My Obstacle Course Station Ideas

This is a repost from my life coaching blog. I wanted to share this here because the chances are VERY high that you’ve experienced this at some point. What I share below has made such a difference for me and I am hoping that it can also help you! Thanks for reading!  Margaret 

I have found that dealing with people staring and offering “advice” to be one of the biggest challenges parents of children with special needs face, especially when they get brave and take their child out into the unpredictable world. It can create the perfect storm of judgement.

The scenario…

Take child out in public…to the store, to a restaurant, to the library, wherever there may be other people.

Something sets child off.

• They don’t get their way.
• They become overstimulated.
• They are hungry or thirsty.
• They are tired.
• They pick up on nervous or negative energy of the people around them – including the parent! (This was HUGE for me to realize and made such a difference because I used to get really nervous about how he would act before we even got there! He could sense this energy and responded as though there was something to be nervous about. Interesting how this works!).

The child has a tantrum (or meltdown).

The parent gets nervous or upset because their child is not behaving the way they’d like. This activates self judgement which usually consists of limiting thoughts like, “I should be able to control my child.” “I should have just given them what they wanted.” “I should have never taken them out of the house.” “A good mom would know what to do right now to make this stop.”

It also causes judgement that you may not like to hear (I know I didn’t like it at first but realized it was very true), but it is “parent judging child.” I’ve done it, still do it at times and am working to do it less and less. “Why is he doing this to me?” “Why can’t he just behave himself?” “Why can’t he just be like those other kids?” “Why can’t he just pull it together?”

The perfect storm has begun, only to get fueled by some outside sources getting involved in business they have no business getting involved in!

The parent notices the people around them who are looking at the upset child. People sense the parent’s frustration and try to offer “helpful suggestions” which comes out as unsolicited advice which fuels a parent’s feeling of inadequacy – “parent feels judged by others.” These people may or may not be judging us and our child but that’s their business (more about this below).

The parent might snap back with some response if they can speak without crying or yelling – “parent judging others.” Trust me, I have been there! I can remember a specific grocery store incident in June of 2008 when my son, who was terrified of bugs, freaked out when a piece of paper floated off of a shelf and he thought it was a bug. A woman approached us, looked at him and said, “What’s wrong with you? You’re too big to be carrying on like that!” I walked away from her after snapping, “I am doing the best I can!”, paid for the dog food that I could not leave without (poor hungry dog at home) and bawled my eyes out once we got into the car. What kind of b*#$h would do that to me?!? What was wrong with her!? I began judging her. I was wrapped up in all sorts of self judgement, judgement of my son, and judgement that other people should know how to behave.

What I’ve come to realize is that when other people stare or give advice, they believe they are trying to be helpful or don’t have any way to understand AT ALL what we have been or are going through.

If this is something you can relate to, let me share with you that it does NOT have to stay this way. I am living proof and get practice with this all of the time!

What can YOU do when you are in this situation to avoid this perfect storm of judgement?

Personally, I have found Byron Katie’s three kinds of business to be critical in times like this.

• My business
• Your business
• God’s business

My Business During A Tantrum

In the situation of a tantrum-ing child, the most important thing I can do is to stay in my own business. That means to take care of myself and what I need. That usually looks like breathing, noticing the thoughts that creep into my head about what I am making his tantrum mean and choosing to believe them or not. What I need to do most to help us all is to keep myself and my energy calm regardless of what he is doing.

I think of myself as the captain of a ship. When something unexpected happens, like a storm, how would it serve those on board for me to get involved in everyone else’s business, running around trying to make sure everyone is feeling okay. I need to stay calm in order to stay in a position to problem solve to keep the ship safe. People might be freaking out or questioning my abilities but none of that would be helpful for me to focus on. I try to remember what this would look and feel like when I am in the midst of my own unexpected storms with my son, tantrums included. Try it! Put on your captain’s hat the next time things seem chaotic and it’ll make a huge difference!

Other People’s (Your) Business During A Tantrum

This kind of business involves the other people around me. I cannot control what other people do or say. Believing that I can causes pain.

My Child’s Business

I cannot control my son’s tantrum, I can try to manage it, give him choices, distractions or remove him but essentially, what he does and how he acts is completely his business.

I used to get all tangled up in his tantrums and this always left me feeling angry, inadequate and sad – not to mention very sweaty! It was as though I felt like I just needed to work harder to prove to everyone around me that I was trying to do something to stop him so they wouldn’t think I was a horrible mom. I would expend so much energy – physically, mentally and energetically- and still have an upset child. Once I realized that this was not working and learned some life coaching strategies to care for myself in order to care for others by breathing, staying calm and noticing what I was making his behavior mean, things became so much better.

