How can you still let a child express all these emotions but in a more acceptable way? In applied behavior analysis, we call it “Response Interruption and Redirection”. For example, vocalizations can disappear with singing or listening to music; hitting objects is reduced when hands are busy with other sensory toys. You can also use kinetic sand, any games with water and seeds, respiration practices. When he wants to break something, tear off paper and throw them into a bin and so on. Once again, try to implement play elements and stabilize the body by making deep massages and providing sensory activities.

One of the best solutions to help a child feel accepted and thus reduce this challenging behavior is commenting on what he/she is doing by describing his actions and giving a positive feedback of his activities. This promotes the feeling of being accepted and understood and helps to establish a better rapport with the therapist and other team members. These are some examples of such commenting that reinforces positive behavior.

By showing reflective listening, or commenting on a child's behavior, emotions, and their experiences without judgment and evaluations you provide them with psychological support they need in stressful situations. Being attentive and recognizing verbally how the child feels and behaves might help you alleviate your child’s emotional stress and resolve emerging conflicts, reach mutual understanding and feel mutual acceptance, build a healthier relationship between parents and children. By doing so you communicate the child a message that you are listening and hearing them and trying to understand and show support. Here are some examples:

It sounds like you were really scared

I wonder if you felt sad

I can see that something is going on

How can I help?

Reflective listening helps you understand the true message that the child (or any other interlocutor) wants to convey to you. In the process of communication, refrain from:

interruptions;

hasty conclusions;

hasty questions and moralizing.

For example, you can start your sentence by saying “It sounds like you are saying ….”

Rules for reflective listening:

Take the correct posture. Sit next to or across from the child (squat down with the child / hold them in your lap), so that your eyes are at the same level;

Do not be scared of pauses. After each child's answer, do not rush to comment and express your thoughts on the issue of the discussion. Take a short pause before saying something. This time is necessary so that the child can comprehend their experiences and feel that you are with them even more;

Paraphrase and repeat what the child said in the same emotional state the child did. This will allow you to clarify whether you understood the child correctly, and the child will understand that you heard them.

For example, a child comes to you and says "I don't want to be friends with my brother." Repeat what you heard expressing the same emotion your child showed to you: “you don’t want to play with your brother”.

Let the child know that you know about their experience/state by verbalizing the feeling that the child is most likely experiencing at the moment. Do not ask questions, your comments must be statements. It is hard to show empathy with questions.

For example, a child comes to you and says "I don't want to be friends with my brother." You can ask them questions like “What happened?”, “Are you offended by him?”. However, at this point you will not give the child an opportunity to reflect on their emotions, feelings, experiences. Instead the child will be in the position of the respondent rather than equal contributor and leader of the conversation.

Try to say: “You don’t want to play with him. You must be feeling hurt”

Another example can be where a child cries and says they want to go home. Try to say “you are very upset, you want to go home” first instead of asking “why do you want to go home?”

Commenting on the child’s behavior also helps the child understand that you are nearby, you are interested in what they are doing, this is important for you, and at the same time you don’t want to impose your own rules, opinions on the child, you don’t want to moralize, you are a close adult who can be trusted, who hears, understands and accepts the child. Also, an adult's commentary speech allows the child to better focus on what they are doing and associate the actions with the right vocabulary. This is also a way to model to the child how to describe things which eventually will help them to speak about themselves, things, events, and other people around them on a more advanced level.

For example, a child wants to find something in a suitcase.

The child opens the suitcase. You say: “you opened the suitcase”;

The child took clothes out of the suitcase and put them next to him. You can say: “you took the clothes out and put them aside. You don’t need them”;

The child found their toy in the suitcase, You can say: “you found the bear!”.

Not all children are the same developmental level. Some of them have reduced receptive and expressive language. In this case you can still work on reflective listening but try to use the length of the phrases your child understands. For example, one of my clients reported having a very tense relationship with her son. Every time she asked him to do something, he would show a tantrum to the point that she started feeling abusive. She was very sad that their relationship looks broken. According to her, he did not want to do anything she asked him to do. Instead, it looked like that she was a source of his tears, anger, and frustration. Reducing the number of instructions towards him and introducing commenting on his behavior and emotions helped them to mend their relationship. Whenever it was his leisure time she joined him by saying something like “it is a book”, “ you flipped the page”, “happy, you are looking happy”, “you are smiling”, “you are sad”, “elephant” (pointing to the elephant in a book), “you are sitting”, “you are watching TV”, “you are looking at me”. Only after a week of commenting on his behavior and emotions did she share very pleasant news with me. Her son started looking at her more often, he started establishing eye contact with her more often, he stopped walking away from her every time she joined him during his leisure activities, he started inviting her into his leisure. After two more weeks he started speaking one-two word phrases more often. He was more happy to see her. It became easier for them to negotiate their schedule. His tantrums have reduced. She started feeling happier.

