Little triggers everywhere
If you’re feeling on edge and easily triggered, you’re not alone. And it’s really no wonder.
We’ve been living in a high-alert situation for more than four months. The pandemic has brought with it an ever-present thrum of anxiety that has slowly but surely been sapping us of our usual mental and emotional resources. Think about it this way: the brain, where our thoughts and feelings originate, is a muscle. That muscle has been working overtime over the past months, thinking stressful thoughts and feeling so very many feelings. Overwork any muscle and it becomes tired, less able to perform as it usually does. The anxiety we’ve been feeling over these past months – anxiety about our health, the economy, our own personal finances, our children’s education, our children’s social and emotional well-being, our own social and emotional well-being – has the effect of working the brain muscle non-stop. At this point, that muscle is simply exhausted. The persistent stress and distress have left our brains drained, so we are not bringing our best mental and emotional selves to the table.
Kids are really feeling the strain at this point, too, and it is us – their parents – that are being called upon to act as the container for all of their emotional output. That output looks every kind of way: angry, frustrated, sad, anxious, tired, hyper, irritable, lonely – you name it. By the end of the day, it can make even the best of us feel a little (or a lot) like a punching bag. And, let’s face it: a lot of the feelings our kids are oozing out all over the place mirror the feelings we’re trying our best to keep in check. Their display of frustration and sadness can set off our own display of the same… and around and around we go.
So, it makes perfect sense that we’re feeling edgy and easily triggered right now. We may be snapping or yelling at our kids more than we ever thought we would, which may lead to feelings of guilt and, somehow, even more anxiety about what impact our snapping or yelling is having on our kids during an already fragile time. You’ve become reactive: driven by the emotion of the moment, without the benefit of good thinking or planning. Likely, in the aftermath of a difficult interaction with one of your kids, you wish you had been responsive: present in the moment, with the ability to think and decide on what the situation actually calls for.
For parents of kids who engage in really big emotional displays, practicing responsiveness (not reactiveness) is so important. First, practicing responsiveness will absolutely improve your capacity to respond to your child’s emotional needs in the moment. That’s essentially what those big emotional displays are: statements of need. Responding to the underlying need, whether it’s the need for physical comfort, validation, or technical assistance with problem-solving, often takes the wind out of those emotional sails.
The second reason why practicing responsiveness is important is because it gives you an opportunity to model for your child what emotional regulation looks like: a key component of helping your child bring their own super-charged feelings down to size.
What would it take to shift from reactive to responsive? It could take as little as 10 seconds.
Ten seconds is actually quite a bit of time. See for yourself: set the timer on your phone or find one quickly on Google, and then just sit there for 10 seconds. You’ll see that 10 seconds is more than enough time to take the following three steps, which can help right-track your interactions with your child, helping you move from a reactive stance to a responsive stance.
First, zip it! When it starts to feel hot, just wait: don’t say anything at all. Those first words that you say in the heat of the moment are often not the ones you would choose to say if you could go back and do it all over again.
Second, ask yourself: Is this a true SOS? If a situation with your child has triggered an automatic, emotional reaction, ask yourself: is the situation in front of you an actual emergency? If it’s not, let that sink in: there’s no emergency here, so it’s okay to dial down the intensity you’re feeling.
Third, take a deep breath. Just one good, slow, deep breath can start to calm your nervous system and take you out of fight-or-flight mode. That will help you respond less reflexively and more consciously. Even better, follow your single, deep inhale with an extra-long exhale. When you do, you’re signaling to the vagus nerve (a key player in the autonomic nervous system) that it’s okay for your heart rate to slow down, and gives you better access to the more advanced mental functions that typically go offline when you’re all wound up.
As with the formation of any new habit you’ve got to do it again and again in order to make a lasting imprint so that a new behavior becomes your go-to behavior. Give it a try over the next few days and see if it helps. Tip: don’t start out with those highest intensity moments! Try it out at the beginning of the day, when you still have some gas left in your mental and emotional tank. When you feel even a little bit triggered by something someone in your family has done or said, first don’t say anything at all. Assess for an emergency, and once you’ve determined it’s not one, take just one long deep breath, focusing on the length of the exhale. Then, go ahead and respond. It’s a 10-second investment that could change the course of the whole day.