Stressed-Out Parent Moments: How to Recover and Reconnect with your Kids

Stressed-out Parent Moments. We all have them. These are the times you lose your cool, scream your head off, send everyone to their rooms “until next month!” Ground the kids “forever!” and then feel awful afterwards.

I had one of these such moments this past weekend as my son, who was excited to see his cousins overstimulated, and overtired, could not for all the calm, caring redirection my husband and I could offer him sit down and be quiet for more than 1 minute. He was off the wall and after a few hours of this, I was off the hook, too. Clearly, I did not take my own parenting advice in this situation and, looking back, the scenario was a set up for disaster, but I digress….

So, my 4 year old son is having a hard time managing his body, his voice, and his activity level. My husband and I tried our hardest to be patient, but the patience wore out. There was yelling (on our part), tears (on his part). Little fists were raised, time out was demanded—it wasn’t pretty. But we regrouped, we got in the car and the little guy was fast asleep by 6:30 pm. Sigh…..

When we have these inevitable stressed out parent moments, how can we regroup and reconnect with our kids? No one feels good when emotions get the best of us and we lose our cool.

First, take a break from each other if you can. If everyone is upset, just step away from each other. If your child cannot get into time out, YOU take a time out. One parent I know told me she locked herself in the bathroom for 5 minutes to regroup and calm down while her daughters were picking on each other and whining to her nonstop. No problem with that. Take a break so things do not escalate further.

Second, let everyone calm down in their own way. Once the consequences have been given your child may need to stomp around, or do more protesting to register his disagreement with your decision. While it is tempting to add on more consequences for these protests, try to resist piling on the discipline.

Third, let everyone move on from the conflict a bit. Take a few hours to let your kids get involved in another activity. There will be time to process later in the day.

Fourth, when you are calm review in your mind the situation and if you were justified in your response, or if you may have overreacted a bit. Determine if the consequences you doled out were justified or if they could use a little adjustment. Remember the best consequence is a natural one. No one learns anything by sitting in their room for weeks on end. One consequence I like is for a child to clean up whatever messes they made and/or write an apology letter to the person they may have hurt with their words or actions.

Fifth, find an appropriate time to revisit the problem with your child. Dinner time can be good, as can bed time (remember you are discussing this when everyone is calm). A good way to start is to say, “Gee, we had a rough patch today. I was thinking about my reaction and…..” Here you can explain your reaction and apologize for the extent of that reaction (if that is appropriate). This is a good time to share with your child that you are human, not perfect and maybe you got angry and said things you should not. This is a great way to model self-reflection, admitting mistakes, and graceful recovery from an emotional outburst. This is not to say that you take away all consequences, but it is ok to say, “I’m sorry I yelled and screamed, called names. Your behavior was very frustrating to me, but I did not have to lose it like that. You still will not be able to watch TV tonight, but I want you to know that I am calm now and love you no matter how angry I might get.”

If you feel that the consequence you gave a few hours ago is too punishing, it is fine to reconsider. You can say, “I know I said that you would lose computer for 2 weeks, but now that I am calmer, I realize that one week will be enough.”

Words such as these are very powerful for children and teens. They will see that you are considering their feelings and respectful of how scary it might be to see mom or dad extremely angry. Just as you want them to apologize for their out-of-control behavior, you can show them that you can apologize for your out-of-control behavior. The consequences still stand, but this process reconnects you to your child and shows them that you still love and care for them. When kids feel that mom and dad are considerate of their feelings, they are much more likely to gracefully accept consequences. Most kids know when they have done something inappropriate and understand they cannot get away with it without consequence. It is when discipline seems arbitrary, over the top, or done in a mindless way that kids get resentful and noncompliant.

Stressed out parent moments happen to all of us. No one can be perfectly calm and appropriate all the time. Accept that these moments will happen throughout your parenting career, and be ready to discuss them with your kids. Remember, actions speak louder than words. Children will model their behavior after yours. A child who is compassionate, caring and can admit and apologize for mistakes learns this best at home.