How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

by Carla Naumburg

when you understand not only what’s happening but also why it happens, you’ll feel less out of control and ashamed, and more empowered and equipped to work with your nutso brain rather than being flattened by it every time it gets overwhelmed.

your “buttons” are your nervous system and a “trigger” is anything that revs up your nervous system and makes your buttons bigger, brighter, more sensitive, and way easier for your kids to push.

You’re going to get to know your buttons. You’re going to learn what lights them up (aka your triggers) and how to cool them down.

children will be more likely to push buttons when they’re triggered—because they’re tired, hungry, confused, scared, excited, anxious, or otherwise overwhelmed by Big Feelings.

it is not your job to get them to stop pushing. Your job is to teach them, again and again, to notice and respond skillfully to their triggers

The secret to staying calm is self-awareness; it’s about noticing you’re about to explode and giving yourself a chance to calm down.

Most episodes of shit loss share a few common characteristics, which we can remember with the acronym FART (Feelings, Automatic, Reactive, Toxic). Not the sexiest acronym, but hopefully it will remind you that you’re not alone. Like flatulence, losing your temper is an unfortunate yet completely normal part of the human condition. Everyone does it (even though some of us try to pretend we don’t). While we can make changes in our life that may reduce our flatulence, it’s still going to happen. The good news is, if we notice it’s coming, we can take steps to mitigate the impact.

Meltdowns generally involve Big Feelings, and not just anger or rage. Almost any strong emotion will do, including fear, sadness, confusion, powerlessness, stress, annoyance, anxiety, embarrassment, guilt, or shame.

What you need to remember is that (a) losing your shit is an emotional reaction, not a rational one, and (b) we don’t have nearly as much control over our feelings as we’d like to think. We can’t force ourselves to feel a particular way; all we can do is notice that we’re actually having a feeling so we can choose how to respond.

In most cases, melting down is an unconscious process beyond your control, one that can often be traced back to your childhood and the ways your parents lost their tempers with you.

Whatever it is, and whenever it happened, identifying the thing you are reacting to is crucial.

Toxic explosions are unpredictable, disproportionate reactions that can include angry words, physical outbursts, personal attacks, shame, and blame. The moment feels out of control. Toxic outbursts happen when we are triggered, and they continue to trigger everyone involved. Examples may include screaming at your child over spilled cereal, exploding because he’s taking too long to put on his shoes, or angrily berating a daughter for forgetting her homework. These reactive explosions can rupture and weaken the connection between you and your child.

Some folks think that the opposite of losing it is staying calm and collected all the time, and never getting into any sort of conflict with your child ever. They assume it means feeling happy, patient, and present at every moment, and responding to your children with a song in your heart and a smile on your face no matter what sort of crap (either metaphorical or literal) they dump at your exhausted feet. This sort of thinking just reeks of perfection and clearly won’t work for me or you or any other parent on the planet. Conflict and disconnection and unpleasant feelings and strong emotions are all completely normal and reasonable and acceptable, and they don’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.

Not losing it is about having just enough self-awareness to notice what’s going on in and around you so you can make a conscious choice to get still and calm down or just shut your mouth before you react—even if you have no idea what to do next. Even if you have absolutely no clue how to respond to your kid’s offensive or obnoxious or only-slightly-irritating-but-you-just-can’t-handle-it-today behavior, I promise that anything you come up with from a place of relative calm will be more effective and empathic than whatever knee-jerk reaction you bust out with when you’re freaking out.

Over time, your explosions will literally rewire your brain, and not in a good way. The more you lose it with your kids, the stronger and more connected your “lose it” neuronal pathways will become, allowing your brain to freak out more quickly and easily in the future.

We’re demonstrating the very behaviors we’re trying to decrease and we’re modeling a relationship style we surely don’t want them to repeat later in life. (Side note: This may be why you’re struggling with this issue. If your parents lost it with you on a regular basis, they were inadvertently raising you to react similarly in stressful situations. Fortunately, you can break this intergenerational pattern.)

There’s no question that children’s behavior can range from mildly annoying to mind-blowingly horrifying. They throw toys out the car window and refuse to nap and poop on the stairs and stomp on the baby’s head and steal candy from the drugstore and draw penises on the classroom wall and don’t even get me started on booze and drugs and sexting that punk with chin fuzz. Kids do idiotic, obnoxious stuff. That’s unlikely to change any time soon, so if your plan for keeping your cool depends on your child’s ability to do the same, that’s going to end poorly for everyone.

We all behave in ways that just don’t make sense, especially when we’re triggered and our buttons are pushed. But our brains start to get a little twitchy when things seem random or unpredictable; they prefer predictability, not chaos. This is why even an inaccurate story can seem better than no story at all. When we don’t have a clue about what just happened or what might happen next, we grasp (often without realizing it) at any available information to explain and understand the situation.

Life is hard. Sure, there are things we can do to make it a bit easier, and if we’re lucky, we string together a few good days and a few good years and that’s not nothing. Parenting is no different. If parenting and life are feeling particularly challenging for any reason, it’s not always because you’re doing something wrong. It’s because hard is part of the deal for everyone, no matter how good they make it look on Instagram.

Too many parents move through their days running on fumes, exhausted, stressed-out, overcaffeinated, and poorly fed, and yet still hold themselves to the same high standards and berate themselves for their “bad parenting” when they don’t measure up.

