Your son just throttled your baby on the head. The baby is screaming. You hoist them up, and scream at your child. “Why did you do that?!” They start crying, so now there’s two of them bawling.
You messed up. You overreacted. You already yelled when your toddler emptied the diaper bag. You forgot your oldest was supposed to be in a sports uniform today. You are always late. You are so unorganized. You look old. You have no control here anymore. You push your kids away when they need you most. They need you and you scream at them. You are a TERRIBLE parent.
There’s a dizzying list of things we, as parents, beat ourselves up over. And that negative voice in your head just gets get louder and louder. So, no wonder you blow your top when your child acts out.
Voices That Guide
Now, it’s time to give yourself a break. The reason you blow is not your fault. Not really. “We blow up at our children, because our parents blew up at us,” says Patty Wipfler, founder of Hand in Hand. “So that when we can’t think, out comes the behavior that was imprinted on us.”
But parents judge themselves too harshly.
“The harshness that we’re working so hard to avoid with our children goes for us too,” says psychologist and family therapist Dr. Lawrence Cohen. His takeaway?
Parents need to show themselves empathy before they can extend it to their children
Unfortunately, most of us don’t have that script. And the reason for that is simple. No-one ever showed it to us.”Many of us lack that inner voice of love and compassion,” Cohen told Wipfler. “A lot of us are specifically didn’t get enough of that growing up. But we can learn to be gentle on ourselves if we go slow and steady. Repeat the following steps, and you could knock that negative voice on it’s head.
Start With Caring: After Your Mess Up
Here’s what do immediately after upsets happen at your house. The moment where you want to strike out, scream and yell. First, take a moment. Give yourself a physical and mental “timeout.” “Give yourself a butterfly hug,” says Cohen, “Or pat, pat, pat your heart like how you’d pat a baby.”
As you do that, try and welcome every feeling you have rather than reacting to them. There are no “bad feelings.” Each is relevant and equally weighted. This thinking will mean a big shift for most of us who grew up without having our feelings welcomed by parents.
Now tell yourself something comforting, compassionate, simple and kind, something like:
- Oops!
- It’s normal.
- You’re not bad.
- We learn from mistakes.
- It’s ok.
This brief “timeout,” allows you to think and lets you feel empathy so that you move towards your child when you try and resolve the situation. If you feel yourself getting heated as you offer comfort, try repeating the phrases that resonate most with you.
Do not hurry to find a solution
For the method to work, “It’s crucial not to skip to “I have to know what to do, and to do the right thing,” when upsets happen, says Cohen. Instead, keep in mind why their behavior sends you spinning. Brewing on this moves you into a longer term empathy plan.
A Long-Term Empathy Plan
It’s actually not a bad thing to feel terrible about your parenting. “It’s a sign we are living out of line with our deepest values. If it didn’t matter to us, it would mean we didn’t care,” says Cohen.
In fact, use these feelings as a starting point to feeling better. Long-term relief comes through inquiry into our own childhood and taking those early hurts to Listening Time. You’ll get to a place where you understand your triggers and how to transform them. Here’s a 4-step plan for continued growth:
Think: When you are enraged, note it and think, why? “When my older child hits my younger child out of the blue why does that bother me?
Ask: Go deeper. Any early memories of feeling the same way? What were my relationships with siblings? Friends?
Explore: Now take those memories to Listening Time and talk to the people who may have hurt you. Your partner will hold the truth that anyone who may have hurt you was doing the best they could. You get to blast them; Stand up for yourself and grieve that you may have been hurt or not cherished.
Heal: As you allow yourself to cry hard in the warm presence of a Listening Partner, you may feel a shift. You may find you are better able to think the next time you start to feel overwhelmed or powerless.
By tracing these feelings, you gain a deep understanding into why you blow up when your early hurts get triggered. You’ll anticipate them, lean in to them and learn new reactions to them. When you combine this short-term plan with the long-term plan over and over, a new calming, compassionate, and forgiving voice replaces the negative.
Says Dr. Cohen: “Values have a rich, deep history. Tracing them will transform how you act as a parent today, and for the road ahead.”
Hear Lawrence Cohen and Patty Wipfler talk more about When We Mess Up As Parents and solutions that will help.
From the Hand in Hand Toolbox:
Read how Listening Partnerships help parents, caregivers and educators trace triggers that cause us to feel angry and powerless.
Learn how to build a Listening Partnership in our self-guided course. To find a Listening Partner, get weekly Instructor-led support calls and daily individualized coaching, join the Parent Club Community – FREE for TWO WEEKS.
Learn the secret to handling your child’s tantrums
For your complete calm parenting toolbox buy the book Listen: Five Simple Tools To Help You Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges
