How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids Quotes

“Remember, you’re not a bad parent raising a bad kid. Life is hard and parenting is hard. It’s not your fault you’re losing your shit, but it’s absolutely your responsibility to do what you can to reduce the likelihood that you will lose it and to stay cool as often as possible.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“This is also a good time to remind you yet again that you don’t need to be a perfect parent to be a great parent.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Fortunately, you can break this intergenerational pattern.)”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“The more distant you feel from your child, the more you need to work on managing your temper and being as present and patient as possible.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Your number one job as a parent is to keep your kid safe. Do the best you can.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for; many of us were raised by shit-losers and have grown up to be functional, productive members of society with only mild to moderate Ben & Jerry addictions. This means you can let go of some of the guilt, stress, and shame you’ve been hanging on to, and you probably don’t need to fully fund the kids’ therapy accounts just yet.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“You can’t explode at your kids if you’re not actually with them. Boom. Done.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Spending time in silence even for a few minutes every day is crucial for our sanity for a number of reasons, including lowering our stress levels and cooling down our buttons.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“You need help. I need help. Even the parents who seem to perpetually have their shit together need help. It’s not because we’re lazy or incompetent. It’s because we are wired to function together—the village is not optional. The sooner you stop telling yourself that you should be doing it alone or that there is some nobility in handling everything without asking for help, and the sooner you tap friends and/or family members for said help, the sooner you will realize how much easier parenting can be, and the sooner you will stop losing it quite so often.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“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.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“There is one other option: Don’t go to the game. Send your partner or grandparent or ask a fellow parent to drop your child off or pick them up. There are many ways to show up for your kid and you don’t have to do all of them. Ditch the ones that trigger you and you’ll have more time and energy for the ones that don’t.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Finally, remember that it’s not your job to keep your kids happy. Big emotions don’t need to be fixed, they need to be felt. Children need to learn that there’s nothing wrong with feeling sad or mad or embarrassed or confused and that eventually those feelings will pass.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Sleeping again was the first crucial step toward getting my shit together, because it gave me the energy to take the next steps. The more I slept, the less irritable and reactive I was with my kids.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“In addition, the human brain wasn’t designed to be maximally effective at all times. It was designed (a) to keep us alive, and (b) to plan and remember and worry and anticipate and imagine and fantasize and think and react, mostly in the service of (a) keeping us alive. Those little neurons fire like it’s their job, because, well, it’s their job. Sometimes all of this brain activity is helpful, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes our thoughts, ideas, and reactions are accurate and useful, and sometimes they steer us in the wrong direction. We can’t depend on our brains to guide us like a thoughtful parent or therapist; evolution just didn’t design them that way.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Our survival system evolved in response to physical threats such as the aforementioned woolly mammoth, which is why our reaction is almost entirely physical.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“One more fun little factoid about the PFC: Your kids don’t really have one yet. The latest thinking is that the PFC isn’t fully developed until the early twenties, which is why even college students are still lighting stuff on fire for no good reason.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“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.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“K Talk it out, but not too much. Telling your kids what’s about to happen is a great way to diffuse the tension. Try something like, “I’m feeling pretty stressed, and I’m about to snap at you. I need to calm down. You can breathe quietly with me, but if you nag or whine at me, I will probably bite your head off.” (You’re welcome to use my exact words, in which case you may want to explain to your kids that you won’t literally bite their heads off. I made that mistake once and it totally freaked them out.)”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Kids take up more space in our brain than we realize; it’s like they open up all the tabs on the computer and the minute you try to open up even one more, the whole thing freezes up and smoke starts pouring out of the back of your laptop.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“When I’m super frustrated with my kiddos, I’ll send a little metta their way: May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“Your brain (and thus, your nervous system) is not self-sustaining. It requires sleep, nutrition, exercise, stimulation, fun, and downtime to function well.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“every feeling is OK (really, I promise!), but not every behavior is OK, and noticing what you’re feeling is the first step toward not reacting thoughtlessly.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“And your children will push your buttons. They are genetically, evolutionarily, physiologically, developmentally, relationally, psychologically, and emotionally wired to jam their sticky little fingers into your buttons every chance they get. Some kids push harder and faster than other kids, but they all push. It doesn’t mean they secretly despise you. It just means they’re your kids.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“What I’m asking you to do—throughout this book, and especially in this chapter—requires a fundamental shift in your approach to yourself and your parenting. It’s about creating new habits and routines, finding a new balance, and trusting that when you give your kids more space, they will step up to the challenge.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“They may be my monkeys, but this still ain’t my circus.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“I expected motherhood to be challenging; I didn’t expect it to turn everything upside down.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“You’re not a bad parent, and while your shit losses are absolutely your responsibility, they’re not your fault.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“we can’t control anyone else’s behavior—we can only control our own.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“The reality is that our children learn more from what we do than from what we say, and their little kid brains don’t necessarily make a distinction between our smart parenting moves and our terrible, impulsive ones.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent

“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.”
― Carla Naumburg, How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent