How Many Eggs are in the bowl?

One of the reasons why our emotions reaction can be so overwhelming is that we don’t stop to check if our response is backed up with solid fact or a reflex response to conditioning each time we get triggered.

 Think about a strong feeling you have associated with a parenting stress that you would like to change. Perhaps its guilt about not being a good enough mum, anxiety about whether you’ll ever sleep through the night again or being so easily frustrated by repeated tantrums from someone a fraction of your age. 

 Let’s pretend we are a scientist for a moment and analyse whether there is evidence for responding angrily to a toddler tantrum.

We will need to start by unpacking where the anger comes from. What assumptions, interpretations or black and white thinking precede it. Did you know that our instantaneous reactions are filtered through our feelings, beliefs, values, life experiences and underlying rules of how life should be?   

So, let’s check the facts on whether feeling angry fits the evidence as the most effective way to manage a toddler tantrum.

Possible assumptions may be that I need to yell to be heard, nothing else works when they are crying loudly, tantrums are rude and it’s my job to teach them to behave. They are contradicted by facts such as developmentally toddlers don’t have the self-regulation skills to be calm all the time, we are role modelling the opposite behaviour of what we want and they could be in genuine pain.

If there is a pattern of tantrums or some other challenging behaviour that you find yourself easily aroused by, it is highly likely that your interpretations are driving your unhelpful response.   

Ask yourself if acting this way is effective? Revisiting our interpretations when we are calm, allows us to see the situation through a cleaner lens. With practise we can change our emotions by getting into the habit of checking there is facts to back up how we feel.