Mirroring Monday – I Don’t Want to Go to Camp Edition
Start the week off right with examples of mirroring from the team at Connected Parenting and share your own favorite mirroring moment in the comments below.
This week’s Mirroring Moment is from Barbara Miller. Enjoy!
A boy of 10 years old was very anxious about starting a summer baseball day camp this summer, although he had been there last summer and loved it. His mother used mirroring statements effectively, although it was quite hard at the beginning.
Boy: I’m not going, you can’t make me!
Mom: Wow, you REALLY don’t want to go.
Boy: Yeah, I never wanted to go back, you made me.
The mother had previously got into a big power struggle with her son, reminding him that he had in fact requested to go back after last summer…it ended in a “he said/she said” and was not useful.
So she tried a different approach.
Mom: You know, it’s been a long time since last summer and you have different feelings about it now.
Boy: Yeah, and last year I made a friend and then he moved away.
Mom: That’s right, and this year you don’t know anyone…except you do know Sean.
Boy: Yeah but he knows other kids and we’re not really friends.
Mom: So one of the really tough things right now is you don’t have a friend to go with and that makes it kind of tricky.
Boy: Yeah…whenever I make friends they move away, so why bother!
Mom: Well that is really tough and it makes alot of sense that you might not want to get disappointed again…can you tell me a bit about what the counsellors were like?
The boy began to remember how much he liked the counsellors and remembered one in particular that he liked.
Mom: Well what if we take it one day at a time…it’s too much to think of the whole week so let’s just try for one day.
The boy was still very reluctant but agreed to go. It was a bumpy first day, but after that he loved it and said he wants to return again next year!
* To find out more about mirroring and the CALM method, read the Connected Parenting book or make an appointment with one of our therapists.
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Posted On: Jul 19th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
How timely!!! This method REALLY does work. I have a spirited, intense child, wrote the following and posted on a support board based on what happened today, actually.
Charlotte came out of VBS super grumpy. Said she didn’t like it, etc. (Before leaving, I observed her smiling and interacting with friends, and getting a hug from a friend.) Using an approach I’ve started doing lately, I didn’t lecture, chide, encourage. I just “mirrored” her- “You really didn’t have a good time today. You didn’t like it. You really don’t like the space theme. You only have three friends in your class.” etc etc. After doing that for a while, she grudgingly said, “Fine, I’ll go back tomorrow.” (As the author of the book “Connected Parenting” said she would!) She still had some grumpy/angry feelings. Did some playful parenting in the car after we got home, I acted “mad” when she gave me an old, ratty Trader Joe’s sticker she found. “I’m going to stick this on your shirt… and I’m going to cover up your butterfly! No, your ladybug! No, the flowers! No, wait I’m going to STICK IT ON YOUR NOSE!” (Letting her “protect” herself from my attempts to “stick” her.) Then “I’m so mad I’m going to THROW THIS STICKER AWAY!” (Laughter from girls). C takes sticker, balls it up and says, “Here! Throw it away now!!!”
Gwen & I head in house, C is still grumping and such… comes in, stomping… I stomp too, to match her, then she goes to swat at me, and I decide to gently set a boundary… get down to her and say, “No, you can get your angry feelings out in other ways but you cannot hit Mommy.” I think because I had really been mirroring and validating her, she “heard” my boundary and stopped that, and I stepped away from her. Somehow re-engaged again and she was hugging me, and I reminded her I loved her even when she was super grumpy, and then the next thing I knew she had playfully tackled me and we were on the floor and she was telling me how much she loved me. Then Gwen joined in, of course.
So, a lot of “work” but it worked. Whew! This is a different approach, I had cut WAY back on validating because it didn’t seem to be “working” but now I’m doing it a bit differently and it’s starting to work. I’m trying to make sure that she knows that I “hear” her- that she got water on her and she HATES that and it REALLY bothers her; that she really didn’t like VBS that much and she knows she has to go and I know that she won’t be happy about it. So she doesn’t have to try to “convince” me through outrageous behavior that she really feels a certain way- hoping it will help her emotion regulation.
Oh- cooked some Annie’s Mac & Cheese and she ate 2/3rds of the box on her own. She’s also started taking baths, just headed upstairs to take a bath, I hope that will help her relax too!
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