Learn How To Manage Child Tantrums
Learn How To Manage Child Tantrums
Meltdowns seem to always happen at the absolute wrong time, or worse, in the most public of ways.
In this newsletter, we provide you with notes on Tantrums Trigger Me, an episode of Good Inside, by Dr. Becky.
Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist, a mom of three, and on a mission to rethink the way we raise our kids. She is joined in this episode by a guest, dad of two young girls.
Save time and read our notes below on triggers and cycle-breaking.
Topics covered in this summary
Discussing Childhood Triggers with the Guest
Tantrums: How can Parents Help
Breaking the Cycle
Three Main Takeaways
Discussing Childhood Triggers with our Guest
Dr. Becky posed a scenario for the guest to consider: You were a child and you really wanted a treat and were told no. You then have a meltdown. What would your parents do?
Guest: I do not recall having any meltdowns as a child. It was shut down very early and I was praised for not having any.
Dr. Becky: From an early age the Guest had already learned powerful attachment lessons in the family. Where he knew that his emotional, and therefore, actual survival was dependent on his hyper-vigilance, the way he had to show up to other people, even at the expense of experiencing his own emotions.
Tantrums: How can Parents Help
Tantrums happen when there is a mismatch: The child is feeling all the feelings but doesn’t have the skills to manage them.
Gift to our children is to allow them to feel their emotions: When they are adults, they can feel all of their feelings. This will feel less scary because they know over the course of their life they developed coping skills.
The problem isn’t the feelings and the tantrums, it is that kids need our help. They need time to develop emotion regulation skills.
Breaking the Cycle
The way you want to raise your kids could be different from the way that you were raised.
Acknowledge that your parents did the best they could with the resources they had available to them and you are doing the best you can with the resources you have available to you.
When we see something in our kid that triggers something from our childhood, there's a re-parenting moment. There is an opportunity for us to grow and learn from our children.
Practical example: Visiting your parents' house and your daughter cries. They have different ways to stop her from crying and you imagine your younger self. You see ‘stopping her’ as stifling her emotional outlet and you want to let her express her feelings instead.
Three Main Takeaways
Our triggers are stories from our past that come alive in our present. It's okay to not know exactly what your triggers are telling you. Instead of chastising yourself, place your feet on the ground, a hand on your heart, and tell yourself, there's something important here.
We aren’t responding to our kids feelings, we are responding to the feelings in our own bodies around what we see with our children. There is a huge difference. Change doesn't come from our kids changing, it comes from learning to regulate our own experiences.
Being a cycle breaker is tough. You are taking on the weight of all the generations before you, while knowing that your parents did their best they could but this pattern stops with you. Credit yourself for taking this on and know that a cycle breaker's path is never consistent or linear.
Useful links
Follow All Star Parent on Facebook
Follow All Star Parent on Instagram
Follow All Star Parent on Twitter
Listen to the original podcast
Visit Dr Becky’s website