5. By going through these steps, you are likely to experience more space and from there you can also look further at what you can, want and will do with it. There is then often room for creative solutions again.

Assignment
Write down 5 situations where you made things personal and indicate to what extent you were able to go through the steps and what the outcome was. Of course, you may not have gone through any of the steps. Then just write down the situation and recognition is already the big win.