Latest / Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist / S3E37 - The Pendulum Swing: Why Kids Go to Extremes Before They Find Balance

Transcript

S3E37 - The Pendulum Swing: Why Kids Go to Extremes Before They Find Balance · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

• 0:02
  You're listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
• 0:06
  with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
• 0:09
  Hi,
• 0:09
  I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
• 0:11
  The Kid Counselor.
• 0:12
  This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where I give you insight,
• 0:15
  awareness,
• 0:15
  and enlightenment about your parenting
• 0:17
  and your relationship with your kids.
• 0:19
  In today's episode,
• 0:20
  we are going to talk about
• 0:22
  a pendulum swing.
• 0:25
  Which means nothing unless you have some context.
• 0:27
  So,
• 0:27
  I promise I'll dive in.
• 0:29
  But this is one of
• 0:31
  the analogies or pictures that I give to parents when I sit down with them
• 0:36
  about how change takes place in the playroom
• 0:39
  and how CCPT provides the environment and the relationship
• 0:43
  where a child can actually test things
• 0:46
  and find where they want to be.
• 0:48
  And because kids are becoming better versions of themselves,
• 0:51
  the fancy word for that is self-actualizing.
• 0:54
  Because
• 0:55
  they are self-actualizing,
• 0:56
  becoming better versions of themselves,
• 0:58
  they're naturally going to want to find balance.
• 1:02
  They're naturally going to want to find the center.
• 1:05
  So if you think about a pendulum,
• 1:07
  it can swing all the way to the right,
• 1:09
  and then it can come back and swing all the way to the left,
• 1:12
  and that may go on for a while,
• 1:13
  but it will inevitably find the balanced center point
• 1:17
  after it's done swinging.
• 1:19
  And that's exactly what happens to children
• 1:22
  as they're in the child-centered play therapy process and on that journey.
• 1:27
  So,
• 1:27
  let me illustrate with a couple of stories so that you have a sense of what I mean.
• 1:32
  The pendulum is one of the most powerful
• 1:36
  visualizations that we have.
• 1:39
  Because
• 1:40
  often kids feel like they are stuck
• 1:43
  on one end of a pendulum.
• 1:45
  So let's say
• 1:47
  A child has been
• 1:49
  in their minds,
• 1:50
  stuck having no power.
• 1:53
  Which really that's not a stretch.
• 1:55
  Kids have very little control over anything.
• 1:58
  But
• 1:59
  even more so maybe with circumstances,
• 2:02
  you have a child who just feels like they've had absolutely no control for too long.
• 2:07
  So they believe that their pendulum is stuck in powerlessness.
• 2:12
  So what happens is
• 2:14
  we give them the relationship in the environment where they're
• 2:16
  able to start sorting through some of that powerlessness.
• 2:20
  And they get to be in charge when they come into the playroom.
• 2:23
  So they come in
• 2:25
  and they're told you can play with all the toys in most of the ways that you want.
• 2:29
  And then they subconsciously say.
• 2:33
  Well,
• 2:33
  that means that I'm in charge.
• 2:35
  That means that I have power.
• 2:36
  That means that I get control.
• 2:39
  Oh,
• 2:40
  I'm going to swing the pendulum totally the other way because
• 2:43
  it has been stuck and I haven't had any power.
• 2:46
  So watch this.
• 2:47
  I'm going to take dictatorial power and I'm going to love every minute of it.
• 2:52
  And
• 2:53
  that's exactly what happens.
• 2:55
  They believe that they've had no power,
• 2:57
  so they come in and they take all the power that they can get.
• 3:01
  They swing the pendulum completely to the other side.
• 3:05
  And they are,
• 3:06
  they're a dictator.
• 3:08
  They
• 3:09
  order everyone around and they set expectations and they won't
• 3:13
  take no for an answer and they dictate the world and
• 3:16
  they're the boss and everything has to go according to their standards.
