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Interesting idea but..... How is it similar? The horse join up is getting the horse to move their feet for some time, than stop making them move by stopping your own movement, looking at the ground and slowly walking away from them, the horse will follow you if it accepted you as leader otherwhise it does not work. The top horse is the one who can move the feet of another horse, they might get into a little fight if the other does not move and they are testing who is boss. I think this roundup with horses might give good cosy feelings for the owner, and the horse might become more respectfull but it emotional not more than placing yourself in a position of leader. When you calm down an out of controle child it has to do more with the child feeling safe with you and calming down, if you are very direct with eye contact and demands this will only fuell the situation. Maybe I see this wrong, please explain.

But verbalising feelings for young children can be usefull. For a horse you better don't talk too much, lol

Wondering out loud can be really useful for kids who struggle to regulate - sometimes it had to be even more indirect ie telling an animal/partner in their hearing - and generally needs to be done once they are calm again. Often these same children need adults to remain calm and soothe the when they are not to help them re-regulate. These techniques are part of therapeutic re-parenting - as written about by Dan Hughes, Kin Golding, Bryan Post, Bruce Perry and others I'm not familiar with the horse whisperer so don't know that connection.

And very hard to implement - needs practice

Get yourself a horse Safia or even better two donkeys!

?????????????? (I feel the need for horse emojis here!)

Better prepare yourself for a tornado, if you try that technique with my daughter! :-) But it works for my other one.

Ok. Just learning not to think out loud onto this forum. Thanks for the comments and Happy Easter.

Chestnuttree - one of mine can't stand it done directly to her, but I can talk to the dog or DH about her in her distant hearing and she can generally manage that with positive results.

Fortysomething, please don't worry about your thread going off course with a bit of questioning and silliness (although I would feel upset if it happened to me!). But I can see where you're coming from - being non-confrontational by avoiding eye contact, yet using words to reconnect. Coming home tonight from a birthday meal tonight, me, my DH and our two Acs had a wonderful conversation in the car about where some of their fears might have come from (with a fair amount of 'I wonder' thrown in). I've read before that car journeys can be amazing places for conversations with those who might otherwise feel threatened by confrontation, because the participants sit together, not opposite each other. I also don't know about the horse whisperer guy, but I have been studying dog's body language to better understand our rescue pooch - eye contact is very confrontational to them. It's polite to communicate by not looking at each other, or by blinking as a form of appeasement. Eye contact is a very powerful thing. Okay, I think I'm rambling now. I should stop - but please don't be put off what is an otherwise very useful and helpful forum (if I'm reading you right) xxx .

Apologies if you misunderstood my comment - it was directed at Pluto - not at your original comment - for some reason I hadn't read her first comment about horses - I was reading on my phone and it hadnt shown up when I wrote my first comment so I was puzzled. My first comment was about therapeutic parenting - that it is hard and takes practice. Sometimes the simplest things can be misunderstood!

It is a useful technique fortysomething, don't be put off the forums. I can't do it with my younger dd when she's angry as she would deny everything - and would say I don't understand her, no one does etc! But when calm she's pretty good at analysing her emotions and likes to talk about them so the need doesn't arise much. More useful with older dd who blusters rather than rages. I make a statement about how she might be feeling or why she's reacting in a particular way and she later concedes I could be right. She struggles with understanding her emotions and is only now really beginning to be able to work them out (17).

I hope I didn't upset you, fortysomething. It wasn't my intention. Hi Bop, thanks. When my daughter is calm, she can talk about her feelings really well, but she gets furious the minute she smells a "technique". I think it feels manipulative to her. She responds well to descriptive praise though.

My son became wise to this tactic fairly quickly! If I try it now I get the old side eye and ‘Mam, I know what you’re doing so just stop’!! Thankfully though we no longer get meltdowns and he’s learned how to self regulate.

Something helpful I learnt just recently was that if I say something and my son says 'I don't want to talk about that now' or 'be quiet' I may still have done some good just planting the idea. I have still said my piece and he can't 'unhear' it. I hadn't thought of that before. Also agree the car is a brilliant place for conversations. And re eye contact, Holly van Gulden says not to insist on eye contact as its very threatening. Some people insist on a child looking at them (especially when they want to give them a telling off) I mean conventional parenting. But its not a good idea.

Have stayed away from forum lately. Going through a tough time with school right now who make me feel like I have Munchausen..I'm not alone in this I know ..same thing happened recently to a mother of a child with ASD...but forums are not always good places when you don't feel "got". Thanks for the positive comments.

((hugs)) It can be really tough especially when they start to say you've done stuff that you know you haven't. Have you come across Projective Identification - its a defence mechanism that people with trauma histories sometimes use and it helped me to make sense of some of the really tricky stuff

Erm... Yes. Well I am a trained counsellor so I have actually come across it. I have a very straightforward issue with a school who have no understanding of attachment issues and no desire to learn so..not really sure where you are coming from? However, you have clarified that I should steer away from this forum.. so it definitely bye from me. Over and out.

You have written five posts in total, four starting, you have had a very good respons, so I have no idea what's going on right now and why you are so quickly annoyed when people try to help. Please do understand that nobody knows you personally and it's impossible not to assume stuff when replying to a post especially when information is limited.