Tip 2 from Dr Janet Hall's book: Fear-free Children.

Finch Publishing, 2001

Communication and Compassion

1. Listening
The first essential skill in listening to your child is to really concentrate on the child’s concerns.
Do not deliver the solution until the child has expressed her upset.
The best time to listen to children's fears is during the day time.
'Deep and meaningfuls' (heart‑to‑heart talks) late at night can be intensely upsetting and parents can be led into all sorts of drama and pathos because of the low biorhythms which naturally occur in the night and children's need for attention at bedtime.

Parents have to find a balance between being there to listen to a frightened child and being manipulated by a schemer who wants to stay up late! Never ignore a scared child at night, but set a time limit for talking about upsetting things and don't get caught up in night‑time drama.

Make a time during the day to sit down with your child and talk about things that might be scaring her. Acknowledge your own feelings about things that have been worrying you or things that you're scared about.

Please note: I am not telling you not to talk to your child. I am just saying to choose the right time so that the best result will be gained for everybody. If you try to have a deep and meaningful conversation late at night, you could be asking for trouble.

(And while you are at it – remember the No D and M's rule for your own relationship. Parents who sit up until all hours to have D and M's can get hysterical and resolve nothing. If you wait until the light of day, it's amazing how a rational conversation can resolve your adult differences.)

Listening, without necessarily providing solutions, is vitally important in helping your child to recover after trauma.

A child might be preoccupied with the trauma. He might want to talk about it all the time, play it out, act it out or want to go back to see where it happened.

What you can do to help

After a trauma, it is very important not to ignore the child's feelings. Allow her to pour out all her emotional upset.
Warning: This is not the time for parents to implement behavioural consequences for crying.
Those sorts of strategies are highly recommended for long‑term behavioural disturbances, but a trauma is a very unusual event and needs to be treated as an exception.

A true story: The heartless mother

Picture the following scenario:

Billy, aged 8, ran up to the back door, threw down his bag and cried to Mum: "Mum, Mum ‑ a boy fell over in the school yard today and split his head open!"

Mum looked up impatiently and said, "Put your bag away, Billy"

Billy ran up his Mum and said, "But Mum, you don't understand! You should have seen the blood ‑ I was nearly sick!! The blood went all over the place arid the boy was slipping in it and then his eyes closed and he just lay there still. I thought he was dead, Mum!"

His mother ignored his upset and said: "Billy, I don't know how many times I've told you to put your bag away. If you don't put your bag away right now, you won't get any TV."

Billy cried, "But Mum, this has got nothing to do with my school bag. Will you please listen?"

His mother turned on her heels and went outside to take the washing off the clothesline.

That night, Billy woke up screaming, with nightmares.

His heartless mother lay frozen in her bed and demanded of the father, "Don't you go to him ‑ I'm fed up with him, he's not doing any of his jobs ‑ he's just crying out for attention!"

There's absolutely no reason for this mother to be so heartless. In the aftermath of a trauma, kids need understanding. This is not the time to insist on rules and regulations.

The second essential skill for positive parents is to be able to choose your own use of positive language in communicating to your child when you are responding to them.

Be a positive parent: programme your child with positive language.

Be careful about your language around children. Always have a positive expectation. The brain does not hear a negative. For instance, it doesn't hear "don't".

Remember what happens when an anxious mother, watching a three-year‑old proudly carrying an over-full cup to the table, says, "DON'T SPILL IT!"

Yes! You're right, of course. The child spills it.

Be careful not to cause an accident because of your own fear. Many a child has fallen from a tree or fence and broken a limb because a parent has called out, "Watch out, you'll fall!" Immediately after this call, what happens? Yes, the child falls.

So, instead of warning with a negative line, such as: Don't get hit by a car!, Don't drop it and be messy!, or Don't get lost; say it positively, for example: "You will be careful, Take good care, Step carefully."

Sleep therapy

A wonderful strategy for parents who have been concerned about their children's night terrors or general daytime anxiety is to use the sleep therapy technique. With sleep therapy the parent goes into the room during the night (perhaps just before the parent goes to sleep) and stands very quietly beside the bed, looking at the sleeping child.

The beauty of the sleeping child never fails to amaze! What love and joy fills the parent's heart. Gone completely is the upset of the daytime tantrums and emotional dramas. There is nothing but love in the space between sleeping child and watching parent.

A really good strategy is for the parent to match his breathing with the child's breathing. This is called "entering into rapport". The parent then says the child's name and just touches the child very gently on the face. The parent then waits and, usually, the child will stir ever so slightly. The parent then says the sleep therapy affirmation.

The sleep therapy affirmation.
You are a beautiful, beautiful child, Mary. (Put in your child's name.)
Mummy and Daddy love you very much.
Sleep easy, sleep well ‑ tomorrow will be a beautiful day.
I love you.

The parent then leaves the room very quietly.

Amazing things can happen the next day as both child and parent carry in their hearts an unconscious memory of the connection that they made in the middle of the night.