Emotional responses shape parenting challenges and growth; learning to stay calm, understand your child’s feelings, and guide them through emotional development builds stronger bonds and resilience for both.
Emotional responses play a key role in parenting, as helping children healthily express their feelings while behaving appropriately in social settings is a significant responsibility. Teaching them how to handle their feelings is an important part of growing up.
The early years of a child’s life are key to learning self-control and managing emotions since the brain is super flexible and ready to pick up new skills. But it also shows how unformed their brain is, with missing connections and things not quite organized yet. At this stage, because their nervous systems are still developing, kids are more likely to struggle to keep their emotions in check.
Our kids considering their age, personalities, and life situations, are not yet able to handle disappointment or frustration well. They can’t always stay calm, focus on goals, think through choices, or make logical decisions. They often find it hard to manage their emotions and need us to help them handle these feelings.
Getting ready to be parents
What have we done before our child was born to get ready to care for someone lacking self-control who may have regular tantrums?
not much. This is why many people say you can’t prepare for being a parent. Before having kids, we don’t fully grasp what it means to be responsible for another life, to always think of them, and to put their needs first.
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Some people are better at managing emotions, while others learn this skill through life. But no matter what, everyone has to grow and adjust when they become parents. Part of this means learning to handle emotions better and building stronger resilience.
This process doesn’t end. As our kids grow up, we keep changing too. Most of the time, this growth happens inside us. We get better at controlling our emotions and finding new ways to help our kids handle theirs.
Being a parent often means having an instinct for what your child needs. However, it can still be confusing and frustrating. Sometimes, it feels like a battle of wills with your child as they try to understand and deal with their emotions and social world.
Imagine this: You serve your child a sandwich sliced into squares, but they wanted triangles. The reaction that follows can be almost explosive! Moments like these show how emotions can escalate for both kids and parents emphasizing why staying calm and connected matters so much.
We often focus on helping kids learn how to manage their feelings, but what about our ability to stay composed? How do we build these crucial skills ourselves? How can we help our kids handle their big emotions when we sometimes have trouble managing our own?
Kids have an incredible way of showing us where we need to grow. Their behavior can spark emotions in us like nobody else. Almost like they’re little Jedi, they seem to know our weak spots and give us constant chances to improve ourselves.
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How to Stay Calm as a Parent: Five Simple Tips
1. Adjust What You Expect: Take a Moment to Watch and Reflect
You won’t perfect this in one go. Staying calm as a parent is a journey you work on every day to manage your emotions. Since kids are always changing, you need to keep adjusting how you see things.
As a parent, you guide their growth while also learning to accept where they are and what they can handle right now.
Kids feel emotions much more than adults. Their developing mental control and constant brain growth make tough days unavoidable. These days might involve big emotions, tantrums, or even meltdowns. All of this is just a normal part of how they grow.
You need to keep in mind that the brain’s ability to manage itself doesn’t kick in until around age three, and even then, it’s not mature until about five or six. This process keeps going through childhood, with big improvements happening in their teen years. Some studies even say the brain may not grow up until people turn 30.
So how can we look at this and approach it better?
When your child shows big emotions—like complaining about how their toast is cut getting upset over tricky Lego builds feeling drained after school, or having sudden meltdowns—try to pause and pay attention. Focus on what they are doing and learn to recognize their emotions.
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Look at them kind of like you’re observing a different species, which , kids almost are sometimes. Remember that their brains are still growing, unlike ours. See their struggles . Try to understand what’s going on from their point of view. When you watch and listen, you’ll start to feel more compassion for this little human who, in that moment, is just overwhelmed and working on calming down.
2. Keep Your Emotions Apart from Theirs
Staying calm plays a big role in controlling emotions. Start by noting down what sets you off . What throws you off balance? For me loud noise shakes up my calm. Being in public where others are involved also raises my stress a lot. In those times, I prepare myself on purpose to handle my son’s emotions—I need to stay grounded and work on calming myself first.
Ways to stay grounded
When you feel strong emotions building up, use a mantra you have prepared. Science shows mantras can calm the brain. Take a slow breath to interrupt stress and repeat a phrase in your mind that helps you feel steady and calm. Pick words that give you peace. Doing this can activate your body’s ability to relax and oppose the fight-or-flight instinct that kicks in during tough parenting situations.
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Tighten your core muscles to trigger a natural calming response in your body. Ground yourself by planting your feet on the floor. Breathe with purpose while saying your mantra . This approach strengthens your emotional state. It prepares you to handle your child’s emotional struggles with support and stability.
Try some effective mantras that focus on emotional balance.
- “Act with purpose.”
- “Let it happen.”
- “I am here to guide them.”
- “I’m here for you.”
3. Strengthen Your Parenting Tools: Pick Up New Skills and Techniques
The way you handle your child’s regulation struggles ties to how you manage your own emotions. Having a clear plan to handle these moments helps you feel more ready. When you feel prepared, it often leads to better self-control.
Keeping calm and handling your child’s behavior with care rather than reacting without thinking makes a big difference. It boosts how well you can support them.
Not sure where to begin? Try using my ACT method to respond smarter, not harsher: Acknowledge Connect, Teach. This can be helpful when facing breakdowns or tantrums.
4. Look After Yourself: Manage Your Emotional Well-Being
Getting enough rest plays a big role in staying calm. Parents today often struggle to keep their energy up and face challenges head-on.
With heavy responsibilities and little social help many parents feel drained worn out, and overloaded. When sharing their thoughts about staying calm around their kids, readers provided the following insights:
These thoughts connect with the experience of parenting and show how vital emotional strength is. Even if we think we have the skills and plans to handle things, staying balanced takes a lot from within. This gets even harder when we are running low on energy or dealing with personal stress. Our ability to manage emotions is like a resource that can run out. It is essential to know when to refill this resource to keep parenting steady and take care of our emotional health.
Taking purposeful breaks is key to staying steady. Amanda Rue, the mind behind Dirt and Boogers, shares realistic tips to find small pockets of rest even when you’re juggling chaos and the non-stop demands of parenting. Her guide, No more excuses: Take a Mom Break, Without Your Kids Driving You Batty, gives simple practical advice for moms who need a breather.
5. How to Handle Losing Your Cool and Make Things Right.
It’s bound to happen — every parent goes through this. We’ve all had those times where we lose it often during the most challenging moments. It sneaks up on the most unexpected days, the ones where we’ve been stretched way too thin.
Think about it. Isn’t it kind of unrealistic to expect ourselves to stay calm all the time? Holding kids to a standard of always being in control doesn’t make sense. The thing is, emotional outbursts are just part of living and connecting with others. Your kids will see these moments, and that’s okay. Instead of beating yourself up, look at these situations as chances to teach them about bouncing back and handling emotions:
Admit it — Be honest when you’ve lost your cool or felt overwhelmed. Apologize — Let your kids see that even grown-ups make mistakes.
Explain — Tell them the steps you took to calm down, like taking deep breaths or using other ways to relax.
Source:
Ashley Soderlund. Five Steps to Calm and Centered Even When Your Child is Out of Control. Nurture and thrive. https://nurtureandthriveblog.com/five-steps-to-becoming-a-calm-and-centered-parent/
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