“Until your knees hit the floor, you’re just playing at life, and on some level you’re scared because you know it. The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It’s when it begins.”
Marriane Williamson
Last week we explored the intelligence of the adaptive process and it’s central role in developing a mature human heart. This week we will look at some of the specifics of how this process can be best supported towards that end.
The above picture is one that Gordon Neufeld uses to describe the essence of the adaptive process. Here is a dragon trying in vain to blow out his birthday candles, and though it’s hard to see here, there is a little tear in his eye. His brain is beginning to switch from mad to sad, liberating stuck emotions of frustration into the cooling and transformative flow of tears. This is the intelligent dimension of surrender that is so lost on our culture, and one of our jobs as parents is to preserve this natural movement of the heart in our children.
“If children don’t grow up
their bodies get bigger
but their hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little Gods causing rain-storms
turning every good thing to rust!”
Arcade Fire, Wake up
The adaptive process, like parenting more generally, does not have any formula that you can follow that will get you through every time. This is a very organic process that requires that we be present and able to feel deeply into our children, intuitively know when the time is right to engage in this process, and how to dance with the wild emotions that will inevitably emerge. We must also be present to our own state of mind as well, and have our long-term goals in mind. These elements are the core of mindful parenting:
- Be present in the here and now
- Be aware of, and accepting of, self and other states
- Blend with current realities and move toward your long-term intentions
The more you engage in mindfulness practice the deeper your felt-sense of yourself and the other person will be, and the more steady you will be in the face of the tempest that is your child resisting futilities.
Now with mindfulness at the center of this discussion (opposed to a formula-based approach), I will lay out a few guidelines that will help you with this challenging, yet essential process.
- This process is easier and more effective the younger the child is. In my home, this process happened on occasion towards the end of the first year of Kai’s life, but opportunities (and necessities) increased rapidly in that second year. This is not to dissuade parents with older children from helping their children towards adapting in this way, it’s just that after age five or so it may be more difficult (depending on how defended against vulnerability they have become).
- In order to sink into the more vulnerable emotions of disappointment and sadness children require: a caregiver that they feel safe to cry with, the invitation to cry, and the right environment to let go into this emotionally challenging experience. This process will likely not occur out in the day-care setting or in pre-school unless they have a caregiver that they feel very safe with.
- As caregivers we should choose the time and place carefully to enhance the chances of following this process through to completion. This is not something that should be done in public or in front of any audience because the child is likely not going to feel safe enough to let down their guard. If you and your child do not have a strong connection in the moment, make sure to re-establish connection with them before attempting this process.
- We should be prepared for the emotional upset that will likely ensue and accept this as a necessary part of the process. This is a time that grounding down or getting spacious are really helpful in staying regulated and creating a container for our own difficult emotions as well.
- Choose a situation where your child needs your help, not the other way around. Presenting a futility that is out of your control does not work for this process. This must be a situation where you hold the key to the child getting what they want. For example, if they want another cookie, or they want to go for a bike ride, you have the power to say “no” and prevent that from happening. On the other hand, if you are asking them to get into bed or to stop doing something, then they have greater power to thwart the futility you are trying to present because you need their cooperation (short of physically forcing them, which will not support this process well because you become a threat rather than a safe place to cry tears of futility if you are forcing them against their will).
- Stay focused and see the process through to the end. If you have chosen your time and place well, and you have decided that this is a good situation for Johnny to find his tears, don’t get distracted by the numerous and ingenious ways that he will use to wiggle out of futility. Stay firm and loving until the turning point has been reached, and he has softened into you.
These are some of the basics to keep in mind when supporting adaptive functioning. Now I will illustrate one possible iteration of this in real life. Once again: every situation, every child, and every parent is different. You must intuitively find your own way with this.
The hour is late; thirty minutes past Kai’s usual bed time. He clearly is getting tired and starting to fight against his sleepiness.
“Bike ride,” he requests sitting up in the bed out of our cuddling.
“No my love. It’s time for bed now.”
“BIKE RIDE,” he pushes more intensely.
“No darling,” I say as he is pushing away from me trying to get off the bed to head towards the magical place where he will feel “all-better.” I thwart his attempts to wiggle away like a confident martial artist, using only as much strength as necessary and blending with his movements organically towards the end of keeping him up on the bed with me.
His pushing and voice intensify with “No. NO. NO!” (This is the place where doubt often creeps in and many may abort, allowing him to run over to the door and maintain hope of the possibility.) In one clean movement I roll over and scoop him up in my arms, landing on the edge of the bed and holding him firmly to my chest as he continues to struggle.
