Parenting Strategy 7:
Manage Your Emotions Even When You're Upset
BY ARLENE F. HARDER, MA, MFT
We learn how to manage our emotions in large part by observing how our parents manage their emotions. If parents blow a gasket when their child misbehaves, it's not surprising when that child gets into fights on the playground. If parents tell a child to ignore her disappointment in being excluded from a party to which she thought she'd be invited, they lose the chance to show her how to handle life's inevitable disappointments and, as a consequence, she may grow up to hold grudges and allow hurt feelings to fester and grow.
So how can you best help your children deal with their disappointments, fears, anxieties, anger and sadness? You can best help by recognizing that emotions are part and parcel of being human, by being in tune with your own emotions, by labeling your feelings accurately, by expressing them appropriately, by learning to tolerate ambivalent feelings, by calming yourself down when you're upset — and by teaching your children how to do the same.
We'd all like to react with calm and to avoid emotional and inappropriate outbursts when our child misbehaves in public (or in the home, of course, but it's in public that we feel most compelled to show others that we're in control). But for all of us there are times when our emotions get the better of us.
When this happens, any sense we have of feeling cool, calm and collected vanishes the instant our emotions flare up. It's almost as though something physically prevents us from reacting any other way, like a piece of Velcro that can't resist getting hooked by the barbs on another piece of Velcro. We are knocked off balance and yanked in a direction we hadn't intended to go, which is another way of describing the buttons our children love to push. And of course, you don't have to experience a full-blown rage or paralyzing panic to know that your buttons are being pushed.
In observing my own experience and that of my clients, I suspect this kind of Velcro is primarily created by that old nemesis of good parenting and good relations—the ego. It is also created by our temperament (and the temperament of our child) and on traumas and unfinished business from our childhood, as well as by what we learned about emotions in our family of origin.
By learning to unplug your buttons and remove the Velcro from your personality, your child can throw all the tantrums she wants and she won't be able to hook you. Okay, you'll still be frustrated that you have to stop and deal with her tantrum, instead of finishing your shopping in quick fashion, or you won't like the fact that you have to deal once more with a topic you thought was already settled (in your favor, of course). But at least now you can respond to her with greater calmness and she will learn that her upset doesn't knock you off balance. She can count on you to keep your head when she's losing hers.
© Copyright 2005, Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT
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