The Broken Cookie Phenomenon…

This cookie is broken! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I don’t want it! I want another one!

The cookie is broken. The packet is empty….. oh no, what now?

Run around looking for another packet of cookies?….maybe say you’ll go to the shop to get some asap….Explain that the cookie is still the same just broken, ….it all gets mushed up in your mouth anyway…. Well don’t eat it then if you don’t want it!….Come on now you’re being silly it’s just a broken cookie 🍪 …or is it????!

Aletha Solter PhD the founder of Aware Parenting would say no it is not. The broken cookie is a doorway that has the beautiful use of allowing a day/week/month’s full of stress and trauma to come flowing out. Aletha has a beautiful video where she shows an elastic band being wound up by the days’ events and then the broken cookie happens and the wound up band gets released and spins everything out. Watch the video here:

When there is a huge expression of emotion that doesn’t match the level of the experience happening in front of the child, that is a broken cookie moment.

Children don’t understand the emotions and experiences they go through. They don’t know they are jealous of their sister, they aren’t cognitively aware that they feel abandoned when you go to make dinner, they can’t connect with and define their feelings of frustration and lack of their own power when you tell them no because something is dangerous.

However they do know that a broken cookie is something to be upset about. They use that as a doorway to release all the other stored stresses they can’t cognitively connect with at their age.

And when there isn’t a broken cookie?… they try to make one. They ask to be picked up and then say they don’t want to be picked up , cue doorway for a release of other pent up emotions they need to get rid of. Or they become hyperactive and end up hurting themselves, cue a big cry, they pick a fight with a sibling and get hurt or told off, cue cry, they do something they KNOW they shouldn’t do whilst looking straight at you, you put in a limit, cue cry, or they ask for something it’s not time for, like ice cream when brushing their teeth for bed, or tv at 4am when they’ve woken up, or for more blueberries when they’ve just emptied the packet.....cue cry.

All the cries that don’t make sense, do make sense in some way. It doesn’t really matter what it’s about. All you need to do is hold some space, and tell them you are listening; that you want to hear all about it, that you love them and you are there for them. Once it’s released children are happy, content, connected, compassionate and cooperative.

That is the joy of the awareness that aware parenting brings. No more clambering in confusion about why they want the pink cup one minute and not the next. If we listen to what is underneath it, our children will feel connected, supported, held and validated, even when they don’t know exactly what’s wrong, even if it is…..just a broken cookie

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