Motivational Coping & Healing

While reading the book, A Topical Approach to Lifespan Development, the small article Child Development: A Thematic Approach, caught my eye. There is a short story about three children of varying ages: Heather, who is one; Andrew, who is six; and Benjamin, who is fourteen.

Andrew is upset that his sister Heather knocked over his construction set and slapped her across the back. Benjamin, who was supposed to be watching his siblings while their parents’ made dinner, became distracted by a new computer game. Hearing the commotion, he ran to the kitchen to get his parents.  

This story is familiar to parents with three or more children. It serves as a great learning tool for guiding and helping children reach healthy developmental milestones, at which a significant point in one’s life is reached.

The book states, “The interplay of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes produces the periods of the human life span. A developmental period refers to a time frame in a person’s life that is characterized by certain features” (Santrock, 2022, p.64). Each child, especially Heather, grows and learns from each situation. How situations like the one above are handled can impact the way a child develops.  

First, let’s break down the ages, developmental area, and milestones:

• Heather is one year old, which is the infancy and toddlerhood era between birth and two years old. She is reaching the milestones of responding to her environment, learning a language quickly, and starting to develop attachments.
  
• Andrew is six years old, which is the middle childhood era between six and eleven years old. This is a time of growing strength, coordination, and balance, developing academic skills, reasoning logically, memory improvement, and the onset of puberty.
  
• Benjamin is fourteen years old, which is the adolescence era between eleven years old and adulthood. Adolescence is a period of rapid growth, sex organs maturing, abstract thinking patterns, hanging out with peers, and interacting with the opposite sex.  

By using the ages and milestone development information as a guide, I would handle the situation by first making sure Heather is okay and calming her down, as she would be in a heightened emotional state due to being yelled at and hit. I believe this is important because she needs to learn that it is safe in the home.

Heather is at the age of developing attachments. If she were left alone to get over the situation by herself, it could leave her with the impression that she cannot trust her brother or the adults in the house, especially if this is a repeat occurrence. She could develop unhealthy attachment styles if so.

Additionally, this will show Andrew and Benjamin how to calm their sister down for the future. Andrew and Benjamin both need positive role models to develop more patience and understanding with their baby sister.  

After Heather is calm, I would calmly explain to Andrew why his actions were inappropriate and give him a five-minute reflection period in his room. Andrew is at the milestone age of being able to reason logically.

By explaining to him why his actions were not the best of choices and giving him the opportunity to reflect on his behavior, he is given a chance to deepen his logic and understanding of why his actions of hitting and yelling at his baby sister were inappropriate. 

After the reflection period was up, I would ask him if he understood why he had to go to his room and reflect. This will help Andrew to remember in the future when his anger gets the best of him. Then, we would come up with ways that he could express his anger in a healthy manner instead of a harmful manner and practice it.  

After I talked to Andrew, I would thank Benjamin for alerting the parents and ask him if there was anything he could do better the next time he was in charge of watching his siblings. Benjamin is at the age of abstract thinking and is able to think ahead. I would further ask him how he would feel if something more serious happened to help him develop more awareness of situations that involve his siblings.  

After talking to everyone and getting everyone out of their emotions and back into their logical minds, I would ask all three to help clean up the construction kit together to build on working together calmly.

Then I would put the construction kit up for a full day for Andrews’s consequence, take the computer game for the rest of the night for Benjamin’s consequence, and lay Heather down for a short nap, as I am sure that whole situation was emotionally and physically draining for her.

Before Heather’s nap, I would encourage each sibling to apologize and give hugs to develop compassion, empathy, and acknowledgment of their individual actions.  

The developmental process throughout life is essential, especially in childhood. How we handle situations can help children grow into healthy adults or unhealthy adults. I wouldn’t have tried to prevent the situation, as it was a great learning experience for each child. I believe our actions, words, and handling of a crisis can impact a person’s life for many years, even more so during childhood.  

How would you handle this situation? Comment below :)

References 

Santrock, John. A Topical Approach to Lifespan Development. Available from: Yuzu Reader, (11th Edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US), 2022.