Goldlaner.com – Parenting requires a lot of learning on the job. Raising a 7-year-old, I’ve benefited enormously from the wisdom of teachers, psychologists and other caregivers who have taught me ways to navigate a minefield of tantrums and meltdowns. The more I learn about how to help a little kid through big feelings, the more I realize I need these strategies as much as my son does.
Adults often get so wrapped up in the demands of everyday life that we don’t recognize when we’re struggling emotionally, Dr. Jessi Gold, chief wellness officer for the University of Tennessee System and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences in Memphis, told me. “We are really focused on the task, not the person doing the task.” Parents teach their kids that their feelings are valid and treat them with compassion, she added, “but we don’t do that to ourselves.” So I’ve started stealing these parenting tricks for myself — and you don’t need to be a parent to make them work for you.
A time-out is usually used as punishment, but I submit it can also be a gift you give yourself. When I am feeling overwhelmed — usually because my kid is asking more of me than I can deliver in the moment — sometimes the only way to keep from yelling, “Could everyone just shut up?!” is to remove myself from the situation. I send myself to my room.
Being a parent is hard work and ‘massively inconvenient.’ Dr. Becky Kennedy offers 5 tips to help you cope It’s a “preemptive time-out,” Gold told me. Stepping away from the thing that’s causing the extreme stress or emotion gives you a chance to cool down before saying something you might regret, she said.
When I can’t physically escape, saying something like, “I need a minute,” buys me time to collect myself. I stole this one from a preschool handout intended to help pint-size pupils manage their outsize reactions. Young kids tend to respond to spilled milk-level challenges with DEFCON 1-level intensity.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized I do the same thing. Maybe I don’t scream and cry and throw myself on the floor, but in my head I’m freaking out. I am inclined to sweat the small stuff, make mountains out of molehills, and let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I will obsess and ruminate and beat myself up for minuscule mistakes. Or spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy weighing a low-stakes decision. Now I try to channel the wisdom of a preschool teacher and ask myself: Is this a big or little problem?
If it’s a little one, I can address it quickly or maybe not, but either way I stop letting it rent so much space in my head and push myself to move on. It is hard for a kid to switch from one thing to the next, whether it’s ending playtime to have dinner or putting on shoes to go outside. Transitioning from one activity to another commonly triggers tantrums, according to the Child Mind Institute, a mental health nonprofit.
One way to forestall that is to offer a preparatory countdown. It can be something like: “Five more minutes of playing, then we’re leaving the park.” We give kids structured schedules to make their day more predictable and make it clear what’s expected of them. We could give ourselves the same courtesy, Gold said.
What ‘gentle parenting’ does for your kids I’ve recently learned (with the help of a therapist who specializes in ADHD) that I need a countdown clock of my own. I easily lose track of time, especially when I am focused on something, such as writing this article. I’ll know, for example, that I need to leave work in an hour.
Then I will look up from my screen to find that 75 minutes have passed. Experts call this “time blindness.” Now I give myself a five- to 15-minute warning (in the form of a calendar alert or phone alarm) before I need to wrap up what I’m doing. It’s so simple and so profoundly helpful.
There are several ways that slow, deep breathing can help diffuse stress. It can ratchet down the infamous fight-or-flight response, slow a racing heart, stabilize blood pressure, and stimulate the vagus nerve to trigger the part of your nervous system that makes you feel relaxed. Whenever my son gets worked up, my go-to move is to tell him to take three deep breaths and count to five.
You fell down and skinned your knee? Oh no, let’s take three deep breaths. You’re on the verge of a tantrum because I turned off the TV?
Three deep breaths. Nervous walking into a new classroom? I hear you, dude: three deep breaths.
I’ll slowly inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth to show him what I want him to do. Secretly, I am also trying not to lose it. Breathe better to live better: Why breathing is your superpower There is a reason that parents of young children travel with snacks: We know that a hangry kid is a recipe for disaster.
Yet I’ll run for hours on a cup of coffee during a busy day, then wonder why I feel unfocused, bedraggled and downright grouchy. It could be burnout or a migraine or the patriarchy — or I might just be dehydrated. “Our physical health is integrated very much into our mental health,” Gold said.
If you don’t eat, drink or sleep, “you’re going to be meaner and crankier, and you’re going to cry when you don’t expect it, just like your kids would.” It is amazing what a glass of water and a handful of pistachios can do. If only we all had a mom with a purse full of snacks to help us through the day. Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple.
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