How to Be a Calm Parent Quotes

“The absence of a calm, wise, supportive and regulated adult caring for us, with a calm and mature nervous system to match, means that we can find it incredibly difficult to learn these all-important regulation skills, not just because of a lack of modelling, but because we tend to live in a survival state. A state where we push our own needs and feelings to the back of our minds and focus instead on just getting through the day. In this state, we do not learn to identify our needs, let alone meet them, and we do not learn how to resolve or regulate stress levels.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“Our parents and caregivers are as much products of their own upbringings as we are; the only difference is that we live in a culture and time now that is aware of childhood trauma, so we can be the generation to break the cycle. Our parents and caregivers weren’t so lucky.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“This subconscious belief can – and does – often lead to children repressing their own emotions or needs in the mistaken conviction that they are unlovable and unlikeable if they are struggling. This learned, erroneous behaviour from the past can become a huge trigger for us as adults, when our own children misbehave, because somewhere deep inside us is a lost child crying for attention, but one who has learned to repress their needs. When our own children act in a similar needy or dysregulated way, it triggers us not only because of their needs, but because of our own past needs, too.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“Our inner voices and the words that ultimately leave our mouths when we respond to our children, particularly in times of heightened emotions, are often subconscious memories of the way we were spoken to as children.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“Great parenting isn’t about what you say to your kids, or any magic techniques you may employ with them – it’s about who you are and how you tackle your own demons to ensure you don’t pass them on to your children.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too