Rethinking Parenting Regulation: Why You Don’t Have to Stay Calm All the Time
We are inundated with parenting advice from all corners of life, but especially social media. A common buzzword has made a solid seat for itself in the parenting zeitgeist is regulation.
In the sphere of parenting, regulation (and its parenting twin co-regulation) is the idea that when parents are able to regulate, or control, their own emotional experience, they are better able to be a container for their children’s emotions, offering a safe space for them to feel their feelings, which will ultimately lead to an emotionally healthier inner world.
Makes sense, right?
The problem is that for most parents, feeling calm, cool, and collected when your little one is having a complete meltdown can feel, at times, impossible.
Then, they feel ashamed that they aren’t “regulated” enough, which can in turn make it harder to feel calm and confident during the next meltdown… and the cycle continues.
So today’s post is about some different, more compassionate and flexible ways of working with our emotions besides just trying to shame ourselves into being “calm, cool, and collected” all of the time.
“But this isn’t only about trusting our children. It’s about what gets in the way of trusting our children. And what’s that? Trusting ourselves. Trusting that we are uniquely capable, and that we’re across the board good enough parents as we are, because we are.”
1) Being “Regulated” Does Not Mean You Don’t Get to Have Feelings!
This is a big one.
I think the idea we often have of co-regulation is a perfectly “zen” parent who, saint-like, manages their screaming, flailing child, reflecting back to them their own feelings with enduring patience and compassion.
The reality is that our baby and children’s big feelings often create big, hard to manage feelings in us, and it doesn’t always look so pretty.
Frustration, fear, anger, overwhelm, and despair are often the primary experiences I hear clients talk about, followed by shame, hopelessness, and anger at themselves that they can’t “handle” the situation without getting overwhelmed.
A More Compassionate, Realistic Approach
Next time you notice big emotions coming up for you, try on a stance from DBT called non-judgmental observation and/or curiosity:
What is happening for me right now? Am I overwhelmed? Exhausted? Frustrated? Afraid?
How does my body feel in this moment? Am I flooded? Is my heart racing? Does my head hurt? Am I frozen, or want to run, or fight?
What is the story that I’m telling myself? That this isn’t ok? That I can’t handle this? That they aren’t supposed to do this?
Then, try on naming and normalizing your experience with compassion:
“It makes sense I am feeling frustrated right now. I hate seeing my child upset and I don’t know what to do to make him feel better, and I feel hopeless. It’s ok and normal to have hard emotions about it!”
This will not make the emotions go away, but it might give you a bit of grace to take the edge off, which in turn might help you feel calmer, faster.
2) Remind yourself that your child’s big emotions do not mean you are doing a bad job or that there is something wrong
A common, and often unconscious or underlying belief that we hold is that our child’s big emotions or tantrums mean we have done something wrong, that there is something wrong with them, or that there is something we could do to make things better or to make the emotions stop right now.
The uncomfortable (but sometimes relieving) reality is that just as we adults often have emotions that aren’t completely within our control, children are the same. Big emotions are our children’s natural reaction to frustration, change, stimulation, fear, disappointment, anger and all of the big and little experiences in between. When we can remember that our job is not to fix their emotions, but rather to support them through, keep them safe, and help them organize them, we can let go of a little bit of the desire to control and judgement and we often feel.
3) Think About “Riding the Wave” of Emotions With Your Child
Instead of thinking of regulation as you being an unmoving, unfeeling statue of calm, imagine that you and your child are riding waves of emotion together.
While you are both experiencing the waves of emotion together, you are the boat, the container, or structure who has the experience and ability to hold your little one and keep them safe while the waves roll through.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a wild ride for you or that you won’t get tossed around a bit. But you’ve got a bit more experience and sturdiness to know that whatever waves or feelings come through will pass, and that they will be safe with you.
4) Use your body to move energy through
Do you feel like screaming, running away, hitting something? Do you feel frozen, shut down, or disconnected?
This is your nervous system’s response to overwhelming stimulus. Somatic approaches can help your body come back to baseline.
Try:
turning on some music and singing loudly
jumping up and down
shaking out your arms and legs
putting some ice cubes on your neck or face
walking outside or into another room
Taking some really deep breaths and sighing loudly as you breath out
Humming
Intentionally tightening and then relaxing your face, shoulders, and neck
These are also great ways to show your child how to work with their own big emotions, too!
5) Focus on repair
We talk so much about regulation, but we forget about its just-as-important sister: repair.
To understand the power of repair, I’d like you to think about this:
When you look back on your life, which conflicts or relationships feel the most painful?
For me, it’s usually the ones where there was no sense of closure - no chance for both people to reflect, make sense of what happened, come to a shared understanding, apologize, and ultimately come back together, even if it is messy.
This is the power of repair.
We can experience incredible pain, hurt, anger, and even betrayal in a relationship, but if we feel the other person genuinely wants to understand our perspective, help us feel better, do better, and join together in mutual forgiveness and love, SO much can be healed.
Obviously, with children, we usually can't have a perfect conversation after meltdowns where we talk through the ins and outs of what happened for each of us, what our emotions were, why we're sorry, and how we’ll do better next time.
What actually matters more is that children feel our steadfast love, understanding, and forgiveness of their big emotions.
This signals to them that, hey, I still love you even though I got pretty freaked out and might have raised my voice more than I feel comfortable to admit.
And, that actually, it’s ok to have big emotions sometimes, and we adults do too.
You May Be Thinking: “But It’s Not Ok for Me to Have Big Emotions!”
The irony is that beating ourselves up for having intense reactions and feelings when our kids act out actually makes it feel harder to regulate ourselves the next time it happens.
When we practice meeting ourselves with compassion for our shortcomings and humanness, we are more likely to be able to weather the storm of our children’s emotions with flexibility and the trust that, even though we are both having a hard time right now, this too shall pass.
If you are looking for a parenting therapist in Colorado to support you in in working with your emotions, developing compassion for yourself, and supporting your children in their emotions, I would love to connect.
Connie Roberts is a licensed therapist (LCSW) in Colorado specializing in perinatal mental health, parenting, trauma, CPTSD, couples counseling, and body image. She works with clients using psychodynamic therapy, somatic approaches, EMDR, and IFS / parts work.