We need to regulate our angry responses around children
It's important for parents to stay calm and not get too angry too quickly. This helps in handling issues at home effectively. When parents get angry, children might not understand why and it can harm the parent-child relationship. It's best to manage anger by taking a break before addressing the problem, as this shows emotional control and helps maintain a positive relationship with your child.
Maintaining composure and not getting too angry too quickly is crucial for effective parenting. Here are six reasons why this is important. The examples given are helpful in identifying the sorts of issues that happen at home. It is very easy and quick to turn to anger when disappointed in some behaviour, tired, irritable or just plain out of sorts. A child often doesn’t understand why you reach that point. So taking care to keep levels of anger down and to take time out before addressing the issue is the best resolution.
Modelling Emotional Regulation: When a child spills a drink accidentally, instead of getting angry immediately, say, "It's okay, accidents happen. Let's clean it up together." By staying calm, you teach your child how to manage their own emotions. They also listen and don’t shut down when you keep calm.
Teaching Problem-Solving Skills: If your child forgets their homework, rather than reacting with anger, say, "Let's figure out a solution together. How can we make sure you remember your homework in the future?" This approach helps your child learn to address challenges constructively. If they expect you to react angrily they will build anxiety over time and will avoid being in contact with you.
Promoting a Safe and Trusting Environment: If your child confesses to a mistake, like breaking a toy, avoid immediate anger and instead say, "Thank you for telling me the truth. We can find a way to fix it together." This encourages honesty and trust. We don’t want them to develop a fear over telling the truth
Preventing Escalation of Conflict: If a sibling argument arises, try not to jump in with anger. Instead, say, "Let's all take a deep breath and talk about what happened calmly." By staying composed, you prevent conflicts from worsening.
Maintaining Effective Communication: If your child receives a poor grade, don't react with anger. Instead, say, "Let's talk about what happened and how we can help you improve." This approach encourages open communication and problem-solving.
Protecting Your Child's Self-Esteem: If your child struggles with a task, don't express frustration. Instead, say, "It's okay to find this challenging. We all have things we need to practice." This protects their self-esteem and promotes a growth mindset.
Keeping your anger under control is all about emotional regulation. If a child believes that anger is your first response, your relationship with them will deteriorate and in many cases, children shut down or simply keep you out of the loop. That is their survival tactic to avoid the repercussions of anger, which is seen as a form of power and control.
If you have a relaxed and understanding approach and keep your tone calm and sympathetic, your child will approach you comfortably and with the absolute truth.
‘My job as a parent isn’t to control my child’s emotions. My job as a parent is to control mine.’
-Shelley Robinson
Some simple ideas to slow down tension at home
Managing a bustling household often leads to tension, with everyone juggling tasks and schedules. To avoid potential issues, try these simple tips for a more harmonious home. Remember, small changes can make a big difference, so be kind to yourself as you navigate the challenges of parenting.
Busy home life can mean a build up of tension as everyone rushes around to complete jobs, homework, work schedules, sport practice etc. There is no shortage of activities that need to be done and as tension builds we can find ourselves angry and behaving in ways that we regret later.
Here are some simple suggestions to ward off problems that can arise from running a busy household where tension can easily build.
When you find yourself angry at some behaviour, take time out. It may only be a few minutes but it will slow down heightened feelings of anger and give you a chance to respond in a calmer way.
Be proactive. If you see some potential ares in which trouble can be brewing try to change patterns. For example, if siblings are fighting can you separate them to have time apart.
If you find yourself very tired, perhaps lighten your load and don’t expect as much of yourself on that day. Fatigue is a great stimulant for losing patience quickly.
When solving problems with your child choose language that is simple and uncomplicated. When a child is stressed they will not always hear everything you say, so keep it simple and to the point.
Avoid triggers that will set you off in an angry state. Also consider the triggers that set off your child. Are there some situations that can be avoided. Prevention is better that cure.
Practice breathing exercises. The more you learn to be calm and breathe well when a difficult situation presents itself, the better you will mange the situation.
