How to React Mindfully During Stressful Parenting Situations
The most important time to step back is often the moments that feel the most urgent, and when you feel the most need for control: infants crying at 3 AM, toddlers throwing tantrums in public, and older kids rebelling in school and with peers.
Practicing mindfulness and incorporating it into parenting, along with all the other facets of your life, can improve every aspect of your life as a parent including your relationship with your children, partners, or even co-parents on this journey with you, and your self confidence in yourself.
Let’s look at a few mindful parenting strategies to help remain patient during life’s challenging parenting moments:
S.T.O.P.
S.T.O.P. is a mindfulness exercise typically taught in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy when addressing reactions of anger.
It stands for:
S - Stop
T - Take a breath
O - Observe the situation around you
P - Proceed with purpose
This exercise can also be used successfully in a variety of situations where big emotions and high reactivity are present.
It is a fairly simple and easy to remember exercise, and practical to incorporate into everyday situations where this form of mindfulness is useful.
(Re)Act Intentionally and with Mindfulness
Using the S.T.O.P. exercise can make a positive difference in a parent’s life and their relationship with their child.
When you as a parent are able to approach any type of situation, be it a scraped knee, public meltdown, or anything else, without being judgmental of yourself and your reactions or the child and their behaviors, you can be the most attentive to everyone’s needs, including your own.
Pausing before reacting in any situation allows the reaction to be productive.
Yelling when a child drops a glass that spills and shatters is a reasonable and natural reaction.
Being able to pause in this type of situation and regulate, or at least recognize, your emotions before reacting to the situation allows you to productively approach your child in a calm manner that is able to de-escalate the situation instead of antogonizing it.
How Your Emotions Affect Your Parenting
Children are extremely sensitive to the smallest of emotions and reactions.
As they are growing and developing, they get huge amounts of social and generally human examples from parents, and naturally look to their parents to gauge situations and how they should react.
A very common example of this is any time a toddler or little kid falls down.
When a parent has a big reaction and acts worried or afraid, the child will almost definitely reflect that and end up crying.
At the same time if a parent reacts calmly, the child is much more likely to brush it off and continue doing whatever they were doing.
When a parent reacts calmly, positively, or doesn’t even react at all they show their child that there is no danger or need for fear or upset.
When they do react, the child takes that as a sign that there is a genuine reason for fear or worry, which ends up amplifying their natural reaction.
The same applies to much more subtle emotions and situations as well.
Children are able to sense things like anxiety and anger in their parents even if they are trying to hide it, and especially when those emotions bleed into their reactions, children become very likely to mirror the emotions they are picking up on.
It's Harder Than It Sounds
Here is a quick reminder that things like stopping in the middle of a high stress or intense situation and pausing before reacting is extremely difficult.
It goes against natural instincts a lot of the time, and even with practice it doesn’t exactly come as a natural reaction.
These techniques, suggestions and information are meant to provide support and tools only, not a guide for how or how not to do anything.
Remember this especially when it comes to feelings of guilt, shame, or obligation. There is none of that, especially here!
