How to Eliminate Parenting Stressors
Three simple steps to drastically improve your resilience.
Jeff walks into his home looking forward to his evening after a long haul at work. To his surprise the house is calmer than usual. His daughter, who is just about to turn 2 in a month, is sitting all by herself in a corner and playing with her toys. His wife had an equally arduous day at work and was browsing through the local magazine to see where they could head out for the evening. There were no Lego pieces scattered on the floor. No torn books. No meltdowns or tantrums. Just a peaceful minute to himself which he thought he very much deserved. Sighing in relief he goes to his daughter and asks her how her day was. With bubbling enthusiasm, she asked Jeff to pick her up. Jeff, who hasn’t changed from his work clothes, hesitates at first but then picks her up for a playful toss in the air, and she goes “Again! Daddy… Again!”. He does it 4 more times and says, “And that’s all done” with a smile, “We can continue after some time, ok?”. But to his surprise, his daughter’s eyes started to well up. An innocent frown which then leads to a full-blown scream which demanded “More! More! More!”. Feeling the strain, Jeff negotiates two more throws before a break, forcing a smile to prevent a meltdown. His wife, Jess, intervenes, setting aside her long-overdue evening plans. Jeff, seeking a brief respite, quickly freshens up and changes clothes, returning to assess the situation.
Things went well for 10 minutes and out of nowhere his daughter had a tantrum. “I want to pick FLOWERS!!!” she yells, after spotting a beautiful bunch of tulips through the window in the neighbor’s front yard. Jeff’s attempt to distract her by spinning only escalates the volume. Exhausted, he sits her down, pleading with her to calm down, only to endure ten more minutes of crying. Jeff was furious at this point. “Is peace such a big ask after everything I had to go through at work today? Why can’t anyone cut me a slack!” he thought to himself.
The situation spirals when his daughter’s physical outburst triggers a shouting clash between father and child. Jess attempts to comfort their daughter as Jeff, overwhelmed, steps outside for air. Gripping tension gives way to deep breaths and subsequent guilt over his outburst. Jess is now worried about her husband’s temper and is pissed that she couldn’t plan the evening her family deserves.
Was 15 minutes of peace too much to ask? Could he have done something differently to avoid this situation? Or is this a state of normalcy every new parent must accept? These are the same questions that confounded me, and I bet you had them at some point too. Through hours of research, self-reflection, analysis and my formal training to be a peaceful parenting coach, I found that there are 3 basic principles to maintaining peace.
The Power of Listening
There are situations in life where things just wouldn’t go our way no matter how badly we want them to. Some people can handle it better than others. Agility is one’s ability to pivot seamlessly under pressure and do what is required. But how do we get better at it? What if we had more to tackle in a day than what’s humanly possible? The answer lies in a simple technique called “listening to your body”.
Let’s say you are a regular at a gym. The trainer there likes your dedication and wants you to take things to the next level. She keeps motivating you in every set and every rep. She wants you to push beyond what you think your limits are. This helps immensely to boost one’s strength, stamina and confidence, no doubt. But there will be a point where your body would just give up and not let you stand up again. This will be your “true human limit” at that point in time. Can you increase it? Certainly! But do you have to do it right now? Most certainly NOT. Because if you do, you are just increasing your chances for long-term injury. A person who gives themselves a break at this point, is practicing the principle of “listening to their body”. In less obvious scenarios this would mean noticing when we are thirsty, hungry, sad, angry, anxious and so on. The more we listen and satisfy the needs of our mind and body, the more prepared we will be to face what the day throws at us. Had Jeff listened to his body, he would have just gone straight to the restroom, changed his clothes, had a tall glass of water or even asked for his wife’s help before starting to entertain his daughter. That would have satisfied his needs before he tried to satisfy the needs of others. As a wise saying goes, “You cannot pour from an empty cup”.
