Understanding Your Misbehaving Child - understanding the S.A.D. acronym and how it applies

0:02 hi friends jim and lynn with you again from uh uh over a month now of being safe at home sheltering in place i'm so safe honey uh we do work at being safe with each other it's been a little harder for us even just a married couple alone for the most part uh to be safe with each other and we know that there's a lot of families who we serve because we heard from so many on the survey that that you return to us

0:29 that there's a lot of families that are struggling uh in their homes to feel safe with each other uh and we want to talk today about that especially as it relates to an issue we heard about frequently in the survey which is those households where there's one child in particular that's struggling and so if that's you hang on here for a few minutes i i think we have some hope and help for you and i know lynn you've spent a lot of

0:53 time coaching with families that described like that who have this one child that is sort of fiercely out of balance with the rest of the family and then draws the negative attention the negative emotions the resentments start to build from parents to child from child to parents from sibling to sibling and the snowball gets rolling and things get out of control fast as this dynamic uh progresses and um you've helped parents through this uh and i know you start with kind of

1:20 helping parents understand what might be going on with that child absolutely because if parents really can get in the shoes of their kids that's the first step to really being able to have a helpful response and what i've seen is it's not so much that these kids start out as i just want to be the child in the family that gets negative attention or i really want to pick on my siblings you know or all those things that you

1:43 know judgments that parents can have going into their interactions with that child if we poke around we really discover that that the child has got kind of one of three things going on as i've watched kids and families over the decades that it's either either stressed like by external circumstances and there's certainly a lot of those going on these days or they're anxious they've got that sensitive wiring that's maybe highly gifted highly sensitive sensory issues something like that or

2:13 they're discouraged they just feel second rate maybe they've got learning challenges or they feel inferior to siblings or like you love my siblings more there's something going on that would fit those categories of stress anxious or discouraged which is an acronym that spells the word sad sad yeah and uh as you're talking about this i'm thinking about myself as a parent back in the day dealing with kids that were sad that were stressed anxious discouraged um and that that was not usually the

2:41 label i gave that behavior it was usually problem uh it was your pain it was and i would say to you things like why is this kid so selfish all the time why doesn't this kid get it we've told him a hundred times and and when we hear ourselves say those sorts of things then we need to acknowledge that there's a judgment in our heart that's overlooking the sad part and sad is an acronym that really it spells out the word

3:06 sadness and at a core most of the kids who are acting in these ways truly underneath it all have a deep sadness as most of us do right now at a time like this we've lost so many things that are normal and we're grieving and our kids are no exception yep and it's difficult because you may be feeling well stressed anxious and discouraged that describes me um as a parent and so it's it's tough to be

3:29 able to rise above that and really understand our kids well but you know sometimes it's just a matter of understanding that neurology and i find it fascinating that in my research poking around on the internet i found that serotonin imbalances are common in kids and when that happens the kids are easily angry aggressive impulsive irritable anxious discouraged and don't sleep well so does that sound like this child perhaps and there was one of these kiddos that

3:58 was just more intense and she described this inner turmoil i want to do well but i just can't it's like my body is working against me and maria was four years old when after a busy morning with lots of kids she said my brain couldn't make my body stop being mean my heart is kind but my body doesn't listen oh my goodness i feel like i could have said something like that a number of times even in the last months

4:23 right right what insight from a four-year-old i know so when our kids are experiencing that kind of thing what did they do they offload their stress onto those that they love their siblings their parents um and and oftentimes that's when they get a negative reaction um lecture consequences that builds that problem child identity and that's the how the spiral happens so are you suggesting that these kids might be doing the best they know how to do

4:48 to express their sadness in a lot of ways they are it doesn't take you know free will and sin and all that stuff out of it but that's a lot of what's happening so how do we how do we how do we get beneath this because i what part of what i hear you saying with this mom and uh was a little maria was that mom got to a place herself where she could see beneath and and let

5:11 go of the need to control this all the time and start to have compassion for her sad child yep yeah this mom said maria we'll get this all figured out i love your kind heart and it shines through even when your body doesn't listen what a start to compassion and when we engage with compassion then we can also engage as an ally and a coach to communicate i'm strong enough to handle your difficult feelings the holy spirit

5:36 comes alongside to comfort and help me so that i can do that for you so i've got a couple of quick examples to make this super practical for you a mom sandra had a daughter julia julia was very intense could get going and talking more and more upset about what she's upset about till she ramped up into an explosion and sandra just took breath listen to the lord came up with a new strategy for julia and um the next time that happened she

6:03 said julia you have some big feelings let's set the timer for three minutes and you can tell me everything you're feeling about what you're upset about for three minutes and then we'll start to problem solve and she listened well and engaged and empathized for three minutes and then they problem solved so it's just a practical example of a parent who set aside their judgment and engaged well another mom would go in with sibling conflict knowing who was at fault and just adding

6:33 to the chaos until she got a vision to be an ally and a coach and then she helped her kids develop rules about sharing and conflict resolution and she engaged as a teacher and she said the other day my i heard my daughter say to my son we can figure this out ourselves and they did it so at the core of what i'm hearing you say lynn and and we talk about this in so many different ways

6:57 in other places and it comes back to this again is that the important thing here for us is to really uh establish a new goal uh instead of the goal of eliminating the chaos and making the behavior go away and stopping the bad child from doing the bad things and working hard to get the bad child to do more good things which tends to create this discouraging uh cycle um i hear you saying it's time to

7:24 set a new goal which is really again it's about strengthening our foundation it's about uh having a goal to bring god's grace god's truth to us and then a sense of compassion for these sad children whose sadness is compelling them to act in all kinds of ways that are an expression of that sadness absolutely yeah so parents uh we hope that you can take these stories this encouragement recognize the sadness in your kids uh and and get to a place in your heart for

7:54 compassion little by little i remember for me as a young dad it wasn't you know a half hour of reflection at a time because life was moving too fast it was it was little sayings that i put in my head and i think you've you've mentioned some of these um uh you know for me the saying was i can bring god's peace to this uh i i can be a person of peace in the middle of this chaos that's my job

8:19 their job is to to respond to that not to my big powerful directions so we invite you uh to to think on these things do you want to give a closing word and pray assad i'm just going to pray us out all right um lord we're so thankful that you are the holy spirit that comes alongside to comfort and encourage so we can turn and comfort and encourage our kids in jesus name amen