It looks as if we only have another 3-4 weeks to wait…I have a few layout issues I am trying to get sorted at the moment…I might have to accept things aren’t 100% and deal with that later. Sigh.

Anyhow, I have ideas for 6 posts to run after publication….if you have any ideas or questions please leave them on the kloppenmum facebook page.

Many thanks. (SO excited!)

The back of the book says:

Although it can seem that all tantrums are the same, Karyn Van Der Zwet suggest that there are several different kinds and these can be grouped into two main categories: Reaction Tantrums and Processing Tantrums. She describes how the brain and body really work to maintain homeostasis and how we,at a biological level, learn to be pro-social no matter which culture we are born into.

‘All About Tantrums’ covers: Attention Seeking, Boredom, Transitions, Frustration Tantrums, Possession Tantrums, Over-Excitement, Over-Whelmed Tantrums, The Witching Hour, Jealousy, Wilfulness and more.

‘All About Tantrums’ both draws on the strengths of common parenting styles and challenges their weaknesses. It provides practical strategies to help the reader prevent and manage tantrum behaviours.

http://www.worldmomsblog.com/2013/04/12/zealand-pavlova/

Those people who have experienced lack during the development of their other primal needs do not fully move into this stage.

1. Those people who have Connection issues struggle to be authentic and emotionally connected in their sexuality.

2. Those people who have Attunement issues struggle to move beyond their need for nurturing – as if they are still a small child.

3. Those people who have Trust issues tend to be dominant and controlling, and are incapable of mutual healthy relationships.

4. Those people who have Autonomy issues struggle to be authentic and set appropriate boundaries, they see relationships as traps.

Problems with Love with Sexuality develop during times of sexual awakening and the development of self-awareness: between the ages of four and six; and during puberty at, say, 12 to 15.

Those people, who have had their other primal needs largely met but issues have arisen at these core ages, show the characteristics of lack in Love with Sexuality. They tend to be highly energetic, attractive and successful. They appear self-confident but their sense of self is conditional upon their appearance and (latest) performance/achievement, yet inside they feel deeply flawed.

When there have been issues Love with Sexuality one of two sub-types tends to emerge.

1. The Romantic Subtype: Open-hearted but disconnected from their sexuality they struggle to integrate sexuality with developing and deepening love. Their sexual feelings diminish over time. They may even become the moral guardians of society as they have disconnected from their sexual impulses.

2. The Sexual Subtype: People with these issues seek out attractive partners for the purposes of bolstering their own sense of self. They don’t use sex for power as those with Trust issues do but use it to avoid any real emotional connection with another. They focus on conquest and performance rather than love. They often break contact with anyone with whom they might develop a true heart connection, instead they prefer sex with strangers – constantly seeking sexual satisfaction that their rigid bodies cannot allow them to fully experience.

Core Fear:

There is something fundamentally wrong with me.

Shame-Based Identity: (What they feel inside but would hate anyone else to know.)

Hurt

Rejected

Flawed

Feeling unloved and unlovable.

Pride-Based Identity: (What they show to the world.)

“I will never let anyone hurt me again.”

Reject first rather than risk being rejected.

Sense of self based on appearance and image.

Perfect, seamless, flawless.

Reality:

Love that is based on looks and performance is not love at all.

Behavioural Characteristics:

Perfectionist – Impossibly high standards for self and others.

Hard on selves when fail to live up to their high-standards.

Continually orientated toward self-improvement

Drawn to activities that make their already hardened bodies -harder. (Plastic surgery/Intense and long work-outs)

Mistake admiration for love.

Difficulty experiencing love and sexuality together – once deeper love develops in relationships sexuality shuts down.

Difficulty maintaining relationships

Sexually acting out or prime and prudish.

Self-righteous, judgmental, stiff with pride.

Driven, compulsive, black and white thinking.

Doing focussed rather than feeling and being.

Sex is main way of being in touch with their bodies.

Seductive and then rejecting, will always reject first.

Sexual conquests determine their sense of sexual desirability.

Afraid to open their hearts.

Competitive

Fear of surrender and own vulnerability.

Although these people look great on the outside, they have experienced intense rejection and hurt. They tend to question if they can ever love or be properly loved.

They are like this with good reason – they have had their trust in relationship destroyed and their survival style is to cling with all their might to anyone with whom they feel an emotional connection. Their biggest fear is to disappoint, or let down, other people but at the same time they (often non-consciously) resent the amount of work they imagine they have to do in order to maintain relationships.