Other People’s Business

I cannot control the words or behaviors of the people around me. Believing that they should have any idea of what I’m going through, should be able to empathize and be compassionate about what he’s experiencing or should know that we just need to be left alone, is only going to cause pain because they probably won’t do any of those things. Instead, when I see looks or hear the unsolicited advice, I take a deep breath and shake it off (sometimes quite literally like an dog that shakes when it gets startled. It doesn’t have to be obnoxious, just shake like you got the chills and you’ll get rid of some of the negative energy in your body caused by your own honest, startled reaction to the other people.). People cannot know what they don’t know and while I wish they would think before they speak, roll their eyes or stare, they often don’t and that is something I cannot control. Realizing this all makes me feel like a more confident leader of myself because I CAN control my thoughts about what is going on.

God’s Business

This is the stuff that no one can influence and to believe that I have any control over this causes pain.

What can you do the next time you are in a situation like this?

• Breathe! Deep belly breaths followed by exhaling all of the way. This is the best way to calm your body and your energy.
• Mind your own business. Caring for yourself so that you can care for your child IS a reflection of you and your parenting skills.
• Do what you can to help your child but also know that what they are doing is their business and is NOT a reflection of you or your parenting skills.
• Do not focus on what other people around you are doing or saying in response to your situation. You have no responsibility to listen or respond to them. How they behave or react is their business and is NOT a reflection of you or your parenting skills.

Deep breath followed by this fabulous question, “What’s perfect about this?”

I asked myself this question as I woke up one morning to find red pepper flakes in the cast iron skillet and an interesting aroma coming from my son’s room. Turns out that he loves to spin and really loves to spin glass jars. He poured out the curry, coriander, cumin and thyme into containers and when I asked him why, he said, “Mommy says don’t spin spices because they could break and go all over.” This is true. This is an example of things that I encounter and when that question, “What is perfect about this?” comes in real handy!

Honestly, this really is my favorite question these days, especially when I am in the midst of a negative situation, such as…dumped spices…my child’s tantrum…hitting every red light when running late…spilled Green Goodness drink on the floor…dog having diarrhea on the closet carpet. Now I’m sure these things are completely unique to me so just try to pretend you can relate. 🙂

There are many things that happen in my life that are out of my control, ok, when one considers that we cannot “control” anyone else, very little in my life, other than my thoughts, IS within my control. HOWEVER, how I choose to experience these out of control times or experiences has completely changed over the past two years.

Two years ago, before knowing what a life coach even was, I let these “things” that happen control me and would spend hours and days swirling around in my head with thoughts of judgement and feeling quite honestly like a victim. This felt like crap and was coupled with the fact that “things” always happened no matter how much I planned, which was A LOT.

The things that happened always seemed over the top and never seemed like things that happened to anyone else. I would frequently think to myself, “Seriously? This really just happened to me?” Now I know that they didn’t happen to me, they just happened. However their happening ended up teaching me some pretty powerful lessons about myself.

As I began doing my own personal work as a result of life coaching, “things” didn’t really change but I did! I slowly began to notice how I was feeling in my body when these things came about. I then started to notice the thoughts that were coming up creating the negative feelings. Thoughts like…

• Why do things like this always happen to me?
• Why can’t my child be like the other kids?
• Why must my life be so much harder than everyone else’s?

I could go on but you get the idea. I would throw a little mental pity party for myself, seclude myself because at times it was too painful and I would get annoyed at everyone around me for not just knowing how I needed them to be.

What’s perfect about this? What could this possibly be teaching you?

Throughout my life coach training, I heard several master coaches (Terry DeMeo you are standing out in my mind here!) use the phrase “And what’s perfect about that?” or “What do you suppose this situation is trying to teach you?” and I’ll admit that I thought they were big time CRAZY! Perfect? Teaching moment? Seriously, you have NO IDEA what I go through.  Just tell me that I’m right, that no other person has had to go through the wild things I go through and give me my “best martyr” prize so I can move on.

What actually happened though was fascinating! Those words began to seep into my thought pattern and I began asking myself those very questions when the wild “things” would happen. This became a serious game changer for me! What those questions did was switch my thinking from feeling like a victim of my circumstances, which I already knew felt bad, to putting my brain to work finding out what I could learn from this. The lessons were simple yet powerful.