Sometimes you can let things go! Consider, does everything have to be solved. Decide which is best, to be happy or to be right all the time.
Sometimes it is worthwhile to check in on why you are upset. Is it necessary? Is it really an issue for you?
Think about how damaging it is to the family to be angry and upset. Think about its importance to be resolved.
Remember the big picture. In the schema of life do you need to be angry over so many things. Consider that being a good enough parent is what is adequate. After all your journey with your child will be over many years. What can you let go that will make your life easier?
We do not live in a perfect world. Families can be a messy business and we have many pressures on us as parents to always make the best decisions for our children. Take little steps and be gentle on yourself as a parent. Allow your human side to be evident to all and find a peaceful style of working with your children.
“Children do not need us to shape them. They need us to respond to who they are.”
Being authentic and honest with your child is the best way forward
Here are six reasons and examples of what honesty and authenticity look like in parenting.
Being honest and authentic with your children is crucial for building trust, fostering healthy relationships, and promoting their emotional and moral development.
Here are six sound reasons, along with examples of what honesty and authenticity look like in parenting:
Building Trust: When you are honest and authentic, your children learn that they can trust you. This trust forms the foundation of a strong parent-child relationship. For example, if your child asks where babies come from, you can provide age-appropriate, honest information instead of making up a story. Tell the truth. Consider of course that it is age-appropriate conversations.
Setting a Positive Example: Children often model their behaviour after their parents. They look to you for learning about life. When you demonstrate honesty and authenticity, you set a positive example for them to follow. For instance, if you make a mistake, acknowledge it, apologise, and explain how you plan to make amends. This teaches your child the importance of taking responsibility for their actions. Let them see how you deal with mistakes and accept them as a learning process.
Enhancing Communication: Being authentic in your communication encourages open and honest conversations with your children. For instance, if you're going through a challenging time, sharing your feelings and concerns can help your child understand and empathise with your situation. This, in turn, can encourage them to confide in you when they face difficulties and eases the feeling that they will be judged.
Fostering Emotional Intelligence: Honesty and authenticity help children develop emotional intelligence. When you express your own emotions honestly and explain how you manage them, your child learns valuable emotional regulation skills. For example, if you're feeling stressed, you can explain that stress is a normal emotion and share healthy coping strategies you use. Letting them see that you are stressed is an acceptable behaviour.
Teaching Values and Morality: Authenticity in parenting allows you to impart your values and morals consistently. For example, if you believe in kindness and empathy, you can demonstrate these values in your interactions with others and explain why they are important to you. This helps your child understand the principles that guide your family. Involve them in the way you demonstrate your values. For example, if you are involved in a fundraiser get them involved.
Resolving Conflicts: Authenticity is essential when addressing conflicts or disagreements within the family. Instead of avoiding difficult conversations, address them honestly and constructively. For example, if there's a disagreement between siblings, you can facilitate a conversation where each child has the opportunity to express their feelings and thoughts while maintaining a respectful and open atmosphere. If you feel conflictual with your child, sit down together and discuss the issue.
Being authentic becomes easier over time. Here you are not setting up situations that are not sustainable. Your child will come to expect and in fact, demand an authentic relationship. This brings you into a close and intimate relationship with your child.
Being authentic around your child gives them a model of how life works.
Gail Smith
Fight, flight or go with the flow.
Do you have one of these tendencies when you are dealing with a conflictual issue? Sometimes our determination, sense of self-worth and anxiety about failure can take over and rather than losing face we can choose a flight or fight mode to cope. From time to time we switch into different modes. Flight and fight are a form of escapism from combined resolution.
Children will naturally experiment with all three modes and as they mature, we hope that they will be more inclined to read the signs and go with the flow avoiding failure. Rather this is more about understanding the circumstances, being tolerant of other’s opinions and not wearing the problem. It takes considerable maturity to go with the flow and compromise your way of being. However, after time you begin to realise the advantages of it.
Flowing with the situation requires discernment and developing the wisdom to cope with the situation, not personalise the matter and not get stressed. This may mean compromising your principals but it is also about thinking of others and valuing their input.
