Lending calm

Somebody very wise once wrote that the best way to soothe a troubled child is to "lend them your calm."

My poor J was overtired tonight and wound herself up into a state that even a strawberry ice pop couldn't cure it. It was that bad.

Although F was convinced she was on the brink of schizophrenia (she was playing happily not two minutes before her rage took flight, for no apparent reason), I sensed she had just reached her limit for the day, badly needed sleep, and that it was going to be a rough night.

So I took a deep breath, gave her a time out when she hurled a hardcover book at her Dad, and then poured on the calm. I didn't try to reason, cajole or tease her out of it (I knew from experience that never works). Instead I patiently waited for the storm to blow over and for her to come to me.

It takes extreme stores of patience to be a parent. And I think it also requires a deep understanding of your child's individual personality, her verbal and non-verbal cues. I was in a calm mood to begin with, so that helped. But I watched her, I really watched her as she went through each stage of this tantrum, banishing us all from the room one minute and then running to me for a quick hug and then a push away. Trying to shake herself out of it by ordering the cat not to stare at her, laughing for a second and then shooting death rays at anyone who dared join in.

"Oh, I am in such a bad mood and I can't stop!" she told me at one point. "I know, honey," I told her. "Sometimes I feel that way, too."

She still didn't stop, and she needed a second time out with the door closed for throwing another book, but as I softly spoke to her through the door, I know that somewhere deep in her little 5-year-old brain and heart and soul, she was responding to me - even if she still couldn't let go of her rage.

Finally, I wielded a parent's ultimate secret weapon - distraction -- to great success.

I told the story of Princess Criesalot who was angry almost every night and would go through the castle saying, "Stomp, stomp, stomp, no, no, no - everybody must go, go, go!"

One day she was walking in the forest near the castle and tripped over a tree root. When she cried out again, ""Stomp, stomp, stomp, no, no, no - everybody must go, go, go!" a squirrel looked up at her quizzically, and then an owl looked down and said, "Who?" (The girls loved that part).

Princess Criesalot got so angry that she began crying, because that's what happens sometimes when you get really angry - it's so frustrating that it makes you cry. J perked up at this, although she still wasn't won over.

The story devolves into a simple mistaken identity fairy tale, with the Prince of Heart Mountain disguised as a woodsman happening upon the crying princess. They talk, both neglect to tell the other of their royal heritage, go their own ways, and then finally meet again, discover their mutual nobility, they laugh, he proposes, happy ending.

J fell asleep in her clothes before the secret identities were revealed, but she was definitely enjoying it, lying with her tear-stained face in my lap before she finally dozed off, exhausted, just as the prince and princess were about to have a second rendezvous.

I've been making up my own bedtime stories for the girls for a few years now, and it tickles me silly that they enjoy my tall tales. Now that they're at the age of memory, I hope I'm helping create some images that they'll share one day with their children.

And that they'll learn how to share their calm with their own children. It's a wonderful gift to lend.