What was perfect was often a situation where I could practice…

Patience

(ex. I can practice patience when we are running late and my son has already taken a long time to get dressed and now has to do it again because the clothes are backwards. Deep breaths and lots of them. It really is okay AND he’ll probably get dressed faster and off to school in a much better mood than if I huff and puff at him.)

Setting boundaries, both physically and emotionally. Letting someone have their feelings without me getting tangled up in them.

(ex. I can practice setting boundaries physically when my son wants something that I’ve taken away and starts grabbing at me. We teach people how to treat us and what we will allow. During early practicing since he wasn’t quite understanding, I would lock myself in a room until he calmed his body. The physical boundaries allowed me to stay calm and also reinforced that I was not going to accept that behavior (grabbing, hitting, pushing, kicking) in my personal space.)

(ex. I can practice setting mental boundaries by realizing that someone else’s anger, sadness or frustration is their own. They are allowed to feel that and I don’t have to take it on as my own. “Your body is very wild right now. When it is calm, I will help you.” I have also used noise canceling headphones as a visual cue that I am choosing not to listen to the yelling or crying. Yes, I can still hear what is going on but it really helps me to remember to not engage. I go about my business, breathe and stay calm and I have to say that the tantrums diminish so much faster!)

Staying calm

(ex. I can practice staying calm when something spills or breaks. The item is already spilled or broken. I have found that getting upset makes it mean so much more and usually causes me to spend much more time focused on something negative.)

This shift in thinking allowed me to be more creative with a solution. I found myself looking at things from a different perspective to see if there was another way. I could practice realizing the reality of a situation without getting caught up in drama. I could practice staying focused on the present moment. I could practice making choices. I could practice saying “yes” or “no” and really own it.

So…the next time something happens and you feel your stomach tighten or your shoulders clenching or you feel the urge to scream at the top of your lungs,

STOP.

Take a deep breath.

Feel your feet on the ground,

look around with the eyes of an observer and think…

what is perfect about this? What is this allowing me to practice?

It makes a huge difference for me every day and I bet it’ll do the same for you!

If you enjoy hearing about ways to have more peace and joy in parenting, please check out my website www.margaretwebblifecoach.com or “Like” my Margaret Webb Life Coach Facebook page. I’m being completely honest when I say that I was a completely different parent two years ago (before life coaching) and now I have people come up all of the time and tell me how calm and peaceful I am with Andrew and I feel it too! If you are ready to have more peace and joy in your life, sign up here for a free 45-minute phone session to see if we are a good fit.

XOXO

Margaret

P.S. So what was perfect about the spices? Well, he had contained them instead of spilling them onto the floor which made cleanup much easier – for him! I got to practice deep breaths and patience, realizing that they were only spices. When I found him in his room, the aroma was so intense that he was sleeping with his comforter covering his face rather than his body SO I think he learned that he didn’t want to have to smell those smells again and hasn’t done it since. It was also kind of humorous to see how he took me literally and I believe that he honestly didn’t understand that what he had done was wasteful. When I brought him over to it to clean it up, he did want to pour them back into the jars. I sensed that he felt bad when I told him that since he had poured them all together that we couldn’t do that. Lots of perfection for both of us wrapped up in something that was not ideal. 🙂

I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday. Halloween holds a special place in my heart, not because I love it or love to dress up or scare people (I actually don’t), but because it is the holiday that woke me up a bit to something I had been overlooking with Andrew.

We were in the grocery store a few years back, when he was 4 and was not speaking any consonants. There were decorations up all over the store and he pointed up at a witch and asked in his own way, what it was. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I had been so focused on trying to get him to talk that I hadn’t really placed any focus on things that most typical children generally pick up on at an early age. It was not that I was dying to teach him about witches, ghosts and goblins but was more about how he was noticing all sorts of things going on around him that I didn’t even realize.

I wanted to be more mindful of exposing him to vocabulary and concepts of each holiday, month and season so that he would form connections between symbols and these times of the year. This is essentially how I was motivated to incorporate themes into My Obstacle Courses, which then reminded me of how I did it so naturally as a teacher. I could incorporate fun, thematic things and concepts while building things like literacy, math, fine motor, gross motor, oral motor, sensory processing and pretend play. He loved it and still gets excited as the themes change.

A huge bonus for me came a year after this first happened and we walked into a store in September with all of the Halloween decorations up and he looked up and said, “Haween.” I said, “Yes! It’s almost Halloween.” 🙂

Engage, Encourage and Empower!