Becoming more mindful of our triggers plays a big part in parenting from the heart with more connection and patience. We just know that things are not going to get back on track with our child until we slow down and release the pressure from us both. Perhaps we need some non-judgmental listening, meditation, relaxation, we need to reconnect with our self and reconnect with our child. When committed to more peaceful and respectful communication, we need to view our yelling and exploding as our cue to self-regulate to come back to feeling like we can, not just escape acting from a powerless hurt child state, but become firmly grounded in our calm, confident adult self. It’s in the most challenging moments when pressures are sky high that parents face the need to skillfully surf the tides of emotions that threaten to swamp them. Stopping in our tracks and owning and managing our feelings takes a LOT more skill than simply threatening kids into compliance. But parents who are working hard to not yell or coerce often face strong surges of emotion that need containing to avoid spilling their stress over onto their child. In the traditional parenting model,parents attempt to regain control by overpowering their child with that look, by threatening punishments, withdrawing privileges, yelling and ultimatums. In these moments we act more from a hurt child place than a conscious adult place. Without realizing it we’re caught in the fight/flight/freeze stress response and there’s no time to sit and listen when things feel this urgent. In reaction to our child, all of a sudden stress soars, anger rises, muscles tighten, we fixate on problems, become inflexible, and lose our ability to empathize. When we become triggered, something in the present reminds us at an unconscious level of something in the past that’s still unresolved and held as tension in the body. Becoming mindful of our emotional triggers that relate back to our childhood and then owning, exploring and resolving these emotions forms the foundation of peaceful parenting. Yet we need the patience, clarity and confidence to put them into practice. We can, and need to, learn constructive communication, conflict resolution and problem solving skills. Boom! Conflict escalates! You can’t help wishing your child understood how minimal your demands are compared to when you were their age!īreaking the cycles of ‘stress-passing’ in the family. Your child’s refusal seems completely unreasonable! Despite trying to control your tone, you snap, your child snaps back. Then if you turn and ask your child to do a couple of simple tasks like washing teeth, getting dressed, but they either ignore you or flat out refuse, that tide of anger can rise up.
On any particularly busy day, parents can feel stressed and stretched by the demands of endless jobs and tight time constraints, stress rises as the pressures mount. How quickly conflicts spark and escalate. Overall, anger usually signifies an overwhelming backlog of unmet needs. Parents get angry when the emotional, physical and financial needs outweigh the resources and they feel unsupported by family and community.
Anger can rise with speed and fury when unresolved emotion or trauma becomes activated.
EVERYONE KEEP CALM AND NOBODY EXPLODES HOW TO
Parents get angry when … they feel confused about how to best respond to difficult behaviours like aggression in the family. In fact empathy for ourselves and empathy for our child is one of the antidotes to aggression and overwhelm.
Much hurt, harm and damage happens as a result of pent up or mis-directed anger, yet the emotion itself is not to blame. It can be hard to admit to feeling angry, even to ourselves, and hard to feel that we deserve support and empathy – but we always do. Anger is a very real and daily challenge for most parents as they juggle the various wants and needs in the family their child’s anger, their partner’s anger, their own anger.Īnger is an emotion that’s especially difficult to bear it can feel scary and larger than life. In my parent coaching work, I like to talk about anger and rage and how common the tendency to explode (or implode!) really is in families. First published in The Natural Parent Magazine.