• 3:20
  But here's what happens y'all,
• 3:21
  this is the beauty of CCPT.
• 3:24
  Kids hate that feeling.
• 3:27
  They originally think they want it.
• 3:29
  I hate the feeling of having no power,
• 3:31
  so obviously if I hate having no power,
• 3:35
  I won't hate having all the power.
• 3:37
  Little do they know.
• 3:39
  Neither end of a
• 3:41
  spectrum,
• 3:41
  neither end of a pendulum is ever healthy.
• 3:44
  But they don't know that,
• 3:45
  so they have to test it out.
• 3:47
  So they come in and they just go to town.
• 3:50
  I mean,
• 3:51
  I had a kid
• 3:52
  put me in jail every week
• 3:54
  for,
• 3:55
  I don't even remember how many weeks,
• 3:56
  8 or 9,
• 3:57
  I think,
• 3:58
  handcuffed,
• 3:59
  in jail.
• 4:00
  I had to sit crisscross applesauce,
• 4:03
  the whole thing.
• 4:03
  I mean,
• 4:04
  dictatorial power
• 4:06
  and his favorite phrase,
• 4:07
  he was 5 or 6,
• 4:08
  he was little.
• 4:09
  And his favorite phrase was,
• 4:11
  You're not getting out for 8000 years.
• 4:15
  So I was in jail for 8000 years for
• 4:18
  so many weeks.
• 4:20
  And then he added,
• 4:21
  just to add insult to injury,
• 4:23
  I don't even get out for Christmas.
• 4:26
  I mean,
• 4:26
  pretty much everything you can think of that a five year old
• 4:29
  would say to make you feel like you have no power whatsoever,
• 4:32
  that,
• 4:33
  that was how those sessions went.
• 4:35
  And
• 4:36
  why?
• 4:36
  Because
• 4:37
  his life had been completely out of control.
• 4:40
  He'd had absolutely no power.
• 4:41
  His perception was
• 4:43
  that
• 4:44
  he had no control and power over anything.
• 4:47
  So he comes in and he takes it as much as he can take.
• 4:51
  Extreme amounts of power and control.
• 4:55
  Because
• 4:56
  the belief is
• 4:57
  that's going to fix the problem.
• 5:00
  I hate the feeling of powerlessness,
• 5:02
  so I'm going to love the feeling of all the power,
• 5:05
  but they don't.
• 5:07
  They eventually go
• 5:09
  I don't actually like this.
• 5:10
  I don't like that this feels so mean.
• 5:13
  I don't like that I'm
• 5:14
  doing things and making someone else do things that I know probably aren't nice
• 5:20
  and I probably shouldn't be doing.
• 5:22
  I shouldn't be saying these things.
• 5:23
  I shouldn't be acting this way.
• 5:25
  I shouldn't be demanding all this stuff.
• 5:27
  Certainly shouldn't be bossing everybody around like this.
• 5:31
  This doesn't feel good either.
• 5:34
  And then
• 5:35
  They give
• 5:36
  away some of the power,
• 5:38
  and they give away some of the control.
• 5:40
  Let me circle back to my 8000 years,
• 5:42
  kid.
• 5:43
  The 9th week,
• 5:44
  however many weeks it was in a row that I was jailed,
• 5:46
  I think I was jailed for 8 weeks.
• 5:48
  The 9th week.
• 5:51
  We're walking back to the playroom and he says,
• 5:53
  you have to put me in jail today.
• 5:57
  Huge moment
• 5:58
  He gave up the power and control.
• 6:01
  Because
• 6:01
  he didn't want it anymore.
• 6:03
  He knew that it wasn't healthy.
• 6:06
  That's how the pendulum works.
• 6:09
  And this is not just true with power control.
• 6:11
  It's true with everything.
• 6:12
  It's true with anxiety,
• 6:13
  it's true with aggression.
• 6:14
  It's true with
• 6:16
  timidity and shyness.
