What Unmet Need Is Causing This Behavior?

Kyen gripped the edge of the Target shopping cart with his little hands like a prisoner clutches the bars of a jail cell. He rocked his body back and forth as if the rocking would bust him out into freedom.

At the same time, Maverick crawled underneath the shopping cart and wedged his body into the bottom shelf where I usually place cases of sparkling water. He dragged his feet like a door-stopper, making the cart immobile as Kyen used his gift of self-expression to alert everyone in the store to his discontent.

I picked Kyen up and tried to calm him as I bribed Mav’s behavior with a cookie. When that didn’t work, I threatened to take away his iPad. As this was happening, Kyen squirmed out of my arms and ran behind a shelf of toddler t-shirts.

I had lost full control, but I had gained full awareness of every single other person in the store. It didn’t matter whether their faces seemed annoyed, disapproving, or full of solidarity; their eyes were on me and it turned my story-making mind on in full gear.

“What a bad mom she is,” I imagined them thinking. “She must let her boys run wild.”

Or if they knew me, “Ha! She’s a conscious parenting coach and she can’t even get her boys to sit still.”

This judgment I was projecting onto innocent bystanders came from what I call my Good Girl Anxiety. My Good Girl Anxiety is tied to the conditioned beliefs I have about myself. It demands me to portray perfection so I am loved and accepted by others. It ties my sense of worth to my children’s behavior, as so many moms do.

And then my self-mastery work kicked in. I realized I was more concerned about being perceived as the perfect parent rather than staying in the present moment and dealing with the neutral facts at hand. I wasn’t trying to connect with my boys. Instead, I was completely centered on myself, worried about what other people thought of me.

What Unmet Need Is Causing This Behavior?

In that conscious moment I realized my job as their mother was to put on my detective hat and find out what unmet need was causing this meltdown.

You see, in conscious parenting, we don’t label any child or any behavior as “bad.” Instead, we look at the behavior as an indication of an unmet need. There are generally three types of needs our children have: physical, emotional, and boundary needs.

For physical needs, consider:

Is my child hungry? Tired? Overstimulated? Cold? Is her jacket on too tight? Does he have a belly ache?

For emotional needs, ask:

Are they craving connection from me? Did I disregard her authentic self or deny her reality? Have I not validated his feelings?

(This is the need I see parents skip over too quickly. But not you! As you care for your own emotional needs, you’ll be more attuned to those of your children.)

If your child’s need is not physical or emotional, it’s likely they have a boundary need:

What skill or boundary do they need to be taught? Or what kind of reinforcement do they need for a skill they are still learning?

For example, every single night for 30 days (or longer) you may need to say, “It’s not OK to throw food at the dinner table. If you keep throwing food, I’m going to have to take your plate away.” And follow through with the natural consequence of removing their plate so they understand that this boundary is for real.

Once I saw my Good Girl Anxiety for what it was, I was able to turn my eyes from the other adults in Target to my sons. Instead of calling them “bad” or trying to look disappointed to shame them into behaving, I assessed the neutral facts of the situation.

🏃 Their unmet needs were physical: We had been in Target too long and their jackrabbit legs needed to run.

😫 They were also emotional: While we were less than three feet from each other, I was completely ignoring them as I went about my grocery shopping and label reading. They needed connection.

⚠️ They also had unmet boundary needs: They were not aware of appropriate shopping cart protocol.

“Connect, then correct,” I thought to myself, a mantra I repeat often.

I took a deep breath and squatted down so my face was at the same level as my boys.

“Hey guys,” I said, with calm and respect, grabbing one of their hands in each of mine. “It seems like you want this trip to be over so we can get home and play together. Is that right?”

They nodded.

“That’s what I want too!” I responded. “It’s not OK to be running all over the store or riding on the bottom of the cart. If you have some energy you need to get out, we can do 10 jumping jacks right now. Ready?”

We connected, we satisfied their unmet needs, and we finally made it out of Target!

And you can make it out of Target too… 

#HaveItAll
Your coach,
💜 Sara