Emotional Regulation

Photo by Huseyn Naghiyev

It happens to me all the time. I'm even having a good day and it still happens. My emotions get the better of me. It's usually road rage - I'll be driving along (perfectly, might I add, because there's only ONE good driver on the road and it's me, of course!) and some absolute moron pulls right out in front of me for no good reason, going ten miles an hour slower than I am. So, like any short-tempered Hungarian girl, I lean on my horn to let them know that they're a moron and I'm not. Sometimes they wave 'sorry'. Sometimes they flip me off (the AUDACITY!) Sometimes they make no gesture whatsoever that they recognize their moron-ity. And I'm so worked up that I can't think straight, which affects my perfect driving for the rest of the trip and anything I might do wrong is absolutely THAT GUY'S fault.

Sound familiar? We all live in our own heads and we're the hero of our own story. 'That guy' most likely didn't even see me coming, which is why he pulled out in front of me. It wasn't personal. He might have been emotionally overwhelmed, thinking about something else, a brand new driver who didn't gauge the distance correctly because he didn't have enough experience or maybe - just maybe - I was going ten miles over the limit (because I'm such a 'perfect driver' that I should be able to get away with that!) and he actually did nothing wrong at all.

Hmm.

What if I paused as I saw it happening, examined my feelings, and took any or all of those possibilities into consideration as I proceeded with my driving. What if I just ... ya know... hit the brakes gently and let the guy out and everyone was fine and I didn't let it ruin my day or his?

What if this isn't about my driving, but about my kid's emotions and my responses?

Here's an example from this very week. I want to get my son into a new evening routine with school starting, and I suggest to him that he take a relaxing bath in the evenings before bed and get off screens at 8pm even though he's not going to bed at 8. It's not his favorite idea but, as he's having a snack and watching YouTube, he's not paying that much attention to me and agrees. When it's time for said bath, however, he begins to throw a minor fit. "WHY? WHY do I have to do this, give me one good reason!" he shouts. I have options. I can 'road rage' it, which is what I'm feeling, and shout back, "Because I'm your mother and I said so. Because I already gave you three reasons earlier but you weren't listening. Because you suck at falling asleep and staying asleep and this might actually help. Because you're a freaking screen addict and you have no idea how to even relax anymore because you don't listen to me like, EVER. Now get in the damn tub and CALM DOWN."

(Because that would work realllllly well.)

Or, I can do what I chose to do (which, let me tell you, was NOT easy in the moment.) I kept my composure and said very gently, "I need you to step out of the bathroom for a few minutes because I don't appreciate the way you are speaking to me. You don't need to raise your voice or be insulting or disrespectful. Come back when you can talk to me more calmly."

And he did.

And he got in the tub after that, had a nice relaxing bath, and was asleep twenty minutes later.

Am I naive enough to think this is going to work every time? I am not. But what I DO know is that if I road-rage it every time, it will do nothing but escalate our volumes and our emotions, hurting both of us in the process, and degrading our relationship. If I road-rage it, he will see that I'm talking to him like he's talking to me, so clearly it is acceptable behavior. If I road-rage it, I'm only looking at the way I feel and not taking his feelings into consideration - if I want respect, I need to be capable of giving respect. How does disrespecting a child teach them to respect me? It doesn't. So, I have to be the one to press the reset button.

I don't have all the answers. (Honestly, this is the fourth kid I've raised and I have VERY FEW answers and they seem to vary in their level of relevance to each particular kid anyway so who even knows if there ARE answers?)

What I want for my child - all of my children, even though three are adults now - is for them to be loving and kind. To think about others and their feelings. To look outside themselves and realize there's a whole world full of people to care about. The only way to teach them that is to model it for them.

What better way to do that than to model it WITH them?

-Stephanie