I may have mentioned before that the Lone Star Baby is a tad intense? The sort of intense that leads me to believe that if she does not grow up to be the dictator of a small Central American country, I will have done my job? Let's just say that much of my parenting energy goes toward empathy development and teaching gentler communication techniques. We recently discovered a great picture book to aid us in our efforts.
When Sophie Gets Angry - Really, Really Angry... by Molly Bang is the story of what happens when Sophie gets really, really angry after an everyday sort of altercation with her sister. Sophie roars, and runs and runs and cries a little, and then takes comfort in nature, calming down and climbing a favorite tree. When she is at peace again, she goes home and everyone is happy to see her. The artwork in the book is exquisite for the topic and the story is a great jumping off point for discussions on how to deal with anger. My only problem is that Sophie does things to cool down that a young child could not really safely be allowed to do...going off into the wild alone as she does. As parents, we sort of have to steer our conversation with our own intense little progeny toward coping mechanisms that are more practical than, if not nearly as satisfactory as, those of Sophie.
Long before reading this book, the Lone Star Baby and I had discussed anger management strategies. We still employ the comfort of the magic boob when needed, but obviously need more mature strategies as well. We had talked about using our words and working together to understand each other and screaming into pillows (even hitting pillows, although I am not a fan of such techniques). We had talked about running in the yard and scribbling really fast and hard on paper. I think it is important to talk about feelings and help kids come up with lots of ideas. In the long run, however, none of my ideas were very helpful to the Lone Star Baby - she had to come up with her own calming mechanism.
She decided that when she is scream-y, she needs a tissue to calm down. And if you give her one, she often does calm down. Amazing, but true. Intrigued by the magic of tissues, I introduced her to handkerchiefs and let her go pick out a special one at the store. This was highly effective as a comfort mechanism in times of anger for awhile, but it got lost and she is just as happy with a pack of tissues, frankly.
This tissue tactic doesn't always work to calm the Lone Star Baby down anymore than any other strategy would, but it helps. The book has really helped us talk about anger and calming down as well. I definitely recommend it if you have an intense little person in your life.
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