Is your kid a SCREAMER?!?!?

My kid has a set of lungs on her that could rival the best opera singer at the Met.

Seriously.  I don't know about you, but when I hear the scream that threatens to pierce through the membrane of my ear drum I get triggered!!!!  And it's somehow 10 times worse when I'm trying so f'in' hard to be calm.  I'm doing all the right* things!

(* by "right" I mean all the things I believe to be the correct way to non-violently work through a conflict.  I don't mean "right" as if I'm the ultimate judge of knowing what's best, because truthfully 90% of the time I'm flying by the seat of my pants.  So, to be clear, I use the word "right" as a relative term to my own philosophical belief system... which I happen to believe is "right".  Ha-ha.)

So, when my child screams, it's a bit Jekyll & Hyde because she's needing something... we're talking, and then, her mouth opens, her face turns red, her eyes bulge and I can actually see the sound waves pouring out of her mouth as the scream pierces though my soul.

And here's the crazy part.  There is actually not much I can do about it.

The dominant paradigm might punish.  The dominant paradigm might ignore.  The dominant paradigm might turn their back and shut the kid down by walking away.  And every single one of those things will absolutely break every connection with that child.  That AND it will teach the kid a scream can actually give them space.  They will actually learn the strategy that: scream = Mom or Dad walking away from me, which is awesome when I just want them to LEAVE ME ALONE!

So what the hell am I supposed to do during the blood curdling scream?!?

Empathy.

I will be with her.  I will wait.  I will breath profusely in an effort to regulate the cortisol pulsing through my veins.  I will resist the urge to: a) yell back; b) throw something at the source of the "nails-on-a-chalkboard" sound; or, c) run as fast as I can to get away from that noise.  I will consciously ignore those urges and I will stay.

I will wait.

I will breath.

I will try to make eye contact.

I will be there for the moment she stops to quickly say, "Oh honey, this is really big for you" in a caring and empathetic way.

I did all of those things while I was driving (no small feat, thank you very much and a big pat on my back because of it!).  We were halfway home when she calmed down.  Then she said, I need a honey-butter sandwich (which is our little food code for "I'm really hungry and flooded and need to eat something that will get my blood sugar back up quickly").

I said, "Yes.  I can do that for you."

We drove in silence.  Beautiful, beautiful silence.

And you know what happened when we got home?  She sat down with me and ate her sandwich.  We talked about her day, we talked about how hungry she was, we talked about other ways of letting me know she's hungry.  And then she asked for string cheese.  And then she asked for a veggie dog (yeah, yeah, we're vegetarian).  And then we laughed and played.  And never once did we break our connection.  And I haven't heard a scream like that in a long time since that incident.

Perhaps from now on I'll pick her up from school with a honey-butter sandwich in my purse.

That's a great idea!

See, everything is a strategy to meet needs.  I just met my need for ear safety by bringing a sandwich to my child BEFORE her blood sugar levels plummet.

Now, I'm hungry.  AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG!