The Power of AND
How to support your child’s feelings in a melt down while holding your boundary
By Liann Senich
Toddlers and young children (and let's admit, even teens and adults) often have meltdowns over seemingly small things. The thing is: for your child it wasn’t small. Oftentimes children, teens, and adults alike have uncommunicated expectations that lead to feelings of disappointment, which usually present themselves as anger outbursts (meltdowns). I would argue disappointment is one of the hardest emotions we encounter.
Children feel disappointment frequently as they are learning to communicate wants and needs and explore and understand boundaries. As parents, our goal is to help them name these difficult feelings, validate their experience, and help them cope through disappointment. This process equips them with invaluable emotional skills for life.
But how can we do this effectively?
The Classic Meltdown Scenario
Imagine you're running errands with your child. In the store your child asks for a toy. You tell your child “no” or “not this time.” Your child begins to bargain, cry, stomp, and might even yell and throw themselves on the ground depending on their emotion regulation skills. You are feeling embarrassed and all you want to do is get out of the store ASAP to avoid more attention from passerbys.
In this moment, parents often default to one of two common responses:
Give In: “Okay, I’ll get you something, but just this one time.” This stops the meltdown immediately but reinforces the behavior, teaching your child that escalation gets them what they want.
Lay Down the Law: “Absolutely not. I haven’t bought you a toy, so I don’t know why you thought you could get one. Stop acting like that; we are going home. If you continue, you will have a consequence.” This response might scare the child into compliance or, more likely, send them into a deeper, angrier emotional spiral.
There is another solution, one that utilizes a simple, yet powerful, tool from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This tool can help you can de-escalate the situation while avoiding “giving in” and buying your child the toy. It’s the power of AND.
Your goal is to validate your child’s feelings, hold your boundary, and communicate support for your child and then teach communication skills.
VALIDATE: First validate their feelings and experience. “Wow, you are feeling so disappointed because you thought I was going to buy you a toy and then I said ‘no.’ I’m sorry, disappointment is so hard.”
HOLD YOUR BOUNDARY: This next part is key. You want to say AND instead of but. If you say “but” you will invalidate everything you have said before that “but”. You will then say “AND unfortunately this time I am not buying a toy.”
COMMUNICATE SUPPORT: And then you communicate how you can help. “Is there anything I can do to help you? Maybe we can take deep breaths and then when we get in the car we can talk about when you can get a toy next.” And then you can model deep breathing and follow through. When you get to the car you talk about when they can get a toy. Whether that’s at the next holiday, their birthday, whether you want them to do chores to earn money to buy one.
TEACH COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Later in the day or next time you plan to go to the store, you will talk to your child about what your expectations are and ask them what their expectations are so that you can talk about it before you go to avoid uncommunicated expectations and big disappointments. (I understand this doesn’t always work, but it can help the more you practice).
Putting all of this together would sound like this: “Wow, you are feeling so disappointed because you thought I was going to buy you a toy and then I said ‘no.’ I’m sorry, disappointment is so hard. AND unfortunately this time I am not buying a toy. Is there anything I can do to help you? Maybe we can take deep breaths and then when we get in the car we can talk about when you can get a toy next.”
I challenge you to think about how often you say BUT in your communication with your kids and almost always you can change that BUT to the word AND and it can change the way that your child hears validation and support from you!