• 6:17
  It's true,
• 6:19
  no spectrum end is ever healthy.
• 6:21
  This is universally true for all ages.
• 6:25
  If you are always nice.
• 6:27
  By the way,
• 6:28
  just because
• 6:29
  I think this is fascinating,
• 6:31
  if you look up the etymology of the word nice,
• 6:34
  it actually used to be an insult
• 6:36
  to call someone nice.
• 6:38
  So this notion that like we should all just be nice,
• 6:40
  there's bumper stickers everywhere,
• 6:42
  there's like mugs that say just be nice.
• 6:45
  You don't really want to be nice if you understand the root
• 6:48
  of that word,
• 6:49
  but I digress.
• 6:50
  Anyway,
• 6:51
  if you are always nice,
• 6:53
  or let's say kind,
• 6:54
  because maybe that's,
• 6:56
  that's maybe a little bit more appropriate for this analogy.
• 7:00
  That's not healthy.
• 7:01
  If you're always mean,
• 7:03
  that's not healthy.
• 7:05
  If you're always shy,
• 7:06
  that's not healthy.
• 7:08
  If you're always bold,
• 7:10
  that's not healthy.
• 7:12
  Any end of a spectrum,
• 7:13
  any end of a pendulum,
• 7:15
  you don't want to stay there.
• 7:16
  It's not sustainable.
• 7:19
  And kids figure this out in the playroom,
• 7:21
  and the pendulum will start on one end,
• 7:24
  swing to the other,
• 7:25
  and eventually goes back and forth for a
• 7:27
  little while until it finds the balanced center.
• 7:30
  And then you have regulation,
• 7:32
  and then you have coping,
• 7:33
  and then you have emotional vocabulary,
• 7:36
  and then you have the ability to handle what's going on.
• 7:39
  You have other orientation.
• 7:41
  You have a sense of how to treat people.
• 7:44
  Why?
• 7:44
  Because they see both sides,
• 7:46
  they experience both sides,
• 7:48
  and they're like,
• 7:49
  Well gosh,
• 7:50
  I hate having none of the power,
• 7:51
  but I hate having all the power too.
• 7:53
  So I think it's just like it's OK to have
• 7:56
  power sometimes and it's OK not to have power sometimes.
• 7:59
  I can just,
• 8:00
  I can be OK with that.
• 8:02
  That's how regulation develops.
• 8:05
  Because they have to go through both ends
• 8:07
  and then they decide that they want to land where
• 8:10
  it makes sense,
• 8:12
  which is
• 8:13
  both.
• 8:14
  Kids are very black and white.
• 8:16
  You're either good or you're bad.
• 8:18
  You're either smart
• 8:19
  or you're dumb.
• 8:21
  You're either
• 8:22
  ugly or you're pretty.
• 8:23
  They are very black and white concrete thinkers,
• 8:26
  so they live in extremes.
• 8:28
  So you either want all the power or you want none of the power.
• 8:31
  But the playroom
• 8:33
  with the play therapist helps them to see,
• 8:36
  no,
• 8:37
  it's OK to have power sometimes,
• 8:38
  but it's OK to not have power too.
• 8:42
  That's the beauty of child-centered play therapy.
• 8:45
  So I hope that that helps you understand kind of the process a little bit more because
• 8:50
  if you understand that,
• 8:52
  it won't surprise you when you see your kid kind of ping pong.
• 8:56
  They go from one extreme to the other and that can be very jarring.
• 8:59
  It can catch you off guard a little bit,
• 9:00
  but it's actually part of their process
• 9:03
  because they have to experience both ends.
• 9:06
  Hope that that's helpful.
• 9:07
  Hope that it gives you some insight.
• 9:09
  I love y'all.
• 9:09
  We'll talk again soon.
• 9:10
  Bye.
• 9:11
  Thank you for listening to
• 9:13
  the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
• 9:17
  For more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter,
• 9:20
  please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.