Parents who take on the fight model will eventually struggle as the child gets older. Fleeing is a model where we avoid situations that can eventually grow into a much more complex problem.
Are you a fight, flight or go with the flow type of parent?
Modelling for our children the art of flowing is teaching them that fight or flight is short term satisfaction. To flow keeps you in the discussion and hopefully, you still have stakes in the matter.
Teachers are all about negotiation and compromise. They teach children that when they are faced with a problem it is best to confront it and together with the other person negotiate a way though. If a teacher uses the model of fighting to win, they understand that eventually, their power runs out and no real resolution is made other than damaged relationships.
Consider:
When discussing matters with your child that can be unsettling, take care not to immediately resort to power to end the matter. This is likened to fighting to win and will eventually be unsuccessful. Negotiate. Talk to your child about what is on their mind and be prepared to discuss the matter calmly. Using the fight mode tells your children that the matter is unsettling for you and perhaps you are not the right person to talk to about the issue.
Parents can use flight by refusing to talk to their child about matters that they don’t want discussed. Escaping from such conversations can lead to children seeking resolution elsewhere.
Always be prepared to listen and discuss. You may be surprised at what you learn.
If you child has a tendency to fight or to run away from issues, gently engage with them and help them talk through the problem calmly and without judgement.
Teach your child that being prepared to listen, can lead to new information. Once you listen it is easier to go with the flow and simply you work through the problem more easily. You are more inclined to have a positive input into problems or conflict if people see you as someone who is fair and reasonable in discussing matters that are sensitive.
“If you want to fly give up everything that weighs you down.”
Talking with care can become a lesson to the child around the school grounds
Have you ever felt uncomfortable when you hear gossip around the traps. This can be unfortunately a common feature in school car parks and quite unsettling. No surprises that you see teachers and Principals smiling and engaging with everyone first thing in the morning and after school. School communities can be an environment that occasionally breeds unfortunate talk around the school grounds.
A child will easily pick up the tone of a conversation and interpret it in their own way.
This article reminds us that often when we engage in conversation that has negative undertones and can include conversation around other people, the child will easily pick up the tone of the conversation and interpret it in their own way. They will be curious about your thoughts and beliefs around the discussion and sometimes they will carry this into the classroom and with their relationships.
Remember children value, want and actually expect your approval of their school environment. They become confused when they hear negative talk around their teacher, school mates, school community etc. Children struggle to understand the full context of what an adult conversation is about, especially if it is had incidentally, and so they may only hear aspects that unsettle them. I recommend that when talking amongst other families on school premises, take care to talk positively and to later reinforce to your child the positive aspects of your conversation.
If you are unsettled about any information or discussion the child has overheard, reassure them that you always seek clarification with the teacher or Principal. Keep in mind that the school occupies a very big part of the life of the child and it needs to be emotionally a safe place in which to work and play. They need to keep a stable disposition around school to gain the very best from their education on various levels, social, emotional and intellectual. A child needs to feel that a parent trusts all aspects of school life and that this is demonstrated by how the parents engages with the school over the year. Should unsettling conversations occur than a child understands the best approach that is taken by the parent is to be in touch with the school in which they have so much faith.
There are many lessons to be learnt in attending school and not all of them are in the classroom. One important lesson for our children is to understand how to be a community member and how to make positive connections to each other no matter how different or challenging they may be. They observe their parents as they model their behaviour around the school environment. The more a parent displays a positive disposition, especially when around negative conversation and engages with the school optimistically, the more trusting and confident the child will be when they come to engage with school in different ways.
“Being positive in a negative situation is not naïve.”
Parents are different and that's OK
Who remembers their upbringing? Well, one thing is for certain as soon as you become a parent, you begin to reflect on your own upbringing. As the child becomes more independent, patterns of how your parents dealt with various situations looms large in your mind. It was not uncommon to hear from parents how they found themselves repeating words that their parents had said to them when growing up. Some parents were anxious not to repeat the same child rearing as their parents and so they sometimes overcompensated with their children which led to other problems.
