There is nothing that quite prepares you for just how triggering it can be for you as a parent when one of your kids is hurting their sibling. It definitely activates your own defensive and protective systems. Give yourself a lot of grace and compassion too.
The first step is to re-frame.
Remember that behaviour is your child communicating that they aren’t coping. Their ‘thinking brain’ has been hijacked and they are in protection mode. They are in fight/flight. They are responding as if they are under threat.
So instead of thinking… How can I stop my PDAer’s aggressive behaviour? We have to switch our thinking to… How can I help my PDAer to feel more safe?
Now, because their thinking brain is offline, trying to problem solve in the heat of the moment isn’t going to work particularly well. Yelling, punishing or giving a lecture to “teach them a lesson” when they are still stressed, isn’t going to sink in, it’s most likely just going to escalate things.
With these things in mind, I have a few suggestions. There is no one solution that is going to work for every family so this will take some trial and error. Try the things that resonate, make adaptations and ignore anything that you know won’t work for your family.
1. How can we make your child feel more safe? (Which in turn can help to minimise their system going into fight/flight and reduce aggressive outbursts.)
- Keep the demands as low as possible. Remember that stressors and demands are cumulative so if you had a busy day/week/month this is going to impact your PDAer’s tolerance levels.
- Meet your PDAer’s sensory needs. This is going to look different for every child. In our house it means things like wearing nice soft clothing, giving back scratches, reducing noise and having earmuffs available, having a box of visual and tactile toys that our PDAer finds calming, doing wall handstands and having access to a trampoline and swing set in our backyard.
- Set up the environment to work for you. This might mean having separate play spaces for siblings or having doubles of toys to eliminate the need for sharing, not every moment has to be a teachable moment! Our PDAer keeps special toys in his room, the demand to share them is just too high.
- Build in as much one-on-one time with your PDAer as you can. I know, easier said than done. This builds trust and connection which helps them get back into their ‘safety brain’ and gives their tolerance levels a boost.
- Build time into the week where your kids get time apart. It’s really important that your PDAer’s siblings get one-on-one time where they can feel special.
- If you can, try some preventative problem solving (I really like Ross Greene’s CPS model). If you know there are certain trigger points throughout the day you can work on coming up with some solutions when everyone is calm. At our place, getting into the car is a particularly tricky time. I know that if I buckle my daughter in first, it is highly likely that she is going to get hurt. So, we have simply adapted the scenario so that our PDAer always gets buckled in first.
So, you’ve done absolutely everything you can proactively to create a safe environment. Next tune into your child.
2. What are the signs that your PDAer is starting to escalate?
- For us the signs are squealing, vocalising, nervous laughter, reduced speech, erratic movements, and taking his sibling’s things. These tell me that his nervous system is on edge and that I need to act now to try and help his system to regulate.
- At these times I know that I can’t leave my kids to play together unsupervised. Regularly I find myself setting up two different activities in the same space and physically positioning myself in-between. This also means that I have to adjust my expectations around what I can realistically achieve while looking after the kids by myself.
- If another adult is around, we separate the kids.
- Often, I use screens to help. This means setting up one of the kids with a show while I give the other child some one-on-one time to co-regulate.
Of course, none of these preventative strategies are fail-safes and there will be times when nervous systems escalate and aggressive behaviour comes out.
3. What can you do in the moment?
- You can validate with your PDAer. “You’re feeling frustrated.” “You don’t want to share.”
- You can set boundaries. “I can’t let you hurt your sibling.” “I can’t let you be around your sibling when your body is in a jumpy mood.”
- If someone does get hurt, comfort them, you might have to remove them out of harm’s way. This might suck. It might mean they have to stop what they were doing. I know that it might not seem fair, and they might feel like they are the one being punished. You have to validate them too. You might say something along the lines of “It’s my job to keep you safe, I can’t let you play in here right now, we have to go to your safe space.” “I know it’s really hard having a… little/big brother/sister. They love you and are not themselves right now. It’s not your fault” (You might label your PDAer’s threat response so that it can be separated from them. There is a book called The Red Beast by K. I. Al-Ghani that does this well)
- You might have to sit with the fact that fair is not always equal. Your PDAer’s siblings have to start learning this too. Ross Greene says, “In our house people get the help they need with the things they need help with.”
- You could also choose to remove your PDAer from the situation. However, if you choose this path you have to be willing to manage the fall out, which could potentially be a huge meltdown. Only you can decide if it is worth it, if it is a boundary you need to hold. You might also have to make a plan for what your PDAer’s sibling will do while you assist your PDAer in working through the meltdown. In our house, if I choose this path, I know that I will end up with two kids who both intensely need me, it will prolong a negative experience and the rest of the day is likely to be a huge right off.
- At our house helping through a meltdown looks like this. I try to stay as calm as I can, crouch or sit down, stay close, make the space safe by moving things away, say “I’m here if you need a hug.” It is necessary to wait it out and then once my PDAer has de-escalated slightly, I can implement some calming strategies like stroking his hair, giving him back scratches, giving him a hug, giving him his comfort toy, and moving him to his bed where he might like to be left alone for a little while, I then keep checking back until he is ready to engage in a favourite activity together.
4. Debrief with each of your kids once everyone is calm. This might include apologising and repairing for how you acted when your nervous system was escalated too. There might also be an additional conversation at another time to collaboratively problem solve how to make some changes to prevent this happening next time.
5. Look after your own nervous system. Helping your kids through tough situations can take a huge toll on your own energy. Maggie Dent talks about finding micro-moments for self-care. For me, this looks like 5-minute yoga, deep breathing, grounding exercises, going for a walk once my husband gets home and journalling about it before I go to sleep so that I’m not kept awake reliving the experience.
