Learning to Stay in Your Parental Calm Zone: 4 Vital Strategies
If there’s one thing about being a parent that’s particularly tough at times, it’s the fact that we are all emotional creatures and our emotions can get the better of all of us. Whether you’re thinking about Thanksgiving or Christmas, or just trying to muddle through from week to week, learning to keep calm is one of those things that can be infinitely resourceful. Whatever the main issue, keeping calm is not the easiest of things to achieve! Parenting poses so many different challenges, which is why we shouldn’t just think of tools that we can break out as and when these problems arise, but embed those habits that can promote a calmer parenting experience. While it requires some form of emotional intelligence, there’s many tactics you can try. Here’s a few things to help you along the way:
Find Your “Retreat Treat”
We all need to remember that taking time out is one of the best things to help us step away physically and mentally from a situation. We all know children benefit from timeouts, but why don’t we do this as well?
Sometimes it can be tough to do while our kids are around, either because they won’t let us step away or our children are too young, and we can’t take our eyes off them for too long. We have to figure out ways to regain composure, even if it means it’s in the presence of our kids. One of the best things that can be a handy little cheat is if you’ve got kids old enough that play on their own devices, you can do something for yourself in a similar vein! Playing Solitaire online, Sudoku, as well as other brain-training games, can all make a big difference, particularly if you feel like you’re trying to set that example of not being on your device all of the time.
When we take those timeouts, we are also investing our focus in something that’s not stress, and this is a very important thing to remember. If we invest our energies in something that is actually going to take our mind off certain pressures, this is very similar to meditating. You may not actually have time to sit cross-legged for 10 minutes, but when you start to understand that taking your mind off a problem is another form of mindfulness, you can start to incorporate various strategies that achieve the same goal, whether it’s playing a game or doing something that you know feels incredibly meditative. This is why many people bake!
Using Mantras
If there’s something that can be adopted from meditation or religious practices, it’s a calming mantra. Reducing stress can be tough, and this is why things like positive self-talk are absolutely pivotal when you are struggling to stay calm.
Phrases that help to shift your perspective are absolutely invaluable because they give you a greater sense of clarity and perspective on an otherwise stressful situation. So much of the reason we feel stressed in life is because we don’t have a true grasp on whether it’s our reaction to the situation or if the situation is genuinely stressful. That’s not to put down your thoughts and feelings about a situation that other people are able to handle; it’s just that you need to shift your perspective of it. This is where having positive self-talk and a more positive internal dialogue can help you to feel that it’s not actually all bad.
Have you ever seen those parents who, very calmly and nonchalantly, give their children the Heimlich maneuver when they’re choking? Of course, those parents have seen their children choke so many times that they’ve become desensitized to it. What we have to remember is that there are a variety of stresses that are common for all parents, and so if we feel that these things are too much for us to deal with, then we need to reframe it, and this is why positive self-talk or mantras can help you stay in your calm zone.
Identifying Your Triggers
We all have different triggers. This is the most important thing to remember, particularly if you are prone to comparing yourself to other parents, is what’s stressful for one parent is not in the slightest for another.
When you recognize what specifically triggers your stress, and then start the process of asking probing questions as to why you feel stressed in those situations, you can prepare for them or avoid them depending on what those are. As a parent, we have to recognize that actually, our children are going to get into scrapes because this is how they learn. Many of us have that real struggle where we need to loosen that invisible cord between us and them and let them figure out their own way in the world, and we be there purely as a sounding board.
Whenever children start to push boundaries, we have to figure out exactly what we should have a say in. Our children need to develop independence, and if we, therefore, become yet another helicopter parent because it reduces our stress, then we are ensuring our children inherit a huge wealth of problems that they will have to unpick as they get older. So let’s draw a line in the sand now and recognize that actually, stress is a part of life, but if you are far better prepared for those situations, this can make all the difference.
Get a journal out and start noting moments when you feel triggered, and then come up with suitable tools in those moments to help you deal with them. Deep breathing is one of those things that’s invaluable because it reduces the physiological response to stress. One of the best ways to calm down quickly is to stimulate a part of your body called the vagus nerve, and there’s a couple of ways to do this. Firstly, breathe out for longer than you breathe in. Breathe in for five and out for 10 seconds. This will also slow your heart rate down.
Additionally, you can take a leaf out of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to help you deal with certain triggers better. Specifically in relation to the vagus nerve, if you look down to the right or to the left while keeping your head still, and hold this until you get a reaction like swallowing, sighing, or yawning, you’ve stimulated your vagus nerve. Remember to practice this!
Connecting With Your Child
Learning to stay calm is partly to do with the fact that things feel out of your control. As a parent, if we feel that our child is out of control themselves, sometimes we need to double down on those things that help us understand our children better.
We need to encourage empathy, which is key to fantastic communication, and this means that when things happen, we can respond to those situations thoughtfully instead of with that common knee-jerk reaction. If we feel frazzled, sometimes asking more open questions of our children can help us to understand why they feel a certain way. The CALM method (Connect, Affect, Listen, Mirror) is fantastic for this.
Additionally, look at how you frame requests of your child. For example, if you say “please walk” instead of “don’t run,” this can reduce resistance. A very simple thing, but encouraging positivity can make a massive difference. When we feel completely overwhelmed as parents, it’s easy to go into those negative thoughts, and this means that they show up on our face, we look miserable, and snippy passive-aggressive comments occur. This will naturally filter down to our children, which then in turn will encourage them to be more defiant and kick against us.
Sometimes just tricking our brain into something positive can make a huge difference, for example, power poses or smiling. Learning to stay in your calm zone as a parent may seem tough; however, there’s a huge wealth of resources out there. These are just a handful!
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