Big Feelings and Co-Regulation

A three-year-old is lying face down on the floor, screaming about a banana. His mother broke it in half as she was handing it to him, and now it’s on the floor in two pieces. He’s been told he can have a new one. He doesn’t want a new banana. He wants this banana, the broken one, to be whole again, and he feels in his bones that his mother should somehow be able to make that happen. He’s beside himself with rage. His mother has had a long day at work. She looks at the banana, then at him, then at the clock. The small part of her that’s still functioning starts to argue with the larger part, which would like to go upstairs and shut the bathroom door for ten minutes.

Ten years later, the same scene looks different. A thirteen-year-old has slammed her bedroom door so hard that the picture on the landing has tilted. The argument began with whether she could go to Maya’s house on Saturday, and it has turned into the bigger argument that has been running under the surface for weeks: her father doesn’t understand her, has never understood her, and is currently the worst person on the planet. Her father, out on the landing, would also, if he’s honest, like to shut a bathroom door for ten minutes.