{Sneak peek: Learning how to parent without yelling takes more than just willpower and good intentions. Uncovering the true reason why you lose your cool can be a parenting game-changer.}
I’m thrilled to feature Jen Lumanlan as guest writer to the blog. She’s the mastermind behind Your Parenting Mojo–a website and podcast that focuses on providing parents high-quality, research-based parenting help. Today, she’s discussing an area in which we probably all need support: staying calm (and not yelling) in our parenting interactions. Enjoy!
So…you yelled at your kids. Again.
You know this isn’t how you want to parent. You want to be a calm, confident presence in their lives…and yet you feel anything but calm and confident much of the time.
Everything seems OK until they do something that just pushes one of your buttons – and then you snap!
Then you see the fear in your child’s eyes the guilt and shame cycle kicks in. How could you, who soothed their night cries, who carried them everywhere, who researched every tiny decision about car seats and sleep schedules and weaning be responsible for making your child feel like this?
Related reading: Want to be a More Patient Parent? Start Here
Understanding Triggers
Here’s the thing: this isn’t your fault.
Psychologists know that very often these triggered feelings are a result of trauma. There’s the “Big T” Trauma – things like a parent dying or being addicted to drugs or alcohol. Then there’s the ‘little t’ trauma – divorce, bullying, and the difficulties that can accompany poverty.
But what if we didn’t experience trauma? Does that mean we have no reason (excuse?) for exploding at our child’s difficult behavior?
Not at all. You see, just by existing in our society, which routinely ignores and denies children’s needs, you experienced trauma. Even when your parents were doing the absolute best they could to raise you to be successful in our society, we experienced this as trauma.
Does any of this sound familiar?
“I know you love art, honey, but it’s never going to pay the bills. Make sure you finish your homework.”
“How many times have I told you not to make such a MESS?”
“Don’t be so lazy!”
[said with a look of concern] “Are you sure you want to eat that? You’re looking a bit chubby these days.”
“Don’t answer back to your father. You know he can’t help himself when you do that.”
Each of these kinds of incidents represented a tiny trauma in our lives. Even if none of these exact phrases was said to you, phrases like them were. Phrases that attempted to squash some part of you that was innocently expressed or even was important to you, either to make things easier for your parents to cope with you or because they were trying to shape you to be accepted in our culture.
And in addition to these mini-traumas that we experienced on an ongoing basis in our childhoods, we’re collectively living through an immensely traumatic event now.
We’re in constant danger of catching a virus that could kill us, or even if we’re healthy and vaccinated, we could still pass it on to our young children. That’s stressful enough by itself, never mind trying to support stressed out partners, caring for aging parents, and working from home while schools are open – nope! Closed again! And now we’re also trying to get our child to engage with the dreaded Zoom-school. And we’re not sleeping, and we haven’t exercised in weeks, and…did we shower yesterday? Or was that the day before?
Friends, this is why you snap at your children.
It’s not because you’re an Angry Parent.
It’s not because you’re the only parent in the world who can’t get your act together.
And it’s not because of your child’s behavior – so changing your child’s behavior can’t really be the answer.
Instead, we need to work on meeting our needs.
We all have what’s called a Window of Tolerance. When our needs are routinely met, we feel calm and relaxed and our child’s difficult behavior doesn’t faze us much – our Window of Tolerance is wide.
But when our needs aren’t routinely met, our Window of Tolerance narrows. All of a sudden the same thing that we’re able to cope with on a good day pushes us outside the window – and we snap. And when that happens, the thing we were asking our child to do takes a LOT longer (and we end up feeling really crummy about it as well).
The old advice about ‘putting your own mask on before helping others’ gets trotted out so often that it’s trite at this point. And when I look at academic research on parenting and child development I almost invariably find that whatever the popularly held view of a topic is, the research results almost always point in the other direction. But this is one of those rare cases where popular wisdom is actually right: we DO need to take care of ourselves first.
Taking a nap.
Moving our bodies in a way that feels good.
Connecting with a friend.
These kinds of activities do take a bit of time. But they widen our Window of Tolerance so we can get out of the awful-feeling guilt and shame cycle, and show up in our lives in a way that’s aligned with our values.
Learning How to Parent Without Yelling
If you feel triggered by your child’s behavior, my colleague Jen Lumanlan has a workshop to help. Over 10 weeks, you’ll learn the real sources of your triggered feelings (which aren’t really about your child’s behavior!) and learn new ways to interact with your children so you can actually meet both of your needs. This stuff really works – there’s even a video of a therapist on the course information page who knew all the tools and even taught other parents about them but couldn’t figure out how to apply them in her real life with her real child.
I’m offering a special bonus to anyone who signs up for the workshop through my link: we’ll hold two group coaching calls so you can get my coaching as well as Jen’s through the workshop. I’ll help you put what you’re learning into the context of everything I know about parenting and child development as well. Learning how to parent without yelling is possible! I’ll see you in the workshop!
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