WELL PARENT | I Blew Up At My Child, Now What?

By Rebecca A.

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'MOM! CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME!’ The high-pitched voice of my eldest son yells from the dining room, drowning out the other voice in the room coming from an iPad.

‘BE QUIET!’ screams his little brother.

‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOO’ screams back the first voice.

I rush into the dining room to see my youngest child with steam coming out of his ears, as he begins pummeling his fists into his big brother, wildly angry that Gēge (big brother) has requested help so loudly while he was deeply engaged in the middle of his online teaching video.

In that split second Mama Bear appears from nowhere, to protect her cub that is under attack… it doesn’t seem to matter in the heat of the moment that the predator doing the attacking is ALSO her cub.

I pull XiǎoDìdi (little brother) off his brother, too roughly. 

The stress response is high in us both and what follows is more yelling (now from me), tears and screams (from him) and a slamming of doors (definitely him).

I sit back down, head in my hands. I’ve cooled off now, but the damage has been done. I think about what the right response *could* have been. It would have been calm, empathic, measured and in a way that would have built connection, not destroyed it like a tonne of TNT blowing up the Golden Gate bridge.

It was none of those things.

But I am not a perfect parent, nor have I ever met one.

I am imperfectly perfect. And so are you.

To grow in our parenting, we can learn and implement tools and strategies to help us remain calm and centered, to correct less and connect more, to move away from using shame as a discipline tool and towards kindness and discipline tools that build independence, self-confidence and empathy.

We are never going to get it perfectly right every time. We will blow up, we will make mistakes, we will say things we wish we could take back.

These mistakes don't define us, and they don't have to ruin our relationships with our kids. It's what happens after a mistake is made that is important. I've combined tools from Positive Discipline with Non-Violent Communication techniques to come up with 4 R's to help bring restoration to a relationship after a blow-up.

Recognise – The first R of Restoring Relationship

The first step in recovering from a mistake is to take responsibility for your actions, without laying blame at the feet of your child. In my case, yes, one of my children was attacking the other, but my response is not their fault. I am responsible for my reaction in yelling, in pulling him away too strongly, in engaging in a yelling fight with a 4 year old.

The beautiful thing is that we get to model to our kids that mistakes in relationships can be opportunities for growth - for learning to own our mistakes, to be accountable, to build strong communication about uncomfortable topics. They clarify the misconceptions that children can start to tell themselves about why you yelled - 'she doesn't like me', and we get the opporunity to re-write the narrative.

We need to stop seeing our mistakes as bad. You are not inadequate, you are not a failure. Self-forgiveness and self-compassion are an extremely important element of the first R of Recovery.

Our mistakes can be reframed as learning opportunities. 

What if…. I learn from this experience to take a deep breath before engaging in conflict resolution between my children.

Reconcile – The second R of Restoring Relationship

After we had both cooled off in our separate rooms, I approached my son’s bedroom and knocked gently on the warm wooden door.

‘Can I come in?’ I asked softly.

‘NO!’

‘Okay, when you are ready to talk I’ll be right here’, and I backed away from the door a couple of metres.

I hear the latch unlock, and I take this as my cue that he is ready to let me into his space.

I crouch down at the door, so I’m at his level.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you and handling you so roughly. I shouldn’t have done that. I'm really sorry."

He looks up at me with his blue puppy dog eyes and says the words that we hear from our kids over and over whenever we apologise, “that’s okay”. Their forgiveness seems to have no limits.

I open my arms up wide and he slides into them.

From behind me I hear Gēge, “I’m sorry for yelling over the top of your lesson.” An unprompted, but not un-surprising, apology from the toothless mouth of his older sibling who has seen his parents owning our mistakes and apologizing for them - and he sees the part that he played in all of this and OWNS it.

Children learn from what we model, more than what we tell them to do.

“That’s okay.”

Imagine that each mistake, each unkind word, each shameful accusation, each punishment is a brick that is laid, building a wall of disconnection between the two of you.

A true apology from the heart is the sledgehammer that knocks those bricks away, as soon as they are laid, stopping that wall from ever being built. Resentment and anger switches to forgiveness as soon as the adult says, ‘I am sorry’.

Reflect – The third R of Restoring Relationship

“You seemed really mad that your brother was speaking so loudly while you were trying to do your work, you wanted him to stop and he wouldn’t. It looks like you were really frustrated.”

His head nods in agreement and out pours his stream of consciousness about his feelings and the frustration he felt when he asked his brother to be quiet, only for his brother to respond even more loudly. His mad ‘took over his body’ and he responded with his fists.

“It must have been pretty scary for you when Mom yelled at you. I’m so sorry buddy.” We collapse in love and I hold space for all his feelings. I am the net of love he falls into.

Identifying the child’s emotions and needs, and then reflecting them back helps the child to not only put into words the emotions they are feeling, but also to feel heard and that you understand what they are going through.

Don’t we all long to feel heard and understood by the people we love?

Resolve – The fourth R of Restoring Relationship

After creating a positive environment through recognizing, reconciling and reflecting, it’s time to work on resolving the problem by coming up with positive solutions.  

“Next time, I will try and remember to take a deep breath and talk to you nicely instead of yelling. What could you do?”

“I can pause my video and ask Gēge nicely to be quiet. If he doesn’t then I can ask you for help.”

Again un-asked, Gēge pipes up, “Mum, I can come and ask you for help where you are instead of yelling at you, just like you always ask us to do.”

We hug, we agree to try again, and the two boys start engaging in play together - broken bridges mended and getting stronger with every repair job.

This family thing is not easy. Navigating sibling relationships, cultivating trust and openness, building and maintaining relationships takes work. We get the opportunity to be fully human through experiencing the sheer fullness of human emotion – so much love, so much anger, so much joy, so much sadness.

We are going to make mistakes in this journey to raise little humans, there’s no doubt about that. But we don’t need to let the mistakes we make affect our future, the way we see ourselves and the relationship with our kids.

Try out the 4 R’s yourself and let us know how it works for you in our Well Parent group.

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Originally from New Zealand, WellWomen co-founder Rebecca considers herself a global citizen, and has lived in Australia, Canada, Nigeria and Indonesia and spent time in many more countries.She is just as at home paddling on the Delta Rivers in the Papua New Guinea jungle, as she is eating jianbing on the streets on Beijing. With a diverse background in media, marketing, events and education, Rebecca has written for the World Health Organization, BeijingKids magazine and various educational institutes in Beijing. The founder of the Clothing Auction Network, Rebecca is passionate about sustainable and ethical approaches to fashion, and is also taking her family on the journey towards a Zero Waste lifestyle. She is passionate about sustainable living; the mind as our most powerful tool; taking care of the body as a vessel as a precious place for the indwelling of the Divine;  our heart as the driving force behind respectful relationships with our children, spouses, each other and the earth; and connection with the community as an essential requirement for wellbeing.