Having your own children causes you to reflect more deeply on your own childhood.
As parents from different upbringings, we bring to the table, different ideas about how to raise our children. No surprises here that this can cause some tension between parents.
Also it is no surprise that the child will gravitate around the parent less punitive, less judgemental and often more relaxed in listening. This can sometimes cause more frustration on the part of the other parent who feels that the child needs more discipline.
This article reminds us that firstly we need to accept that parents may have different understandings of child rearing and together parents bring a lot to the table. There is no absolute right or wrong. The best way to manage this situation is to agree as parents that you are honest with your child in acknowledging that sometimes parents see things differently. The child is very aware of this and the more it is understood in the family, the better for all. I would also suggest that as parents consider attending a small parenting course together. This brings out the differences but especially focuses on how certain common factors in parenting should be shared by both parents.
As a family discuss important issues together as this will give both parents a chance to look at the matters in hand.
Sometimes one parent is better at dealing with some issue and as a couple agree on when this should happen.
Having a united front can sometimes be overwhelming for the child as they feel they have no place to go in discussing and negotiating their problems.
Both parents could practice the following:
Never be over reactive when hearing about a situation. After all you want your child to keep talking. Listen with interest before you ask questions and work through the issue. If a parent feels that they may be reactive to what is being discussed then I would recommend that this could be a matter for the other parent.
Ensure that your child understands that both parents are good listeners and that sometimes one parent may work through the matter rather than the other or both parents. Being consistent can be difficult. This is why discussing all the ins and outs of the situation are important before making decisions.
The more parents make themselves available to the child, the greater chance of children being open to both parents in their discussions.
When talking to parents I noticed that those children who had authentic relationships with their parents felt that home was a safe place to talk about matters. They would often tell me how their parents reacted to different situations but would comfortably say, “I can talk to mum or dad”.
It is also helpful to talk to the child about your childhood so that they can understand your journey as a child. This helps them reflect on the differences in their family.
The one factor parents have in common is that they care for their child and want them to grow up happy and well adjusted. Parents can be different, be a capable listener and genuine in how they communicate with their child.
Do you have different parenting styles?
When one child demands your attention, how do the others cope?
Tricky situation when one child is extra demanding. Often in families with several siblings one particular child can be more demanding than the others. This can be for many and varied reasons and certainly if a child is somewhere on the spectrum, difficult behaviour that escalates quickly can dominate your family time and compromise your quality experiences with other members of the family.
Parents become frustrated as they deal with this ongoing and difficult matter. They feel remorse as they do not have the time or energy to give to their other children. One child's behaviour and demands overrides the needs of the others.
This article is to reflect on the other children in the family and to understand more fully their emotional response to this phenomena which impacts on their life throughout childhood.
Often children develop ways of operating when bad behaviour from another sibling occurs regularly. They may escape the scene or attempt to solve the problem for their parents. They may even get caught up with thinking that they are to blame. Whatever their reaction, there is one emotion that many children will go through and that is a feeling of anxiety for their parents going through the grief of their sibling's behaviour.
You may often hear them say to the parent,
“Are you OK mum?”
“Is everything OK?”
They may feel vulnerable and give lots more hugs or offer to do more around the house, etc. It is quite common for children to feel anxiety when they see their parent under pressure. Also tied up in this feeling is a sense of loss for the time they could have with their parent, one on one. This is a form of grief and no surprises that resentment can build in the siblings who sit by and see their parent under such duress. This is a difficult situation for parents who only want the very best for all their children and yet one child is so demanding.
Here are a few thoughts on how to reduce the other children's resentment:
Have an open discussion with the siblings one on one at regular intervals.
Ask them:
“Sometimes mum does have a difficult time with your brother and I wonder how you feel about it?”
Also note they will be worried about you particularly.
“When you see mummy upset with your brother, are you worried about me?”
“On a scale of one to ten how worried are you?”
“Let's find ways that we can have one on one time together.”
