Why it is best to stay calm when your child feels distressed

When my daughter was around 18 months, she and I took a train from her grandparent’s house in the country back to our home in Vancouver.

The train ride took just over an hour.

She had the time of her life. She ran all over the place, waved at everyone, said “hi” and “bye”, handed other passengers snacks and coins, stole their possessions, and gave them to other people.

And, though I may be a bit biased, I think it’s fair to say that,

People just loved her.

Until she got tired of being stuck on the train…

With about 20 minutes of the ride still to go, she decided that she’d had enough, handed me the backpack, and led me to the door.

She wanted us to get off, now (never mind that the train was going at about 100 km/hour).

I sat down next to her and calmly stated that I see she wants to get off, and that we will get off as soon as we are at our destination.

Her gestures became more urgent, and she started getting upset. As she realized that we weren’t going to get off the train, she became extremely frustrated. She screamed, sat on the floor, and seemed inconsolable. All she cared about was getting off that damn train. And that was the one thing I couldn’t make happen for her (– at least not without a large fine…).

I noticed annoyed looks of some of the passengers, who, until that point had been so smitten by her.

But in this moment, I decided to ignore them, to not get into their heads (or rather my head) and worry what they might think about me as a mother or about my daughter.

I just sat beside my daughter, put my arm around her, and talked to her calmly and quietly, keeping the amount of words I was saying to a minimum. Eventually, she allowed me to pick her up. I hugged her closely, slowly walked up and down the aisle, still muttering a few calm words into her ear.

I looked at the other passengers, and felt compassion for them, while still being fully with my daughter.

What struck me most about this experience was how quickly she calmed down. After just a few minutes, she was calm and peaceful, still in my arms, playing with a button that opens the door of the train.

I thought of all the other times where I hadn’t been able to remain calm and at peace myself, compassionate towards her (and other people around), and where I tried to calm her down with a sense of urgency.

In all those times, it took her much much longer to calm down.

And, when we think about it, of course it did!

By becoming agitated myself, by feeling stressed, I communicated to her that this was a stressful situation, that there is good reason to be upset, and that I am overwhelmed myself.

And children don’t only get this message from our body language, tone of voice, volume, and speed at which we speak, but they also sense with their bodies that our energy is one of stress.

They are finely attuned to pay close attention to the signals we (subconsciously) send to them.

They have evolved to do so.

They depend on us; not only for food, shelter, and staying warm, but also to learn whether the world is safe, whether they can relax and explore, or whether they need to be vigilant and careful.

And when we react with stress to their stress, we communicate that the situation that caused their distress is, in fact, stressful.

In other words, that it is unsafe, and that we, who are stressed along with them, feel threatened and unsafe, too.

And when we, too, feel threatened by the situation, then children cannot help but conclude that we can’t help them. If shit hits the fan, we won’t be able to safe them.

They cannot help but conclude that they are right in being stressed.

And their stress goes up.

This is why children often look at us after they fall: They’re trying to use our reaction to figure out if they’re okay or not.

As Dr. Gabor Maté describes in his fascinating book “The Myth of Normal”, during WW II, a lot of Jewish mothers took their babies to the doctor. They were worried because their babies were crying all the time even though there was no visible sign of illness.

The doctors examined these babies but couldn’t find anything.

These babies were crying because they were stressed. They sensed their parents’ distress and fear – fear for their lives.

Of course, most of us today, in the West, don’t actually fear for our lives when we are stressed. And yet, from the child’s perspective, any stress parents feel, is a signal that there is potential danger and that they need to be vigilant.

Somewhat ironically, it just so happens, in our culture, that a major source of distress for parents is often the distress of their children.

This can often lead of a vicious cycle where the child's distress causes the parent’s distress which causes the child more distress which distresses the parent even more and so on until we reach maximal family meltdown point.

Of course, often us parents are completely blind to the role we play in this process, this ratcheting up.

When we instead stay calm, and respond with compassion, when our child is distressed, we communicate to our child that we’ve got this – they may view this as an emergency, but we don’t.

We take their distress seriously, but we know it is not an emergency, and we can help them through it.

We provide the shoulder they cry on, we hold the space they need, but we know that our child isn’t in danger.

A child may nonetheless feel upset and need some time to calm down (just as my daughter did on that train), but they will feel the safety and certainty we emanate and be able to regulate their emotions much faster than they would if we added to their distress.

In my opinion, the goal is not to get them to calm down as quickly as possible; the goal is to be there with them, to signal to them that they are safe with us, and to allow them to feel their distress until it passes through their body.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. I am trying very hard to be calm in these moments, and yet, I still struggle at times.

Here are some things that I have found helpful.

Take a deep breath, try to be fully present, and say to yourself “I am safe” or “This is not an emergency” or whatever works for you.

Try to focus on your heart space (i.e., the area of your chest) and visualize breathing into your heart. This often has the effect of increasing our ability to feel compassion.

Fully focus on your child. Block out everything else around you (especially other people).

Speak calmly and quietly.

Speak as little as possible.

Get at the same level as your child (e.g., sit down, kneel down).

Touch your child (unless they clearly don’t want that).

Hug your child. If they allow it, you can hold them firmly (but not all children find this calming).

Be compassionate with yourself. It is difficult to stay calm in these moments. If you get agitated, simply notice it, without judgment if you can. Noticing it is the first step to changing.

Try to use these same tools when you get stressed independent of your child as well. Learning to deal with your own stress in healthier ways, models the same to your child, and also helps you to respond in a similar way to your child’s distress.