Children's challenging behavior is a sign of them struggling with understanding and regulating emotions. Therefore, they might need adults’ help. When adults connect to children’s emotions by providing empathic understanding, it has a calming effect, also called as co-regulation. This co-regulation allows children to learn skills in emotional competence. Very often behavior problems reduce or stop when humans feel emotional acceptance and that they are understood.

At home, play videos for your child with children or cartoon characters doing various exercises/dances/yoga. Video modeling will help the child to both continue developing cognitively and physically. It is not necessary to be near the child 24/7, give her/him time to be alone as well, to play on their own. At the same time it is important to teach your child how to spend time alone. Visual schedules and visual behavior chains might help them to do so. Parallel play, following your own visual schedule in parallel might be another option to help your child learn how to gradually spend time on their own. At the same time do not be too far from your child so they can find you easily when needed.

During play children not only try to understand and gain control over challenging situations but they also practice different ways to cope with such events and then regulate their emotions and behavior. This is also a space where they can improve their communication skills and continue building trusting relationships. Building (and constantly improving) positive and trusting communication and emotional context through play makes it possible for the child to achieve healing psychotherapeutic effects. Therapeutic play is a type of play where the mandatory rules are limited to safety. It is a play with freedom of action for a child and manifestation of various emotions without judgment. There are games with rules as well but the rules should be understandable for the child and the way they are introduced should be gentle. With the help of play as a therapeutic method, the child understands their importance, uniqueness and feels accepted as a person.

Case example. Girl A plays a story game. In her play she arranges toys on the floor and at the same time tells what is happening in the game. A therapist sits nearby, watches the course of the game and comments on the actions and statements of the girl. The girl builds an island (which has the same name as the area where her family summer house is) and a railway with a train. She puts a doll called Masha on the train and decides to go to this island. While still on the train, Masha realizes that she is beginning to freeze, and the girl begins to get nervous. The therapist offers different ways to help Masha warm up - find warm clothes or a blanket, turn on the heating, or drink warm tea. But the girl says that all this will not help Masha. So, the Masha doll reaches the island and hopes that it will be warm there, but no, the doll gets completely frozen. The girl gets upset, starts crying, she does not like any solutions that she offers by herself and the ones that the therapist offers. They cannot not solve the problem. The girl cannot calm down for a long time, because she does not know what can help Masha to warm up, because she is already very cold. After some time, the therapist asks the girl: “What can warm you up when you are cold?”. The girl thinks for a while and says “hugs”. Then the therapist and the girl hug the doll together. That is the right solution. The hug helps the doll to warm up very quickly.

Once in a safe environment, it is important for parents to foster a child's play routine. Parents can use all kinds of materials/resources that are available to them, starting from toys that they have taken with them (during evacuation) to improvised materials. If you have art supplies, draw with your child, sculpt (you can make dough by yourself), play drama, or be a supportive observer of your child’s play. It is also important to remember that any child’ play should be voluntary and not imposed. The play should be enjoyable both for the child and you or other participants.

Development of play and interest in toys might help you during relocation or to spend time in a shelter. For example, one of my clients was working on developing play skills and interest in toys in her son before the military events in Ukraine started. In the beginning of the therapy his interests in toys were extremely limited. By the time military events started he had a variety of toys he wanted to play with. That helps them a lot when they need to go to a shelter. She gives him a list of things in a picture format that he can put in his backpack. He packs his backpack by himself now and takes his toys, books, drinks, and a blanket. Observing what he plays with in a shelter most helped her to create a visual list of things which are very desirable for him. These toys helped him to learn how to eat at the table, use a bathroom in a proper way, and develop new skills. For example, she showed him how his favorite doll uses a bathroom and he decided to use a bathroom. These accomplishments would have been hard to achieve without taking into consideration the child’s developmental age and developmental sequence of play.

Refer to developmental sequence of play when playing with your child or children.