The customs of our local villages have been replaced by an endless stream of advice from the global village, thanks to the power of the Internet. Instead of taking comfort in the fact that we’re not the only ones stumbling through parenting, we’re constantly reminded that we’re the only ones who aren’t getting it right. The attachment parents are attaching better, the French moms are feeding their kids better, the Scandinavian kids are happier, the Asian kids are smarter and harder working, and meanwhile I’m just trying to figure out how to get my kid to stop picking her nose and wiping it on the wall.

We’re gonna go straight-up Serenity Prayer on ourselves; deal with our triggers when we can, accept the ones we can’t, and get damn good at recognizing the difference.

Triggers can be universal or unique. Universal triggers, such as exhaustion, chronic pain, or grief, tend to put everyone on edge, regardless of personal differences. Unique triggers, however, impact some folks but not others. For example, loud noise (including live music, whether it’s coming from my kids or my favorite band) makes me tense and cranky, whereas my husband seems totally immune to it. Parenting is easier when loud noises don’t bother you, so yay for him and boo for me.

The more frequently your buttons are triggered and pushed, the more quickly and easily they will be pushed in the future. This is basic neurobiology; neurons that fire together, wire together.

you can get better at noticing when our buttons have gotten especially sensitive and pushable, which is the crucial first step toward cooling them down. It’s all about your tells: the thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and behaviors that show up whenever you’re triggered. Within those four categories, everyone has different tells, so it’s important for you to recognize your own.

You don’t have to fix your triggers or eliminate them altogether. Rather, I want you to focus on Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.

OK, so you did the awareness and acceptance pieces (oh, if only it were that easy). You’re ready for action. Here are your options: Fix it or learn to live with it.

The bad news is that triggers are a major bummer. The other bad news is that they’re an unavoidable reality of life. The good news is that you can learn to deal with your triggers skillfully by avoiding them when you can and doing your best to minimize their impact when you can’t. While this will require some learning and habit-changing on your part, it’s all pretty simple and straightforward, and the more you practice the easier it will get.

If self-care isn’t your gig, or feels super indulgent, remember this: You’re not doing this for yourself, or at least not only for yourself. You’re doing it for your children, your relationship with them, and a calmer family dynamic overall. You’re also doing it to feel less like a crazy person who keeps exploding all over the place. You can also think of all of this as Shit You Have to Do So You Won’t Lose Your Shit with Your Kids, if that helps you feel better about doing it.

Can you actually do the thing I’m asking you to do? If not, can you tweak the practice so it will work for you? Or can you find something else that will work better?

Consider your major triggers, and start with the practices that are most likely to address them.

There are four main practices: Single-tasking, Sleep, Support, and Self-compassion. (Yes, they all start with S, and yes, I am extremely clever. Thank you for noticing.) Basically, the goal is to do one thing at a time during the day, one thing at night (get some zzzzs), get as much help with all of it as you can, and cut yourself serious slack when it falls apart anyway.

Stress is the belief, feeling, or thought that we cannot handle whatever is happening.

Multitasking is a surefire way to trick yourself into believing you can’t handle what’s going on.

Multitasking tricks us into thinking we’re being all productive and adulty and awesome when we’re actually hurling ourselves headlong into a meltdown.

multitasking isn’t just about doing more than one thing at a time; it can be about thinking more than one thought at a time.

Here’s a four-step process to get you started: 1. Notice that you’re multitasking. 2. Remember that you can choose to do just one thing at a time instead. 3. Decide if now is the time to do just one thing. 4. Carry on, either way.

There are definitely times when multitasking makes sense. I listen to audiobooks while I fold laundry, I knit in front of the TV, and I talk on the phone while I’m out for a walk.

K Accept that you won’t get everything done. Give yourself a break. You’re not failing at adulting or parenting if there are still dishes in the sink, appointments that haven’t been scheduled, or friends you haven’t called back. You’re just being realistic about what you can and can’t handle and making smart choices that help lower your stress and preserve your sanity.

Teach your children to do chores. This will take some time and energy on the front end, but it is well worth the investment, because it won’t be long before they can start to take chores off your plate instead of just piling them on. Oh, and it’s the way parenting has worked for about a bajillion years; no reason to end that trend now.

Ignore the kids. I’m not kidding. Teach and encourage them to entertain themselves. Let them be bored; it really is good for them. You don’t have to be constantly attentive to your child, and you sure as hell don’t need to involve yourself in their play.

Practicing any skill when we’re not under pressure will make it far more likely that we’ll be able to utilize that skill when the heat is on.

Nighttime is for chill and darkness and activities that do not light up your nervous system. Reading, crafting, playing cards, petting your cat, or working on a puzzle (if you can pull yourself away from it when it’s time for sleep!) are all great choices.

Your nervous system automatically calms down when you’re with another adult you trust and feel safe with.

Even if you are a professional teacher, therapist, pediatrician, or camp director, it is not your job to teach, treat, or constantly entertain your kids. This sort of role confusion will increase the stress in your family and deprive your children of the opportunity to learn from others. Find the experts you trust and let them do their jobs.

Repeat after me: It’s OK to say no.

May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease. May you give me a little space so I don’t strangle you.

Clutter of any sort is a trigger, plain and simple. Too much stuff, too many choices, too many plans, too much information, and too many thoughts overwhelm our systems and put us on edge.

Resist the urge to show your love with stuff. Equating affection with gifts probably isn’t the life lesson you want to teach your children, and too many toys can make it hard for kids to figure out what to play with and how to play with it.

Paradox of Choice. We assume that if we have more options, we’ll pick the best possible one. WRONG. The more choices we have, the more we doubt what we’ve chosen and wonder if we should have picked something else. Ultimately we’re just not as happy with what we ended up with.