They battle with their intellectual belief that they are doing the right thing (being super-friend; super-partner; super-parent) and their unacknowledged guilt at not wanting to do those things. They are subversive and quietly rebellious. When it comes to things that would help them get through their day/life more efficiently, they often procrastinate to the point of failure and self-sabotage. 

This is part of a series that began here: Preventing Our Children From Developing Demons (And Healing Our Own).

I see many of the aspects of this Survival Style in myself and in our eldest son. I accept that the patterns have helped him and I get through some really tough times and I recognise that those patterns are no longer healthy and need to be broken.

Here are a few of the things that he and I work on:

1. Saying things like, “Stop it, I don’t like that.” When fun teasing or horseplay becomes intrusive or unpleasant.

2. Accepting that no healthy relationship (once a child is able to explore alone) is completely attuned and that it is unrealistic to expect it to be attuned. When things don’t go according to plan we use as much direct speech as possible – “ I feel X… I don’t like it when.. X” Because our son is older than 9, he is able to develop healthy conscious reflection around this issue and we celebrate imperfections in our relationship through humour. We both can admit when we’ve been out of step with one another and we can still love one another because of that, as much as despite that. We accept that benign neglect is a healthy state when we spend a lot of time together.

3. I often remind myself that my needs are as important as those of others around me and I make provision to spend time meeting as many of those needs as I can. My oldest son and I often have this discussion – quite frankly he doesn’t always have to concede to the wishes of his friends and if he does concede all the time, those friendships are not healthy. Now that our youngest is older than three years of age, I make a point of spending time away from the boys that is not kindy/school time – I expect all the children to sometimes wait when I am busy doing things I need to do either to keep the family running or for my own pleasure. They learn that they can manage when I am not constantly meeting their every need. They learn that relationships can survive and in fact, thrive, when people aren’t completely attuned (allowing for relationship repair when necessary). Remembering: attunement is our base state and the boys have had most of their normal dependency needs met.

4. Gauging our internal pressure levels. As procrastinators and self-sabotages we tend to wait until our internal pressure level is up around 8 or 9 out of 10 before we take action. In the past, our boy could be up for an hour or longer before he began his chores and then rushed to complete them in a panic. I did the same with paying bills. The best strategy I have found to deal with this is to automate as many things as possible. Bills are usually paid automatically and chores are now broken into very small chunks with small time limits.

5. We play at rebelling. We break some rules. We giggle hysterically when we do things ‘wrong.’ Subversive rule-breaking has been replaced by occasional blatant rule breaking.

When we set appropriate boundaries we give the people in our lives the space to be imperfectly human. We take the pressure off ourselves to be super-heroes. Our stress levels reduce and we can live happier lives with a greater sense of peace.

 (If you are new here, this post is part of a series that began here:

Preventing Our Children From Developing Demons (And Healing Our Own). )

People with an Autonomy Survival Style had their basic nurturing needs met in the first few years of life. However, once they reach the stage of exploration their main caregivers (non-consciously and unintentionally) fall into a pattern of behaviour that says more about them than their children. LaPierre and Heller put it like this, ” Attuned parents support increasing age-appropriate independence and exploration. Highly anxious parents undermine their children’s developing need for independence because of their own unresolved fears. They prevent their age-appropriate movement toward autonomy in order to ”protect their children.”  They go on to say this can also happen when parents see their children as an extension of themselves – when they become emotionally intrusive, emeshed or over-controlling. In this version, the children superficially go along with their parents’ agenda but hold a great deal of tension within themselves and are secretly resentful. They are paralysed by internal conflict – self-sabotaging when they are about to succeed at something. They yearn for closeness but also fear losing their independence. They blame others for taking advantage of their good nature – all the while playing the ‘good-boy’ or the ‘good-girl.’ These are the people who are ruled by the word – should.

Core Fears:

1.If people really knew me, they wouldn’t love me.

2. If I show you how I really feel, you won’t love me.

Shame Based Identity (What they hold inside but rarely accept about themselves or show to others.)

1. Angry

2. Rebellious

3. Enjoy disappointing expectations others have of them.

4. Burdened.

Pride Based Identity (What they show to the world; Their social face.)

1. Nice, sweet, compliant

2. Good boy/ good girl

3. Fear of disappointing others

4. Pride at how much they can take on their shoulders: “I can take it.”

Reality

Autonomy comes from knowing what is right for them and having the ability to say, Yes, when they mean, Yes and, No, when they mean No.