“I know my sweet boy…I know,” I say with a touch of sadness in my own voice. “It’s OK my love.”
Barely are the words out when I feel the howl come from deep in his belly, his stiffness giving way ever so slightly to a more staccato-like movement of his crying body. My heart breaks.
I instinctively take a deep belly-breath which widens my window of tolerance for our pain and creates a mountain of stability on which to receive this storm. My heart flows into him with the bitter-sweet tenderness of compassion. My eyes are closed, but I see with clarity the perfection of this moment. Over time, his undulating sobs smooth out and he softens into me.
His little body is limp against me; he is heavier now than when we started. We sit there in timelessness; the soft, fading light of summer as our witness.
I walk him into his bedroom with gentle and humble steps. I hold him against me with strength and softness. Arriving at his bed, he pulls himself off of my chest and takes a good long look directly into my eyes.
“Miss you daddy,” he says touching my face with his little hands.
“I’ve missed you my sweet, sweet boy.”
“Ni-night,” he says leaning towards his bed.
“Good night my love,” I say tucking him in. “Good night.”
A deep bow to Gordon Neufeld for so insight-fully articulating this intuitive process and making clear it’s important role in maturation.
Listen to Weeks 5 and 6 of The Loving Discipline Audio Class to learn how to help your child become adaptive and develop resilience.
3 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- The Development of Resilience - [...] Helping a Child With Tears of Futility [...]
Chris White, M.D. is a board-certified pediatrician whose parenting work aims to optimize the developmental potential of children and their parents. He regularly writes on 
I’m not sure that a parent should deliberatly choose to create such a situation for a child.
It imposes the parental power in a disturbing way.
Surely the role of an engaged loving parent is to support the child and enable learning not to impose futility.
Have you read about Taking Children Seriously and the notion of common preferences?
this desire to see the child surrender is not in line with other posts on here on topics like self determination, there is a clear conflict in the thinking.
Hey Elizabeth – Thanks for your comments.
I agree that most parents should swing to the side of “saying yes” to their child as often as possible. But a subset of parents, are not learning how and when to say no to their children, and the children suffer problems as a result: poorer impulse control, increase self-centeredness, and lower in social competency to name a few.
Surrender is a dirty word in our culture because, like I think you have done here, it’s always related to dominance hierarchies and power-over situations. That is not what i am referring to here.
When grandma dies, you can TRY to not surrender (denial, anger, and bargaining are common examples of not sinking into this futility), but healing and resolution actually only come when you surrender to the truth of this reality. Now this is a big futility (probably the biggest), but we face other things that we can no change all the time: wanting to be included, wanting to be liked, wishing a person loved you as deeply as you love them, not getting that promotion or grade or whatever…
If we do not OCCASIONALLY help our children with confronting futility they will not develop the resilience and will have a tough time when they go into that world where mommy and daddy don’t make the circumstances fit their desires. I personally am still learning to adapt as a 40-year old man and wish I had been lovingly guided through this process more as a child.
Here is what I tell the students in my class (and this is a rough, ball-park estimate): Create a field of unconditional love and space for kids to be kids and to say yes to their desires as much as possible. Occasionally you will have to set limits – for their safety, their health, or to protect other people (“sorry, I can’t let you hit your sister with a bat.”) Limits should be set by saying no to the behavior, but yes to the child’s inner state of feelings/motivations/desires/beliefs and always a big YES to the relationship between you: “no behavior can separate you from me.”
Many of these limits can be morphed into a “win-win,” where you find a safe alternative to give the child’s desire some room to be expressed (“i know you are frustrated, but you can not hit your sister. how about we go outside and get some those hits out?”).
Now having said all that, a small fraction of the time it is healthy to take them through the adaptive process where you are helping them be able to stay in contact with their feelings of disappointment, sadness, and loss around not getting their way. The futility does not have to be something that you set up, nor do I think we need to make up stuff – there is plenty in life to use naturally. It can be as simple as a friend not inviting them to a sleep-over. You can of course distract them from their sadness, tell them there will be other sleep-overs – whatever you want to avoid the tears. But in the long run you are robbing them of “easier” opportunities to develop resilience before the bigger futilities come – and they will certainly come.
Hope that makes sense. Give me a shout back on this.
and thanks for the “Taking Children Seriously” reference. I will check it out.
Blessings