With the school year just beginning here in America, I’m getting a lot of questions like this one:

A:  First, let me applaud you for your commitment to parenting without punishments. Time-outs and “consequences” never really work if your goal is to raise an emotionally healthy child and not merely one who is obedient or “nice.”

I believe the challenge you now face is related to the mainstream way of thinking that always sees children’s behavior as “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” This way of thinking is the foundation of conventional parenting and the justification for punishments. So you have to find a new way of thinking in order to parent effectively without punishing.

A good place to begin is to ask yourself, “If the insults and F-bombs aren’t wrong, what ARE they?” You will find that when you drop the right/wrong orientation, most of the behavior that used to upset you can be re-interpreted as a cry for help. Such outcries may be lacking in social graces, but that doesn’t change the fact that the child needs to be helped, not judged. Fortunately, as you help your child meet her needs, she will also be learning better ways to express her needs.

Now let’s look at this from your child’s point of view: Something isn’t working for her, but she lacks the ability to identify and express her needs the way an older person can. All she knows is that she doesn’t feel good, and the pain has built up so much that the slightest trigger sets her off. When you tell her that her outbursts are “not okay,” you render your empathy meaningless and inadvertently teach her that when she doesn’t understand her own suffering, she has no choice but to endure it. That’s enough to drive anyone crazy!

(Recall how you felt when you didn’t know how to respond effectively and your friend implied that your parenting was “not okay”!)

If your child understood the cause of her emotional state, she wouldn’t resort to verbal aggression. So you need to let go of your judgments about the aggression and focus on helping her understand and relieve the underlying stress. Even if her outburst pushes your buttons, treat that as a separate issue — a power giveaway that you need to heal for yourself — and do your best to hear the underlying cry for help.

Is School Creating the Problem?

This “Jekyll and Hyde syndrome” is actually quite common when kids attend school, and there’s a good explanation: lack of attachments. Most children at school do not have a secure attachment relationship with their teachers or anyone else at school, especially during the first week, so they have no one to whom they can go for emotional co-regulation. When they feel frustrated, anxious, frightened, angry, sad, or overstimulated, and they can’t process those stressful feelings on their own, they put their stress “on hold” until they can connect with someone they feel safe to be emotionally vulnerable with — someone they trust to love them even when the ugly “Mr. Hyde” feelings come out.

When your child falls apart immediately after school, it often belies the fact that she was not doing so well during school. You may think all the other children are fine, but many of them — especially the more sensitive ones — are likely also falling apart at home. Sadly, many children get no empathy or acceptance when this happens, which forces them to shut down their feelings and build up all manner of emotional defenses, many of which create the appearance of being “fine” when they are not.

The school system is a major contributor to this syndrome, despite the good intentions of teachers. The vast majority of schools are so flawed in their design — so far out of sync with the human species’ evolved way of learning — that school-related stress is seen as a normal and tolerable aspect of education. But stress is the enemy of learning and creativity, and it is largely absent in children who are free to learn the way nature intended: through self-directed play and exploration, with access to a close-knit community of playmates, mentors, and other supportive elders. That’s why I recommend alternatives like free-schooling and homeschooling, where parents and teachers can facilitate a more natural learning process. If such options are out of reach, the next best option is to get involved at the school, try to create opportunities for the children to form attachments with teachers and staff, and advocate for more free play time and less testing.

That said, even kids in more humane learning environments will still occasionally break down upon reuniting with a trusted attachment figure. In that moment, when your child “loses it,” she needs you to access the superpower of your heart.

Acceptance is the Heart of the Matter

Think of it this way: She is giving you the opportunity to take back and fully own your power to love unconditionally. Having F-bombs hurled at you is not the true cause of your hurt. What really hurts is forgetting that you have, in your own heart, the power to accept “offensive” words or behaviors and instantly transform them into opportunities for more love and connection.

To wield this power, you need to remember that an effective response begins with an internal process — before you’ve said a word — and if you do it well, it almost doesn’t matter what you say or whether you say anything at all.

The internal process primarily involves acceptance, which is the opposite of judgment and resistance. You accept your child’s behavior even if it’s “wrong,” and you accept yourself even if you feel like a “bad” parent. Acceptance means letting go of those judgments; staying fully present with yourself, your child, and the situation; and having the courage to keep your heart open even if you now have a good “reason” to close it.

Acceptance does not mean passively tolerating violence. When you are in a state of non-judgmental acceptance, your response to violence will be either withdrawing to safety or using the minimum force required to prevent further harm — all while staying consciously connected to your heart.

Deep acceptance makes you feel truly powerful because you are reconnecting with the power you already had. You are no longer giving your power away by allowing your judgments (or others’ judgments) to separate you from the abundance of love that’s always available to you, regardless of conditions. Society’s game of right/wrong, good/bad, okay/not-okay ceases to control you, and you are free to be the lover you were born to be. It might look something like this:

So your daughter gets home and flips her lid. You try to calm her down, but then she shouts, “I HATE YOU, YOU FUCKING BITCH!” and you feel yourself becoming outraged. You want to shout, “THAT IS NOT OKAY!” but you manage to pause, take a deep breath, and intercept your reaction. Instead, you do your best to accept what just happened and let go of judgments. It helps to remember that she wouldn’t have shouted like that unless she was severely stressed, but you are developing the advanced ability to move into acceptance even when you can’t make sense of the behavior. It’s enough to remember that Love is the true essence of your relationship. You don’t have a canned response, so you wait... trusting that an inspiration will come. . . .

You get an idea that seems crazy, but it resonates with your heart: Using the exact same tone and intensity that you would have used with “THAT IS NOT OKAY!” you shout “YOU MUST BE FEELING REALLY HURT!” The bizarre combination of angry tone and compassionate words momentarily derails your daughter’s train of pain — and your own — creating a window of opportunity to connect at the heart level. A few more words are exchanged, and a minute later she is in your arms, releasing her pain through healing tears instead of hurling expletives. . . . Later, with a soft and tender voice, she says, “I love you, Mama... And you’re not a fucking bitch.”

To be clear, the above is just an example that I imagined. Some of the external details were a bit silly, but the internal process — intercepting your reaction, moving into acceptance, inviting and waiting for inspiration, and trusting your heart’s guidance — is crucial to the improvement of external conditions. You’ll know you’re mastering this inside-out process when you feel authentically powerful before her behavior changes. And the external changes, lovely as they are, will pale in comparison to your internal transformation.

Was this helpful? Let me know if you’ve gained new insights while trying to apply the ideas above.

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