Plan each week to talk to the other children about how they are feeling when poor behaviour escalates. Ensure that when an escalation occurs that you tap into them to bring down their anxieties and reassure them of your coping skills. Keep an eye on your first child as they can be quite conservative and really feel the responsibility of the problem.
It is quite confusing for the siblings to understand their role when such behaviour occurs. Plan to have family meetings and talk about everyone's role in the family. These meetings should be when you feel calm and in control. The sibling's role is definitely not to manage the behaviour nor are they in any way responsible for it.
If a child is under some support such as a counsellor or psychologist, some parents choose to have a session with the counsellor and the other siblings to help the whole family understand the reasons for the behaviour.
Primarily this article is about reassuring and reducing anxiety for the other siblings who naturally feel your pain and want to help but can feel somewhat helpless. It is all about giving them the reassurance that your relationship with them is intact and that you as parent in a loving way, have the responsibility of supporting all your children no matter what their needs. It is not their responsibility to manage their difficult sibling.
As the siblings grow up, in time they understand the situation better, but the grief of the compromised relationship they had with their parents can still linger and this needs to be understood by the parents.
What you would like the siblings to reflect on later in life is that although it was hard for mum and dad to deal with the situation, they would always talk to us about its implications on their relationship and they would work on other ways of ensuring our needs were met.
Who ever said parenting was easy!
Who ever said parenting was easy!
Learning to deal with conflict
We are always on the look out for preventative measures to avoid conflict in our family setting. This is no doubt a sensible way of allowing a child to have a balanced childhood with appropriate affirmation and encouragement and reduced conflict. Having said this, a child will still need to develop skills in recognising and managing conflict. This starts very early in their life. At kindergarten, children begin to learn cooperative play, mixing with other children, sharing etc. Some say that babies have very intense feelings from birth.
Conflict is a natural part of life and as the child matures, skills need to be developed that enable them to better understand themselves and their ability to work effectively with others. They need to develop an awareness of their feelings and reactions to certain situations. They need to develop a language that enables them to cope with potential conflict situations in their day to day life. Some call this emotional competence.
A parent can help a child develop these competencies in the following ways:
How you model social interactions is crucial to their developing an understanding of how to manage conflict. If a parent is over reactive, angry and not reflective, this will impact on the child's understanding of managing conflict. If they see the parent, attempt to remain calm, look at the situation clearly and resolve the matter through dialogue and negotiation, this also has an impact on children, a very positive impact.
Teaching the child how to negotiate is a key skill you are giving them in managing conflict.
“I understand we have a problem with regard to going to bed on time. Let's find ways together to help this problem.”
“I am upset that you are not doing your chores. Let's list ways of helping you.”
Teaching negotiation is about putting up options that will help solve the problem and this will involve negotiation and hopefully an outcome of win/win.
When a conflict occurs remember this is a time to demonstrate good modelling, just slow down, choose a good time to work through the issue with the child and definitely do not deal with the conflict on the run. Begin to look at how both you and the child can look at the issue working towards respecting each others needs. This will involve compromise and what a wonderful emotional tool you as a parent are giving the child.
Many areas of conflict occur at school. You cannot be there on such occasions but discuss with your child what strategies they will use when they are dealing with conflict. This would make a great family discussion regularly.
Schools are generally well set up when it comes to dealing with conflict issues especially given that student well being coordinators are available to support students. Most school teach a range of social skills in class. Most schools teach restorative justice which helps children understand their feelings and those of the other with whom they have a concern. Be in touch with your child's teachers when concerns are raised at home.
When working with children who were quick to temper and had not yet developed social skills to a manage conflict, I would give them this plan.
1. Stop and think.
2. What number on the angry scale would you give yourself?
3. If high walk away, take big breaths and allow some time before dealing with the problem.
4. If you feel unsure about the skills to work through the problem, seek out an adult.
If we teach our children not to immediately react, often the level of anger drops down and the situation can be dealt without escalation.
The more we teach our children to be emotionally aware, the greater their relationships with others and the more they can effectively engage broadly in various social settings and be influential.
“With our thoughts we make the world”
“With our thoughts we make the world” ~ Buddha