Coping Mechanisms

1. Indirectness, not laying cards on the table.

2. Will, effort, trying.

3. Passive aggression

4. Guilt

5. Rumination

6. In relationships they strategise rather than communicate their real feelings.

7. Projects authority on to others.

8. Procrastination.

 Behaviours:

1. Ambivalent and paralysed by internal conflict.

2. Often complain of being ‘stuck.’

3. Fear of losing independence  when they become intimate.

4. Choose to please others rather than themselves and then feel resentful.

5. Fear of own spontaneous expression.

6. Fear of being rejected or attacked.

7. Feel guilty all the time and apologise too much.

8. Superficially eager to please.

9. Covertly feeling spite, negativity and anger.

10. Passive-aggressive; self-assertion; an access to healthy aggression is limited.

11. Secretive about their pleasures because they fear they will be taken away.

12. Feel they can only submit to authority or rebel.

13. Strong fear of humiliation.

14. Will distance themselves from a situation rather than confront it.

15. Believe others have an agenda for them – even when this is not true.

16. Want to know what is expected of them, so they can do the opposite.

17. Pressure themselves continuously but believe pressure is coming from outside influences.

18. Continual self-judgment and self-criticism.

19. Confuse their unwillingness to stand up for themselves with flexibility.

20. Use the pressure of waiting until the last minute to reach a deadline. The force of pressure helps them to break through the paralysis of ambivalence.

 Interesting, huh? Sound like anyone you know?

Often times they do nothing to correct our impressions: some really want to be the person we think they are; some like the status our adoration gives them; others aren’t even aware of the story we have created around them.

It’s hard when they show their true colours. The process of untangling our emotions from the image we had created, and believed, is damned difficult. I reckon it’s the same as the mourning process – we have to mourn that person as if they have died, and in a way they have. The image has died. So we go through the whole: denial, anger, bargaining, depression route until we finally find some closure and accept we were wrong.

Sometimes this happens when one of us grows personally and the other stalls or grows in a different direction. There’s nothing wrong with either person – we just become different. This can be a slower process, so the mourning is less dramatic and the closure can come more easily. The others just disappears from our life or we disappear from theirs’.

This is the next post in a series that began here:Preventing Our Children From Developing Demons (And Healing Our Own).

Imagine how much harder it is then for the child – adult sized or younger – who has been given a persona to live up to by their parents. Not only are they not loved or accepted for who they really are - but they have to be someone they are not in order to survive.

Then one day that illusion is shattered. Then, for some reason, they suddenly lose the persona, at this point they have probably broken the relationship they had with their parents, and they have no idea who they really are or how to be themselves. They may be 22, or 32, or 46 or 77 years of age. The mourning process is intense and unrelenting. It is physically uncomfortable as any mourning is.

While most of us at least have our own identity to cling to when we lose our illusions of another – these people don’t. More often than not, they self-destruct. They either implode – and shut off their emotional state from the rest of the world – or they explode – and take their emotional state out on the rest of the world. It’s messy. And the only way through it, is through it.

The only strategy I have seen people use to effectively deal with this loss is to put distance between them and their parents. Sometimes it’s a geographical distance at other times it’s just emotional distance. In many cases, it’s the cutting of all contact. At least for some years.

To many looking in on the situation, this can seem an immature approach or one which is inordinately cruel to the parents who have given so much to their children. In fact it is an adult survival technique often suggested by psychotherapists and the like.

It is useful because it gives the ‘child’ the chance to properly mourn their lost persona. Contact with people who have imposed their ego needs on another is too difficult in this situation. Often those parent egos haven’t changed – they still intrude their wishes upon their children and they want to feed the images they created. As long as those images are being fed they can not be laid to rest and  new, more authentic identities cannot be created.

This is Karpman Drama Triangle stuff and something I talk about in my soon to be released book (All About Tantrums, June 2013).

The drama roles we learn at home in the first four to five years of our life can be insidious, and give us automatic and life-long behaviours. Bringing these patterns into our consciousness to be recognised and put-out, so to speak, is a hell-process – and the worst of it is, as soon as we see our parents again, it is all too easy to resort to those childhood patterns of behaviour. Often as not, it’s not until our blessed 40s that we really come to terms with the differences between who we are and who our parents think we are. And for some people, it never happens.

Anyhoo, thought I’d give you the heads up – thanks for all of your support over the past few years. If you know of anyone who could do with a bit of help or support with tantrum prevention or management send them over!
Karyn

http://www.worldmomsblog.com/2013/03/06/zealand-drought/