I feel like I’ve had a breakthrough with Pickle this week… but who knows what will happen next week!

She struggles with a lot of her emotions and can often be an anxious, nervous child. To outsiders this is not at all obvious as she is amazing at putting on a face and is often the ‘life and soul’, the comedian, the ‘Pickle’!

But behind closed doors she sometimes finds it hard to deal with her emotions and tries to hide them away, resulting in big violent outbursts at difficult times.

After a particularly tense few days last week I decided to talk to her (not for the first time!) about how she felt when these outbursts took over her. It was interesting to listen to her describe it as a ‘dark purple storm that she couldn’t get out of’. I asked her what colour made her feel happy and she replied lilac. So we practised blowing the purple storm away and letting the lovely lilac return. She also said she wanted to be cuddled and I’ve read a lot about how hugging children can really help during any emotional times.

The next time I saw the storm trying to take over I reminded her to blow it away and let the lilac come back – she did and it worked so well!

I’ve also been reading a lot about allowing children to have ‘freedom of the mouth’ during times of rage; basically accepting angry outbursts for what they are – a release and healing process – and ensuring that children feel able to have these moments if they need them. This doesn’t mean they are allowed to simply scream and shout and be rude and unkind – these things are responded to with a simple “We don’t talk like that in our family” and an attempt at distraction. But if it is truly a cry for help in a stressful situation, then giving time to listen (and simply listen), hold and reassure is our way out of the storm.

So, this week has been a good week for us, which I will share later 🙂