A student in the martial arts school I teach at was having a complete meltdown in the lobby the other day.
I was in an office doing paperwork when I heard, “Let me GO!” “Let ME GO!!” LET ME GO!!!”
What was happening was this child’s mom had to leave him at the school with his uncle because she had an appointment—and he did NOT want her to go.
I gathered both the student and the uncle into my office so the mom could leave.
Once there, the uncle—who was very compassionate and well-intentioned—was matching the child’s temper-tantrum with flustered, emotional energy as he offered suggestions for calming down: “It’s going to be okay!” “You’ll see MOM LATER!!” “TRY YOUR MEDITATION!!”
Seeing that this was only feeding the tantrum, I asked the uncle to leave so I could work with him individually.
Once gone, all I did was sit in front of the door (so he couldn’t chase mom into the parking lot), legs crossed in half-lotus, and… meditated.
Here’s what happened:
- His temper-tantrum slowly burned out.
- He sat quietly in his chair with his upset face on for a while.
- And after about 20 minutes, asked me, “…Now what?”
And I said, now we get you some water, walk you into class to either watch or participate, and you go home to see mom so y’all can hear about each other’s days.
And that’s exactly what happened.
See, the uncle was right—meditation was a fantastic idea (especially if it was something I intuited they had done/been working on).
All I did was model meditation instead of insisting he “MEDITATE!” while in a flustered state.