Can Love and Bonding Solve Child Behavioural Problems?
February 2, 2012
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Am in tears…so beautiful x
Fabulous! It’s never too late!
Fantastic article. Do your other children resent the time you’re spending with Flynn, him sharing your bed, etc? Or are you also finding the time to love bomb them, too? I hope he continues to do well.
I wouldn’t say resent, but they ask for it too!
Wow, this is very inspiring. Yay for cuddles and lots of love. I had an incident with my four year old at bedtime. I could have gotten angry, put him on the naughty step but instead I gave him a big cuddle, lots of kisses and just talked to him very soothingly and the results were brilliant. A happy boy now asleep. Thank you
You’ve made me laugh & cry at this article. Your experience with Flynn sounds so similar to what I’m going through with my son at the moment (no.4) as both school & I are struggling with him. He’s so loving, so it’s hard to feel I’m not ‘making him feel loved enough’, but as a single, working mum of 4 (1 doesn’t live with me), it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure he may not be getting as much as he’d like. Hmmm, definatley stuff to think about here, but thanks for giving me hope! :-) x
I’m in tears. I think it sounds brilliant. I’m off to find out more about it. Thank you for sharing. People write posts sometimes and only share the good bits – the bits that they are most proud of. But we all have some bits that we wish we’d done differently and would change with hindsight, so it’s reassuring to hear that you do too. Thank you for sharing xxx
You’ll love my book then ;-)
What an emotional read, made me sad and angry but what a beautiful ending. Love really is the key to healing.
cant wait for the book…going to recommend it to all in sundry and recommend a ceremonial burning of ‘that one by the english nanny with no training’..you know who im talking about…im going to remember love bombing when i have trouble with my strong willed red headed lil one…
That’s two days running you’ve made me cry. Can’t wait for the book :o)
Thank you for this. Like some other readers, I can fully relate to a traumatic delivery, unsympathetic hospital and feeling terrified. I am pregnant with my second and hope that this one can be different, as it does affect the relationship with your baby/ child, however hard you try and stop it. I shall certainly remember this technique when she is older :)
I loved the story, I am sharing :) We do try to tell our son we love him as often as we can, and I remind him that his granny, grandad, teachers, friends and everyone he is surrounded by love him as well. :)
I absolutely LOVE the lovebomb technique. We’ve used it very successfully on two different occasions with our toddler – both times to deal with acting out resulting from separation anxiety. Each time, we were being bombarded with “advice” to let him cry it out and not give in to him acting up – but that didn’t make any sense to us. I couldn’t see how ignoring or rejecting a child’s behaviour could possibly fix separation anxiety. So when I read about love-bombing, even though the article I read suggested using it for an older child, I told my husband about it, and we tried it out. We had a different child overnight the first time, and within a few days the second time. I’m a huge advocate of it now, and have blogged about it a few times, including “Loving the Love bomb”: http://mama.ie/?p=612
So nice to read your story and hear how well it worked for an older child.
You and all the rest of us who believe THERE IS A DIFFERENT WAY than the cruel, heartless, methods which involve us imposing our irrational will on another less capable human.
I loved your article. I really did. And I’m so glad you found something that helped you and Flynn overcome his issues. But why is love bombing so unique? Isn’t love bombing something we should be doing with our children all the time anyway (but perhaps not so indulgently) along with showing them a respectful way to how to behave? I understand we need to work out WHY our children act the way they do but we also need to address the fact that certain behaviours are unacceptable, affect other people and have consequences. Hence reward charts and time outs.
So whilst I think love bombing sounds lovely our children are not going to get a great big hug in life whenever they act up or things aren’t going their way.
And I have to admit I did use Gina Ford’s suggestions with my babies. They are now 5 and 7 and I cannot begin to count the number of people who have commented on my children’s manners, love and respect for other people, easy going personality (which they don’t get from their parents!), their joy for life and their self confidence. Sure I smother my children with love, using every one of the 5 love languages to reaffirm this, but they also know that stepping out of line comes with consequences because that’s what happens in the grown up world and its my job to prepare them for that.
do you think that if sarah had used gina ford techniques she and flynn would have gone through this healing faster, or is other people commenting on good manners more important?
i think i’ve missed your point and you’ve missed sarah’s.
also, aren’t you assuming that there is no discipline in her family? she has three other children, after all.
without having heard of love bombing (but actually playful parenting- the book) i was able to rescue a severed bond with my first child- don’t you think we’d tried reward charts, naughty steps etc? i worked with these techniques when i taught in school- it produces robots, not respect (and the children i worked with had terrible backgrounds or apathetic parents) but, yes, in the definition of producing manners and “good behaviour”, it works. the thing is, they weren’t meant to have a loving and lasting bond with me. being trained in this theory actually ruined the bonding experience for me as a new parent- i have seen both sides and our whole family is happier (actually HAPPIER) because of the harmony. we don’t even NEED the naughty step anymore- our son looks into our eyes (he stopped doing this for months) and understands what we want- he also knows that we help him get what he wants to.
it is fine that you’ve achieved your goals with your children- and you are rightly proud, but I can’t understand why you’d even be interested in a babycalm blog when babycalm is about celebrating instincts- sarah’s intincts clearly steered her away from the methodology you used, and i think she and flynn have achieved something much more profound than getting him out of trouble at school.
this is not to say you aren’t raising your children with love- AT ALL- just that you should recognise that when a relationship is broken at birth, extra work must be done, in the right way, to fix it, in the same way that a c section mum has not obliterated her chances of a true bond with her child- she just has to work much harder than, say a human mother “in the wild”, whose biological birthing experience and hormones will take care of it for her.
“love heals” Mother Teresa
Oh my God, I have to give this a go. I am at my wits end with my 6 yr old who is the perfect angel at school but turns into a vicious violent thug at home. Funnily I had a bad start with my 8 yr old but she is amazing (apart from telling fibs) and 6 yr old went fine, but I have tried everything else (that naughty step/reward charts stuff) and I too feel like I’m losing my marbles as everyone else sees the perfect angel (apart from hubby, me and eldest!).
Praying it works for us too.
Go for it Caroline, I’m so glad we did it. Oliver’s book is out this week which has lots of guidance on how to use the method and lots of other success stories. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Bombing-Childs-Emotional-Thermostat/dp/1780491379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348494482&sr=8-1 Good luck! Sarah
Such a poignant post. I would whole heartedly agree with you on Love Bombing. :)
Dear Sarah, I have just been reading Love Bombing and am about to embark on a weekend or day with my four and a half year old son. I also had issues following a traumatic birth and I believe I didn’t bond with him in the weeks afterwards because I was so shattered. His behaviour is ‘tricky’, he often calls me ‘stupid’, I’ve already been called in to see his teachers because he won’t sit still (he started Reception a few weeks ago!!). I think we need to Love Bomb before he turns into Bin Laden!!! My question is… after the Love Bombing, where you’ve said yes to everything for a day or two, how do you then return to ‘normal’ boundaries? Is the child able to differentiate between ‘special time’ and day to day life?
Many thanks!
Lauren