Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Welcome to the Hand In Hand Parent Club podcast. I'm Emily Murray, a hand in hand instructor and a mom of two.
Speaker 1 00:00:06 I'm Kathy Gordon, a single adoptive mom of a now young adult son, a hand in hand instructor, and we are both moderators of hand-in-hand, awesome membership program, the parent club. Every
Speaker 0 00:00:17 Week we'll be answering a parenting question. You'll hear about hand in hand, parenting's, powerful, respectful parenting tools. We'll share how they help you work with your child's feelings, especially when their behavior gets harder, confusing.
Speaker 1 00:00:29 You can feel good about using these tools. They've brought warmth and connection to our own families and to many thousands of families around the world who are using the hand in hand approach.
Speaker 0 00:00:39 That's why hand in hand and the parent club exist. We're here to support you and your family so you have more good, sweet, fun times together.
Speaker 1 00:00:49 Hey, there, awesome parents. Our question this week is, how do I not lose it with my kids
Speaker 0 00:00:58 <laugh>? So in, in the absence of, you know, them just doing what you've asked them to do, <laugh>, we have some ways to work on ourselves so we don't lose it in the same way that our children lose access to their good thinking when they're in a moment of upset or having a tantrum. We lose access to our thinking when we hit an emotional snag too. And neuroscience tells us that when the present moment triggers hurt, powerlessness, gunk from the past, we get hijacked and catapulted back to that past moment, and we react with our own fight, flight, freeze back at our kids. And now we are all in the emotional swamp together. Now,
Speaker 1 00:01:44 Here at hand in Hand, we are really committed to our belief that you are good. So all of us lose it, you know, because all of us have these hurts from the past that get triggered in the present moment. So you're not a bad person or a bad parent. You've just lost lost access to your ability to think and respond. And we have tools to help you stay in respond mode rather than react mode. When you feel yourself getting loaded and you can't get to a listening partner, you're actually being like, loaded onto a catapult. <laugh>. Here are some ways to hop off. The first one laid out. It literally stops us. You know, I know for me, when I would get, um, you know, start to feel tense, feel like I was about to go from zero to 90, um, if I kept moving, kept trying to move forward, I, I, it just, I just got more agitated and more frustrated.
Speaker 1 00:02:45 And, um, you know, when you're laying down, you can even try a fake belly laugh while you're down there. You know, that'll really get you get, you know, get you out of that tense moment. There was one time, uh, we were in a sh a parking lot of a shopping center, and, um, I don't even remember what my son and I were arguing about, but I literally laid down right in front of the car in between our, our car and another car, and, um, and my son suddenly shifted from her to like, mom, what are you doing, mom? Stop, get up. People are looking. And I started laughing, and then he started laughing and it lifted the tension of the moment and certainly stopped me from getting, you know, trying to go after him that way. You
Speaker 0 00:03:36 Know, I, I, I don't lay down that often. Um, I do get close to losing it often enough that I have these tools to practice with regularly. Um, but my, my kind of key way that I shift myself outta the catapult seat is to just do something sensory. Like, um, if, if I can pull away from the moment for the, the kind of tight spot with my kid for that moment, um, just go to the bathroom, splash water on my face, get a cold drink, and just like feel the coldness, or even like, you know, next to my kitchen sink, there's a bottle of lotion that I'll sometimes just rub on my hands. Mm-hmm. And just smell the, the scent. Um, there's so much research that says if you just focus on your breath, take three breaths. But while you're doing that, really pay attention to I'm, I'm really feeling the air move into my body and I'm really feeling the air move out of my body.
Speaker 0 00:04:38 Uh, there's a tip that I've heard, um, about the 3, 3, 3 rule, three things You can see, three things you can hear three parts of your body. Like just move them. Just focus on 3, 3, 3. Notice three things, smell three things. Listen to three things, feel three things. Um, and that can shift you back into that. Okay, I can respond now, I'm, I'm not gonna react. Uh, if you have just a couple of minutes, you could even call a listening partner for emergency listening time or leave a voicemail. Um, you, you could even use the bathroom mirror as your listening partner. Uh, and you know, a favorite of mine too is if, if I can pull away from that tight moment for just a minute, I need to have my own tantrum in the other room, <laugh> scream into the bedroom pillow, and then I can move back into that space with more options for how to respond.
