Everybody has moments when we're overwhelmed or triggered. But as a parent – even when you’re having a bad day, feeling sick, dealing with work challenges, or everything is piling on all at once – your kids are still there, needing you, and the emotional safety you provide.
We all lose it sometimes. And, emotional dysregulation can have a bad impact on kids, if it is chronic. But you can get through the occasional blow up, and even strengthen your bond, with three steps: pause, regroup, and repair.
Life is a daily balance between the stressors coming our way and our resources, both external and internal, to deal with them. While each of us has different resources and different stressors, we all have a breaking point, and there will be days and periods when the stressors outweigh our resources and we feel overwhelmed.
At these times, we become what psychologists call 'dysregulated.' Our normally rational, flexible, visionary, and creative frontal cortex is overloaded and the survival brain takes over, sending us into fight-, flight-, or freeze- mode. Harvard Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell explains, "The deep regions interpret the messages of overload they receive from the frontal lobes in the same way they interpret everything: primitively. They furiously fire signals of fear, anxiety, impatience, irritability, anger, or panic."
When this happens, our body snaps into red alert, and our thinking becomes rigid and totally focused on extinguishing the threat. We forget our values and big picture ideals, and make impulsive decisions in an attempt to get the problem under control. This can look like yelling at our kids, saying hurtful things, and other ways of throwing our own tantrum. Or we may withdraw from connection and our responsibilities, hoping they'll just go away. This state can be short, sustained, or recurring, as you move back and forth between overwhelm and calming yourself.
When we get overloaded and act out – and it happens to everybody – we don’t need to add to the difficulty with self-censure or blame. In fact self-criticism will just be one more stressor piling on to your overwhelm. You know how to do better, and will do so again as soon as your stress reaction calms down. Read on for ways to manage the shutdown and get your higher self back online.
