Confined Children And Parents: Keys To Not Losing Their Temper
Excess anxiety due to the crisis, together with the tension due to intensive coexistence, sometimes leads to losing their nerves with their children. How can we avoid it?
After almost two months of confinement, many parents experience such high levels of anxiety and stress that, if they are not addressed, they can end up having a negative impact on their relationship with their children.
Daily coexistence, together with understandable concerns about health and the future, increase the tension in families to such an extent that the parents’ patience and empathy with the smallest in the house can be compromised. In this article what influences it and how to avoid it.
Angers, unjustified yelling … Why did we get to this point with them?
In recent weeks, I have received numerous messages from mothers (and fathers) concerned that, contrary to their respectful parenting principles, they have yelled at their children or even held them tightly or shaken them.
One of these mothers, Estrella, lamented for having fallen into the opposite of what she had proposed when her daughter was born, that is, not to repeat with her little girl the mistakes that her parents had made with her in her childhood.
Estrella commented to me, almost coming to tears, that, on several occasions, she had gotten angry with her daughter and had yelled at her for totally unimportant things. She told me: “I have not been able to accompany her, she was more aware of me and my concerns than her needs.”
We carry out several online sessions , in which we analyze each of these stressful situations experienced at home. We used each of these scenarios to pull the thread and understand how Estrella, the mother, had felt connected with her past and with the attitudes that her parents had shown towards Estrella, the girl.
Understanding how she felt in her past helped her, not only to relativize the situations that had angered her, but also to learn to look at her daughter from another perspective, one that was much more empathetic and understanding.
Steps to manage moments of tension with children
The conclusions we drew from all this work helped Estrella lower her own anxiety level and greatly improve her relationship with her daughter. I want to share them here, in case they can be of help to other families.
- Realize what happens
The first step in solving any problem is to become aware of its existence. Understanding that paying our children for our tension and anxiety is not a correct attitude, it means making a very important advance in their resolution. After realizing this, we can work to avoid getting emotionally overwhelmed with our children again.
To understand why we act the way we do, we can start by reviewing the origin of our behavior patterns.
Why do we react the way we do? Why do we get emotionally overwhelmed? Why is it hard for us to be patient with our children?
- Understand our circumstances
The first person who should be empathetic and understanding towards you is yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. The current situation is very complicated and it is normal to be more nervous and tense.
In addition, you learned many of your attitudes when you were very little by the action of your elders. These learnings are difficult to dismantle. Be patient with yourself, little by little, you can free yourself from old harmful patterns and create new, healthier attitudes for everyone.
- Apologize when necessary
When we make mistakes and act badly towards our children, in part, we lose the trust they have in us. The best way to get it back is to explain what happened to us and sincerely ask for their forgiveness.
Our children are really understanding and if we talk to them, naturally, about what has happened to us, they will understand us and renew their trust in us. Do not pressure them, sometimes they need time to assimilate so many emotions and complex situations.
- Don’t blame us: we are not perfect
We must lower our level of demand. Errors, mistakes, bad decisions, in any aspect of our life, will always be there. Nobody is perfect. There are no ideal mothers or fathers. We all make mistakes and the best way to overcome them is to accept that we have made a mistake.
- Propose to change
Each experience serves as learning for another future occasion. After a difficult situation, when you regain your calm and have a moment to yourself, it can help a lot to analyze what has happened. What happened? How did it all begin? How did you feel it in your body? What did you think? Why have you lost your temper? How can you prepare for the future?
