June 9th, 2009 by Sarah Newton

Parenting Teens Tip Eight – What to do when you think you are about to lose it

OK, I thought I would leave this one until near the end, even though I think it is the most important one by far. Being a great parent is all about managing yourself and your own anger and frustrations. When you have this managed everything else takes care of itself really well. However saying that, it’s the hardest things to do too.

Here are two tips that I use myself and with my clients that support them in taking on the hardest part of parenting themselves.

Find your boiling points; lets face it, we all have one, a point where we totally lose it, run around shouting like a mad women and foaming at that mouth…surely it is not just me!

To temper yourself you first need to figure out not where your boiling point is, but where simmer is, so you can turn it down. So think of a current situation where you behaved like a screaming banshee and ask yourself these questions.

1. If me losing myself were at a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, at what point did I still have control of myself?

2. At this point what did I notice – what was happening in my mind, body and emotions or how was I feeling, what was my body doing and what was I telling myself?

3. What happened directly before that point?

4. What could I do at that point to turn the heat down and ensure that my simmer does not become a boil?

Just to show you that I am human, here is what happens to me

When I lose it, which I sometimes do, what I find is at about 6 my jaw starts to tense, my fists clench, I begin telling myself everyone is taking me for granted and I feel very angry….at 4 I begin to get frustrated by really small things that do not often bother me. At 4, what I have found is that if I can go away and think about a logical solution, I will calm down. If not, there is no stopping me…

Here is what I do to come up with a logical solution.

First I stick by the mantra that people do not fail, systems do

So the first question I ask myself is,

“What system failed to allow this to happen?”

“What do I need to put in place to ensure this does not happen again?”

I then look at different ways to put different options in place.

Another thing I often do and walk my clients through is an extremely easy exercise.

You get a piece of paper and split it into two. On one side write facts and on the other write feelings. Then look at the situation; what are the facts, the troth in the matter and then what are the thoughts and feelings that are going through your head?

Then look at the facts and see what you can do about them and what system you can put in place.

I love this because it allows you to feel like you are in charge. Most parents who come to me are so caught up in the feelings of the situational and while they are important, progress only occurs when you deal with the facts…deal with the facts first and change the situation and then the feelings will take care of themselves…..

Let’s take an example; say your siblings fight every morning about who sits in the front seat of the car. Every morning is a stressful experience. The facts of the situating are simple…they had an argument about who sits in the front seat, the feelings are much more difficult; you feel like a bad parent because you have not taught them how to share, they do not love each other and furthermore they do not care about you and the effect it is having on you, or anyone else for that matter! So you can rush around in the dreadful feelings and feel like the worse parent in the world or you can deal with the fact. They argue every morning about who sits in the front. Easy – put a system in place. Monday to Thursday they share and on Friday, no one sits in the front seat. If they break this and continue to argue, then all deals are off and no one sits in the front seat. If you stick to what you have said here then bingo, the situation is solved and you feel like a powerful parent in control again.

So focus on the facts, they are far more powerful and will get you the results you want.

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