How To Stay Calm During Tantrums

Now, some of the beef that I have with parenting advice on the internet, sometimes including my own advice, because it's so hard, especially on Instagram, to show nuance, is the idea that like we talk about just stay calm, right? Just don't lose your cool on them, and just be calm, and then they'll learn how to be calm.

And even in the last episode I was talking about this, which is why I ended the last episode with telling you, like, "Come back for next week." But how many times have we heard that as parents? Like, "Just be calm.

Be regulated.

Talk to them about their feelings.

Allow them to have their big feelings, and, and don't get mad at them." But we never talk about how hard that is, how triggering that is, and how sometimes it feels next to impossible to stay calm.

So today, in this episode, I wanted to talk about that and then give you a couple actual, like, practical, in-the-moment suggestions for how you can try to stay calm during your child's tantrum.

Okay? So first off, I just wanna say that I heard the other day from someone who said, "You know, Jess, like I, I hear you talk about parenting all the time, and I really compare myself to you, and I always think, like, 'Well, Jess would never lose her cool like this,' or, 'Jess would never get upset with her kids,' or, 'She would never get frustrated in this way.' And then I think to myself, like, 'Man, I must be failing.'" And that comment really broke my heart because, I mean, I feel like if you're a dedicated listener, like you've heard me talk so many times about [laughs] times that I haven't been the most calm, or that I've lost my cool, or that I've, you know, maybe shown up in a way as a parent that I didn't want to and that didn't feel good, didn't align with my values.

But I just wanna start this off by saying, like, I've been there, too.

Especially in seasons of my life when I'm stressed out, when I'm not sleeping well, when I'm burnt out, or have something else on my mind, it can be really hard to show up as the parent that you wanna be.

I'm not sure if I've talked about this before, and if I have, it's maybe been a while, but I know after we had our third baby especially, it was a really intense and stressful season in our lives.

Work was tough.

We had a toddler, a five-year-old, and a new baby.

The toddler we hadn't taught yet how to fall asleep on her own or in her own bed, and Scott was often working late.

So there were so many nights where I'd be trying to put my toddler to bed, and the baby would be crying and wanting to be breastfed, and the older kid is just like sobbing in her room like, "No one loves me.

No one cares about me." And those moments would be so hard, and it would take everything in me to try not to lose my cool and like blame my kids for how hard it was, right? To be like, "Well, if you only slept in your own bed," or, "If you only slept all night," or, you know, just, "People have it better.

You know? Could be worse." Like, it, it was so hard not to get resentful towards them for all needing me, and sometimes I would.

I would say something that I would later regret, or get really frustrated and be like, "Everyone be quiet.

Let's stop talking." You know? Like, it would just be so much.

It would be so hard.

And so I just want you to know that if that's the season that you're in right now, where you're hearing all the advice, like your child needs you to be calm, or what I said in the last episode, which listen to that if you haven't already, that your children can only be as regulated as the most dysregulated adult in the house.

That can be really hard, especially in those seasons.

So I wanna tell you some things that actually helped me and got me through those tough seasons of parenting, and even now that parenting is a little bit easier, they still help me now.