My granddaughters spent the afternoon with me. Haley (8), Alexa (41⁄2) and I walked to Lakeside Park near my house to enjoy the beautiful day and “see what we could see.” We walked through the beautiful botanical garden. We played Billy Goats Gruff on the bridge (taking turns being the troll). They found fishing poles in the pond and we finally ended up on the playground. It was a great day for all of us.
We then headed back home, with Grama Lulu (me) leading the way. Everything was going well as the girls followed me, noticing the squirrels and the fountain. I turned around to see how they were progressing, just in time to see Alexa running, stumbling, and falling! As she screamed at the top of my lungs, I ran to her side and gently wrapped my arms around her.
I’ve been reading a wonderful book* by a renowned child psychiatrist, Dr. Bruce D. Perry. As I was holding Alexa, I remembered her statement: “To calm a frightened child, you must first calm yourself.” With this in mind, I took several deep breaths as I assessed the wounds of this very distressed and scared girl: blood on her elbow and blood near the tip of a finger.
Bruce Perry also wrote about “The Arousal Continuum”, which tells us that with trauma we go from Calm to Alert, then Alarm, then Fear, and finally … Terror. Alexa had gone from her quiet state of fun to horror in about 15 seconds. My goal was to reduce the tension, help her regain a state of calm and equanimity. I tried to comfort and calm her. She screamed, “I want my mommy!” With her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, we managed to cross the great street and start up the hill. “I want my mommy!” She sobbed. She continued screaming. I kept reassuring her. (I was wondering if concerned neighbors would think I was kidnapping her.)
As I entered the lobby, I reminded her to use her “inner voice”, which calmed her down a bit. Inside my condo it continued, especially as I tried to clean the wounds and put on plasters. With that finished, we sat on the floor and I held her in my arms for a while. Suddenly she looked at her finger in amazement and announced, “It doesn’t hurt anymore!” The storm had passed. He endured the pain and came out the other side. He was calm again, a natural process.
Her young brain recorded this experience, which will help her resist future life traumas. The phone conversation she later had with her mom was the icing on the cake for her. As recent research revealed, it was as good as a loving hug (“A mother’s voice on the phone can soothe a child as much as a hug, study suggests”).
With every Event, be it a skinned knee, a broken heart, or an earthquake, our Response determines the Outcome. In short form: E + R = O. I learned this at a Jack Canfield lecture. We may be out of control of many events (especially accidents) that happen in life, but we influence the outcome by how we respond. It is best if we do it from a quiet, serene and serene place, without reacting (“clumsy child!”), Decreasing (“that’s nothing” or “don’t be a baby”) or scolding (“You should have looked where you were going “). In every situation, we respond best if we are in a calm and peaceful state of mind.
{*The boy who was raised as a dog, Bruce Perry, MD, Ph.D.}