The Power of Seeing
Every behavior communicates an underlying need. Jeff was yelling because he needed to change his clothes and take a breather before jumping into his responsibilities as a dad. The behavior here is “yelling”. But the need is his physiological need to rest and change into comfortable clothes. His wife Jess was pissed at the end because her need to “break the routine and do something new” was not met. Their poor daughter was acting out the way she did because she needed more food. If the adults had the capacity to see what lies beneath the tantrum, they would have investigated when they last fed her, what her cries sound like and what phase of development she is currently in, rather than trying to stop the behavior. Seeing beneath the surface is something we must consciously do since our brains are not naturally wired this way. We can increase our capacity to see if we listen to our body and satisfy our own needs first. If not all our needs, at least the basic ones that are keeping us on edge.
The Power of Being
But how does one listen and see when things are just too much to handle? Is it even possible to do this when you are exhausted? This is where we invoke the power of being. We are not talking about mere existence but rather a state of conscious awareness.
There is only one true moment and that is happening right now. All the conflict we experience in life results from our resistance to it or desperation to turn it into something we desire. We either try to live in our expectations and complain about what is happening or plan the future. True magic happens when we just start “being in this moment”. I know it all sounds philosophical, but what does it really mean? It means we don’t really fixate on what should be happening or could happen but instead focus on what is happening in front of us; just calmly observing it. We can observe the events around us and our own physical/mental state. How does this unfolding of events affect me? What are my feelings? How is my breathing? Is my body tense? Where do I feel stiffness in my body? The mere act of observation makes you aware of what is happening in the moment and gives you the power to choose your response. Even if you are angry, you need not feel guilty or act out but rather be with the feeling of anger and see how it manifests in your body as a racing heartbeat, hyperventilation, mental dialogue, etc. All while not trying to change or fix it. Think of it like quicksand; the more you struggle, the faster you will sink. But greater the awareness you bring to these feelings, the weaker their hold will be on you, and you can start to logically reason your way out of them.
Your toddler’s cries need not be “fixed”, but rather their needs must be met. You need not be “fixed” because you yelled, but rather you must read posts like these, listen to your body and satisfy your needs before you help others. We are all doing our best and if you are reading this you are getting better at parenting. When we know better, we can do better. You need not stop feeling guilty this instant. Just allow the feeling to flow through you and observe it. When you allow yourself to just be in the moment, whatever I just said will come to you as solutions naturally.
No matter if your children throw a tantrum at home or in public, our fear of being perceived as irresponsible parents resides only in our heads. None of our biases, judgements or the stares we receive serve us in finding a positive solution to the situation. The more we get out of our own heads and start living in the moment, we will find that most of our fears have no bearing whatsoever on how we live. You will have an immense sense of freedom that you have never experienced before. Everything you do or say can be a conscious choice rather than impulsive reactions coming from a place or anger, guilt or shame. Had Jeff known this he would have not been so hard on himself. Instead of focusing on suppressing his needs and anger, he would have let them be, observed them, gained power over them and focused on how to respond to the situation in more productive ways. Perfection is not the goal here. But with conscious practice, we can reduce the frequency of such sub-optimal interactions in life. So, give yourself the gift of being in the moment.
Systematic meditation/mindfulness practices help strengthen this way of living so please find one that works for you. I would highly recommend Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Masterclass on “Mindfulness and Meditation” for starters. It has worked wonders for me personally.
Summary
No matter where you are in your parenting journey, you can start doing these 3 things to have a better relationship with your loved ones and keep calm during testing times:
1. Listen to your mind and body. Satisfy your needs first before helping others.
2. See beneath the obvious. Every behavior tells you something about an underlying need. Try to find it rather than fixating on the behavior.
3. Just be in the moment. Never step-in with an intention to fix but rather to keenly observe what is going on around and within you. Spend as little as 5 minutes every day to observe consciously. You can do it whenever you want without closing your eyes. Systematic meditation/mindfulness practices are a plus.
This is my first blog post and if you have made it this far, I want to personally thank you for taking the time to read it :) Please register your thoughts as comments and feel free to suggest other topics in parenting you want to hear about, and I will present my best attempt.
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Cheers.