Speaker 1 00:05:36 And, you know, oftentimes you can't move into another space. Hmm. Right? So I'm a big fan of mantras, um, and I, I particularly like, I connect with my body and I, like, I put my hand on my chest, and I might, and I'll say to myself, soft. And what that does is it makes me soften. I I go from that tense place to being, to like being able to breathe, right? Mm-hmm. If, if I'm in that, you know, red hot moment, uh, uh, the last thing I'm thinking about is my breath. I'm just thinking about why my son, you know, won't do what I'm asking him to do. He's digging in his heels, he's refusing to pick up that thing, or refusing to get dressed. And if I put my hand on my chest and say soft, that brings me back to my breath. Um, you know,
Speaker 0 00:06:26 Nothing to say to myself is, this isn't an emergency. Like, oh, I can soften when I say this isn't an emergency.
Speaker 1 00:06:35 Yes. There's nothing urgent here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or another one of my favorites is they're having a really hard time, or he does not wanna be like this.
Speaker 0 00:06:47 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, when we can picture them in that light where they're, we see they're good, their goodness, through all of the prickly, blustery harshness that they're throwing out into the world, um, we too can, we can picture ourselves in that way. We can picture a supportive community around us as we're saying this mantra, you know, and the parent club, Kathy and I often talk about, um, you know, feel us in that moment. Feel this whole community around you. Like we've got your back. Feel us on your shoulder saying, you know, w we've got you, you can do this. We hear you, we see you. This is hard. Like, feel it, feel us there with you.
Speaker 1 00:07:26 Yeah. We, we actually even have a special place in the, um, in the parent club community where you can come and you can vent mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, you know, venting is, doesn't, it doesn't heal those early childhood hurts, but that is another way of getting out of that red hot moment. You know, just coming in, like blasting the situation, blasting, uh, your child, blasting the people around you. And in that safe space where, where you can vent in the parent club community, we are gonna hold that, you know, we're gonna hold that. You're doing the best you can. Your child is doing the best they can in that moment, we're gonna say, we hear you, and we're gonna say, we've got your back. Imagine us with our arm around you, with our hands on your back. So, one small thing we'd like to encourage you to do this week is just pick one of these things that we've suggested, you know, pick one.
Speaker 1 00:08:21 And what we recommend is that you practice it when things are good, you know, um, like practice going in and, uh, screaming into a pillow or, and especially if you're gonna practice it when your kids are around, um, uh, you know, you could do what we call an emergency fire drill where, uh, you, you rehearse it and you, and you, but you do it like silly. Like you go in to scream it into the pillow, but the pillow hits you in the face and you get lots of laughter going. So pick one of these small things, uh, um, uh, practice it when things are good. You know, try them, try it out and see which one might be right for you. You might be somebody that needs to move, like needs to do some silly dancing. You might be somebody that, that it's better for you to lay down. So that's our one small thing for you this week. Just pick one of these ideas, practice it, and then let us know what you discover.
Speaker 0 00:09:20 So next week, if, if the idea of being silly in these moments feels completely foreign to you, we are gonna talk more about, um, some strategies of being playful with yourself in these hot moments of, of big feelings. So we hope to see you next week.
Speaker 1 00:09:36 Bye-bye.
Speaker 0 00:09:38 Thank you so much for tuning into the Hand In Hand Parent Club podcast. Please like and subscribe to hear more and to connect with us between these episodes. Come on over to hand in hand parenting.org to join the parent club where you can get coaching classes and live support.
Speaker 1 00:09:51 Come join our vibrant community of parents in the parent club who are committed to getting the support they need to be the parents they wanna become. We'd be honored to support you too. This podcast and the Parent Club are part of Hand In Hand Parenting, a nonprofit organization that supports parents all over the world. We are here for you when parenting gets hard.
