Should You Be Concerned?
Recently, I’ve been answering a number of questions from parents who are wondering if what their child has said or written is normal or cause for concern.
Here’s an example of one these questions and an approach you can use to handle it.
Question:
My daughter drew a cartoon with a dead body in it.
Is this dark humor or something I should be concerned about?
Answer:
It’s fantastic that you are paying close attention to your child and making sure she is okay.
In cases like this where we wonder whether our child’s behavior is normal, and why they are acting a certain way, a good first step is to get more information from your child.
We could make good educated guesses about what is going on, but we also might make incorrect assumptions.
Your daughter is the expert who can give you accurate information about why she drew this cartoon and what she was thinking.
Once you have this information, we can figure out what to do next.
Here are some guidelines that can help your child open to you so you have a beneficial conversation.
(1) Choose a good time to talk
Have a conversation with your child when you are both calm and relaxed, and both of you have time to talk.
(2) Prepare mentally for the conversation
Go into the conversation with curiosity about how your child is thinking and feeling.
Curiosity helps open our minds to hear what is truly going on. It also helps reduce our preconceptions, judgments and worry.
Our children know us well and are sensitive to their perceptions of our feelings about them.
Your child is more likely to open up if they feel your support and interest (curiosity), rather than any judgment or concern.
(3) Start with a compliment and open ended question
You can start by sincerely complimenting your daughter about something specific in her drawing.
Then you can ask her how she came up with the idea for the drawing and how she decided to include the dead body.
The word "how" is a little softer than "why" and can help reduce defensiveness, especially when asked in a genuinely curious way.
(4) Listen and Validate
Listen attentively to your daughter’s answers and validate whatever she says.
Validation comments can sound like:
That makes sense.
What a great way to show that!
Again, you’re holding back on expressing any judgment or concern here.
Instead, you’re simply accepting her answers and telling her you understand.
(5) Ask More Questions
If you have more questions, ask, listen and validate some more.
(6) Appreciate and Compliment
Close by telling your child you appreciated or enjoyed your conversation (assuming that’s true!) and that you enjoy hearing what they are thinking and feeling.
If your child mentions anything that is troubling her, it can be helpful to say, “I’m really glad you told me,” in addition to empathizing and validating her feelings.
(7) Final Words
Ideally, you'll get good information from your daughter and enhance your relationship at the same time, because she will feel your interest and support, and it will feel easy and comfortable for her to talk to you.
From here, you'll know whether she is fine, or needs a longer talk and more support, and we can figure out what you can do next.
Take the Next Step
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