Let’s face it folks, we all lose it – and sometimes it’s on a daily basis. Sure, we also know nobody is perfect but that doesn’t change the fact that we still feel like really crappy parents when we react to our triggers.
Identifying triggers
The first step in changing our reactions is to identify our triggers. What sets us off? What makes us lose it? In order to be able to deal with all these different situations that drive us nuts, we need to know what they are about. It’s all about prevention work. If you don’t recognize what pushes you over the edge you won’t be prepared when it happens. And if you’re not prepared, you are less likely to be able to choose the most appropriate response – and you’ll default into a reaction you’ll most likely regret the second it happened.
So, what is triggering for you? Is it toothbrushing? Or having to leave on time and your kid not ever getting ready? Or is it when your kid talks back? Or when you recognize that your kid has privileges you didn’t have as a child? Or maybe when they get upset or sad? Or don’t clean up their mess even though they agreed to do it?
We all have different triggers, and not only do we need to understand what they are – we also need to figure out what they are about. Why do we get triggered? What are the conflicting needs behind those triggers?
Maybe you need collaboration and rest but your kid needs play and free choice and won’t brush their teeth when you ask for it – and BAM!
Maybe you need efficiency and predictability, but your kid needs time and play and has a really hard time getting ready when you want to – and POW!
Maybe your kid needs self-expression and authenticity and dresses in a way that collides with your need of belonging and being valued by other adults – and BOOM!
When you understand more deeply what your triggers are about, what your underlying needs are and when you can see what your kid’s needs might be – then you’re so much better equipped to deal with yourself and start developing strategies to deal with the triggering situations.
Emotional self-regulation and self-control
We’re all different. Some are calmer than others and have great self-control. Others are more explosive and have a tougher time holding back big emotions. Whatever your case is, remember that your capacity for emotional self-regulation says nothing about your parenting skills. You’re not a bad parent for exploding more often.
However, we can all get better at regulating our emotional expressions, and again it’s all about learning to know ourselves.
What does it feel like in your body when you start losing your shit? Is it like having a volcano in your belly that starts boiling? Or do you feel your chest tightening? Or can you feel your throat get all heated up?
Listen to your body! It’s talking to you, sending you warnings and messages urging you to pause. Pay attention and learn how to do just that: pause.
Pausing helps you calm down and think more clearly. Go into an inner dialogue with yourself. By doing that you detach from your emotions and the triggering situation:
“I’m feeling my chest tighten. I’m angry as hell. Wow. How interesting that I can feel the anger in my body. Wow, my heart is really pumping hard. I must have tons of adrenaline in my system right now.”
Now play out the scene in your head instead of acting on it:
I want to slap them in their face and belittle them. Hm. How would it play out? How would my child react? What would they feel? Wouldn’t I just throw logs on the fire? How would I feel about seeing my child hurt by me? Naaah, I’m not going to do this. I’m going to breathe really slowly.
There are plenty of strategies
There are plenty of strategies you can use in order to detach from the heated emotion, these are just some suggestions. The thing is, most of us need to learn how to self-regulate because it wasn’t taught to us. Many of our parents/ caregivers didn’t know how to do it and so they never modeled it for us.
However, we need to become those role models for our kids! We can’t expect them to know how to deal with big emotions, and so we need to show them how it’s done. And exactly as we watch our kids grow and develop – they watch us do the same! So there’s no shame in not knowing how to do things because we can all improve and get better at what we’re not that good at. Isn’t that an amazing process for our kids to watch us go through?
Timing is crucial
Now, here’s the deal: an upset human isn’t very good at listening or speaking. An upset human is in stress mode, and that makes us even more vulnerable to becoming triggered. This goes both for you and for your kid.
What does it mean? Well it means that you should never try to solve things, fix them or talk them through when you or your kid are upset. Just don’t! Because if you’re upset you won’t have the same capacity for explaining calmly, and you won’t be able to cope with any resistance from your kid. And if your kid is the one feeling upset they won’t really be able to hear you anyway – nor express themselves in a way that flows.
Simply don’t try to solve anything during triggering moments! Instead, do your inner work. Pause, breathe, do whatever works for you.
And talk about it the day after. Or a week later. Just not in the moment when it’s happening. It’s the best favor you can do yourself and your kid.
When chaos is gone for both of you, that’s when it’s appropriate to speak about whatever happened.
How to talk about the triggering moment:
First you need to have prepared yourself and have clarity on what your triggers are about, how they make you feel and what your needs are. Its also helpful to have given thought to what your kid may have/ is experiencing, what they might feel and what their needs might be.
Doing this work before the conversation is crucial. It’s simply important to be prepared because in our experience it works so much better.
Get consent:
Hey, can I talk to you about something that I´ve been thinking about?
Share the awareness in a neutral way without shaming or blaming:
Remember last week when I blew up in the morning when I was running late for work?
Ask with curiosity and openness:
What was that like for you?
What happened for you?
How did you feel?
Guess their needs and be open for another response:
It sounds as if xxx is imprtant to you? Is that true?
Share your insights about your triggers and needs:
Can I share what happened for me?
Ask for their opinion with curiosity and openness:
What do you think about that?
Sharing your values around equitable relationships:
It seems we might have different needs. I think it’s important that we both get our needs met.
Engage your kid in the problem solving and share power:
Do you have an idea of how we could solve this in a way that works for both?
This whole conversation is meant to center your relationship and create a solid connection between you and your kid. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s about acknowledging feelings and needs with the goal of agreeing to a try-it that you can both start practicing together.
Yes, we prefer using the term “try-it” instead of agreement because we recognize that although an agreement might sound good in theory, it might not work in practice- So we try it out by practicing it. And a week later we might need to evaluate the try-it and maybe tweak or change it completely – and start practicing again.
The thing here is that this kind of dialogue becomes a big part of the prevention work. It might not work every time, but it is a process and as such the focus is not on a final result but on the process itself.
Prevention work
As we’ve already shared, trying to fix something in a heated moment rarely works. And yet, that’s what most parents do. Imagine if your house suddenly was on fire. You put out the fire, but next day it’s on fire again. You put that fire out, but the next day there’s another fire – and so on. Wouldn’t you start asking yourself why these fires keep happening and look into how to prevent them from happening?
For us it’s the same with parenting, triggers and explosive moments. We need to understand why they happen so we can prevent them, because according to our experience most of them can actually be avoided. We just need to do the prevention work – and all of what we share here is part of it. With that said, we don’t think it’s realistic to get rid of all arguments and fights in a family. However, there is a lot of personal work that we can do in order to reduce most of them.
Important ingredients
So, there are couple of really important ingredients that we think need to be present in our self-development as parents:
- Learn to know yourself
- Learn to deal with yourself
- Learn to listen and share
- Choose the right timing
- Prevention work
As you can see, most of these points have absolutely nothing to do with our kids. It’s all on us, which actually makes this process really empowering. Trying to control kids is bound to fail, and as you might have noticed it’s really disempowering to try to control a kid that won’t let you. But – we can control ourselves. We just need to learn how!