One of the core ideas that I will teach in my presentations and coaching is the Stress Model. Dr. Bryan Post developed the Stress Model to explain human behavior.

According to the Stress Model, all behavior arises from a state of stress. Between the behavior and the stress is the presence of a primary emotion. There are only two primary emotions: Love and Fear. It is through the expression, processing and understanding of the primary emotion that you can calm the stress and diminish the behavior.

There's a great deal of information in the above statement. And to be honest with you I have struggled with the idea of only two primary emotions...especially as it related to fear being the emotion that drives difficult behaviors. I can tell you though that the more I look at behaviors through this lens, the more it is clear to me.

What has also been interesting to me as I learn and live with this model is that the idea of Love and Fear being the center of many theories of behavior. I've been reading the book "Love Leadership: The new way to lead in a fear-based world" by John Hope Bryant. In his book Mr. Bryant writes that through his success and failures in the business world he discovered that that a leader comes from either a place of Love or Fear. He outlines how, using Love Leadership, one can have true success. It's exciting for me to think that these ideas could be coming into the mainstream way of thinking!

Back to parenting. As I wrote above, the idea of my child's negative behaviors coming from the emotion of fear was a challenging concept for me to grasp. I'd argue with myself over and over that I just couldn't see the fear in a behavior. It seemed my child had a clear vision of what he was doing and I did not see fear behind it. Eventually I began to see the fear and when I look back on times when interactions I have with my chid that didn't go well I, in hind sight, can see the fear.

I want to challenge you to look at your child's difficult behaviors from this point of view. It is a challenge that you may struggle with too. That's ok. I'm happy to talk with you more about it too. Let me know if you can see the fear or not. Once we understand what's driving our children...then we can help them with their behaviors! Melanie