We’ve all been there, where a misbehaving child of ours drives us to the point of exploding in anger. We all know, of course, that nothing good will ever come out of letting our emotions run amuck, especially when it concerns our misbehaving child. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that kids will always be kids, and some of the things they do will just naturally raise any parent’s temper.
Are there ways of keeping your temper in check when faced with a misbehaving child? Dr. Laura Markham offers some useful tips to that end on her Aha! Parenting blog.
Restore yourself to calm before acting
As far as Dr. Markham is concerned, we should always calm ourselves first before doing anything about a misbehaving child. When you fail at keeping your temper in check when you act, things could easily get out of hand because anger stops the rational brain from working.
Watching out for signs such as the clenching of your jaw or the sound of your voice getting louder is also recommended, as it gives you enough warning that you are about to explode all because of one misbehaving child. How you respond will then be up to you.
Deep breathing
She also stresses the importance of deep breathing deeply when your misbehaving child is already getting on your nerves. Deep breathing, she says disrupts the flow of stress hormones into the body and effectively gives you an awareness of being angry. When deep breathing makes you aware of those sensations of anger, you can then stop yourself from raging, which will simply not accomplish anything good. If possible, says Dr. Markham, parents should also resist taking action against their misbehaving child, and instead tolerate these feelings of anger and just let them pass. That sounds so much tougher than just deep breathing, but it eventually does make you less prone to raging in the future according to Dr. Markham.
Shower them with love
That doesn’t mean, however, that we should not intervene in any way at all when faced with a misbehaving child. What we should do, according to Dr. Markham, is that we should try to see things through our child’s point of view, and always express how much we love them. Shower a misbehaving child with all the compassion we can muster, and the kid will likely come clean and just cry and admit that he or she had been bad. Give them a hug, and be playful with them so they’ll be able to save face.
These tips at keeping your temper in check in the face of a misbehaving child are all good, but implementing them at home certainly won’t be easy. We parents, after all, are only human. Still, we owe it to our children to give these tips a try.
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