We were on a family trip and we found Julie’s pocket parenting app very useful. We left a bookstore and we were headed home, a 10 minute drive. Our 5-year old son felt thirsty, but we had no water in the car and neither of us wanted to go back into the store for water.
We tried some of our usual tactics like empathizing about his thirst (Ugh! I’m thirsty too! I wish we could drink water now!). Unfortunately, we also alternated with the reality that we weren’t planning to go back and so, he would have to “just deal” with thirst for ten minutes (You’re not actually dehydrated! You need to learn how to wait!). Basically we were going nowhere and his frustration was mounting.
By now, I was frustrated also and said to my husband, “Are there any tools from the how to talk book we could try?” It turns out he had downloaded this pocket app so I took a look on his phone. It had a very simple menu and I tapped on the very first option which stated something like “I need help with difficult feelings “. Then another menu popped up to select the feeling your child is experiencing so I asked my son, “Are you angry, disappointed, or frustrated ?” He said, “I’m frustrated !” I tapped on “frustrated” and another menu popped up with a list of things to say to acknowledge the feeling.
I literally read aloud the three text statements listed in the app, substituting our scenario for the one in the example and it really worked ! He started to calm down and asked if I could tell him about a time when I was frustrated also. I shared a story of when I was a kid and we had gone for a hike but my brother gulped all the water early on. I was irritated that there was no water for me, and even more frustrated that my father told me to just get over it. My husband shared a very funny story about a time when he wanted to buy chips but his mother said no. He had decided “if we aren’t getting chips, we aren’t getting anything” and began putting all the groceries from the conveyor belt back into the cart, but by mistake had removed groceries belonging to the next person in line also! There were lots of giggles from the back of the car.
At this point, I thought we were out of the woods but our 7-year old daughter went on to say, “Well, let’s not remind him about the WATER because it seems like he’s moved past it.” This of course led us back to the original problem because our son was now reminded of his thirst!
I looked down at the app and there was one option that said, “This helped the problem somewhat but I need more help.” I tapped on it and up popped a menu of additional tools which could be used. I opted for use of fantasy or imagination and offered to make him “fairy water” because I had magic fairy dust. I started rolling up a random piece of paper into a vessel and started chanting spells and by this time we were pulling up to the house. I asked him, “Do you want real water or fairy water, since we’re home now?” He said, “Fairy water!” So I sent our daughter into the house to bring out a cup of water secretly, and I stalled by chanting fairy magician spells. When she returned, we slipped the cup of water into the center of the paper vessel and said “Abracadabra Poof!” Water appeared in a cup in the center of the paper vessel. He smiled and quickly gulped it down.
I have to confess I am a low tech person and rarely download apps on my own phone. But, this was remarkably easy to navigate and so effective.
I highly recommend it!
4.0
