06/10/2024
Parenting Expert, Dr. Stacey Scheckner, explains how to teach your children, as well as role model yourself, how to cope with FRUSTRATION.
We all get triggered and frustrated throughout our daily lives. Whether we are tired or overwhelmed or both, frustration is a normal everyday feeling for parents who are constantly trying to balance work, home, and if possible, some much needed personal time. It is important to take account of how we are feeling BEFORE we interact with our primary relationships, such as our children. The way we respond to our frustrations directly impacts the way our kiddos will respond to their frustrations.
Do you find yourself telling your kids to "stop, take a deep breath, and count to 10?" Well, actions speak louder than words! We expect them to handle difficult games, peer interactions, and changing scheduling, but how are we handling the same adult problems right in front of them? You must equate what's important to an adult, finances, relationships, extended family, to what's important to a child, getting ready in the morning, socializing with peers, a parent's grumpiness.
Here is what I continually tell children at my office, and then immediately schedule a parent session the next week so I can reinforce with their parents: When you feel frustrated, it is your brain trying to tell you to STOP, it's tired, you need to take a break from whatever you are currently doing. If you continue to press on, you will inevitably get more and more frustrated. You are not listening to your brain and your brain is not happy. You will end up making things infinitely worse than when you first began to get frustrated.
Feelings and intelligence are in two different parts of your brain, your amygdala and your frontal lobe. The more you get frustrated, the less you are able to use your intelligence to solve whatever you are doing. You are causing yourself to get upset. Not everything ends up the way we expect; in fact, most things don't. It's up to us to teach our children through example to go with the flow and turn mishaps into learning experiences. So the next time you get frustrated, remember, you have a choice in how you react.....STOP, breathe, and take a much needed break!
