When parenting a grandchild, niece, or nephew who has experienced trauma, the balance of structure and nurture can be difficult to manage. The goal is to maintain the vital connections of trust, safety, and confidence the child feels in your home while helping them change troubling behaviors.
Understand Your Authority
The freedom to correct your grandchild’s behaviors requires that you understand your role in their lives and feel comfortable with your authority in your home. You should feel safe and secure in your position as a caregiver so that your grandchild’s defiance or opposition does not threaten you. However, you should also feel compassion and gentleness in that authority – recognizing that your grandchild might not have a good experience with parental figures or authority.
It might take some practice, but you can figure out the right balance for your home. Your efforts will be aided if you are willing to do some hard work to identify your triggers or unresolved hurts from your past. After all, it’s hard to lead a child to heal when you are wounded. Part of understanding your authority is learning what it means to be a good leader – one your grandkids want to follow.
Connecting While Correcting
We recommend the IDEAL response — an acronym to help you understand how to effectively use your authority in your home to create changes in behavior.
I – Immediate
No matter how small or low-level the child’s misbehavior is, respond to it immediately. Your goal is to “catch it low” and quickly. You cannot give in to the temptation to walk on eggshells around small infractions or disrespectful sighs and eye rolls to avoid a big meltdown or tantrum.
When you catch these lower-level behaviors quickly, you can correct them in a light-hearted tone and prevent more challenging behaviors that would follow. The goal is to respond to these low-level misbehaviors within 2-3 seconds. Then you can immediately resume your day.
If your grandchild is very young or new to your home, try to keep them close to you as much as possible to catch their behavior quickly. Repetitively responding to these behaviors as soon as they happen re-wires your grandchild’s brain to trust you and provides a sense of regulation.
D – Direct
When inappropriate behavior occurs, go to your niece or nephew, and get down to or below their eye level. Approach them with a soft touch, warm eyes, and gentle words. Maintain this physical connection to improve their ability to coordinate both sides of their brain. This aids in feeling safe, understanding your words, and regulating with you.
Be mindful of your grandchild’s trauma history in these moments. If eye contact or physical closeness feels threatening, respect their need for space and gently aim your words at the behavior, not the child. You might even ask permission to touch them or hold their hand before speaking to reinforce that you respect their space. You can offer a soft response and gentle re-direct to establish a connection. Maintaining that connection still establishes your authority and boundaries to keep them safe, even if you cannot touch them.
E – Efficient
It’s also crucial to measure your response to the child’s behavior and use the least intervention needed to make an impact. Think of it as a “less is more” goal. You should aim for a firm level in your tone with just enough words to change their course of behavior. You want to keep the train moving without one correction derailing your day for hours.
Be very matter-of-fact, try to catch it low, and respond efficiently. These first three tips will help you guard against being dragged into a prolonged discussion, reinforcing your authority gently and consistently. Too many words or an extreme response when your grandchild is misbehaving short-circuits their ability to re-regulate with you.
A – Action-based
The goal of correcting your grandchild is to re-wire their brain to make better choices about behavior next time. Try to start with a simple, light-hearted re-direction to maintain your connection. If that doesn’t work, build on the experience by offering the opportunity to re-do their inappropriate behavior. Follow up with plenty of praise and a quick return to your routine.
A deeper connection is forged when you walk through the steps of a re-do together. It’s okay (and even recommended!) to have fun with this correction level while reinforcing the change you wish to see. For example, you can role-play how to do it better next time. Or make an exaggerated “Wait! What just happened?” response to low-level misbehavior. Getting a laugh out of them or coming in light-hearted first can keep your answer “connectable” for this child.
Treat your re-directs and re-dos as opportunities to build trust. When they trust you to correct them gently, they can focus on learning new ways to behave and then practice the change you want to see. Involving physical activity (walking through a re-do, role-playing, etc.) opens yet another way for their brains to re-wire for improved behavior.
L – Leveled response
Keep your response to this child focused on the behavior, not who they are. Please talk about their choice without dwelling on why they made it. Reminding them how often you must correct their bad choices layers shame and guilt on their shoulders. Bringing up what progress you think they “should have made by now” is also shaming. Choose your words carefully and be mindful of how your comments or unspoken attitudes might trigger a child who feels shamed or unsafe.
Aim your response to the degree of the child’s struggle. When you aim for a response at, or even a little below, the child’s emotional state, it will feel much safer for them. Remember that kids who have experienced trauma are often emotionally less mature than their typical peers.
So, try your best not to overreact, especially if it’s clear that the child is unaware of the seriousness of their actions. It’s a tough balance to strike because under-reacting might leave the child feeling alone with big feelings. Some trial and error will help you gauge what this child needs.
Similarly, please don’t physically leave the child alone with their feelings or regulate themselves. A leveled response requires you to hang in there with them to learn how to return to a regulated state. They will feel safe when they know how to return with you to the lighter, more playful levels of engagement before the misbehavior occurred.
Developing a leveled response for this child might take some detective work. You will need to learn their cues and typical reactions. Then practice how you want to maintain a connection with them and respond consistently.
Remember Your Goal
When you are confident in your authority and leadership in your home, you can implement the IDEAL response – before misbehavior or challenging attitudes occur. You can build a healthy level of trust and attachment with this child so that it takes only moments to change behavior, adjust big feelings, and re-direct bad choices. You don’t have to get tripped up by taking their behavior personally with this matter-of-fact method of maintaining connection when correcting them — without causing more trauma.
**For more tools to effectively parent a child exposed to trauma, check out this Beginner’s Guide to TBRI.