Before you became a parent, could you have imagined the nature, range, and intensity of feelings you would experience in this role? Family photo collections recall joy, pride, excitement, fascination, love. On the other hand there are unpleasant feelings like frustration, anxiety, guilt, inadequacy, fear, and anger. Such a variety of emotional experience naturally comes with being a parent.
Learning to manage emotions is a lifelong process and is especially important in parenting. Problems occur when feelings overwhelm us or interfere with the role of reason. Consider these examples:
Elise and Joe set what they believed were appropriate rules and consequences for their daughter, Amber. One weekend Joe left town for a business trip. While he was gone Amber asked to do something that was against the rules. Elise held the boundary and Amber began to complain. She told her mom “This is ridiculous”, and “you are so stupid.” Amber didn’t stop there, but continued to push. Elise began to feel anxious and conflicted. She began to question herself on the decision she and her husband had made. Before long she gave in to the pressure and allowed Amber to have her way.
Kim had a great connection with her daughter, Liz, during the early teen years. They would do everything together. But as she grew older, Liz felt smothered by all of the attention that her mom was giving her and began to distance herself. Kim felt so rejected that she began to struggle with depression. After each argument with her daughter, she would shut herself in her room for the rest of the day, just lying on her bed in the dark.
A set of parents and grandparents who had joint custody of a teen were sitting together discussing possible consequences for Crystal who had broken a clearly stated family rule. As they began to talk they became more anxious about what the behavior meant and what future problems might arise. Soon, they began to feed off each other’s anxiety and before long they had identified and laid out a severe consequence for a minor infraction, leaving Crystal feeling powerless to earn their trust back.
Each of these stories has a common theme–the parent’s decisions and behavior were powerfully influenced by their emotions. As a result, their decisions unintentionally contributed to the problems they were having with their teen.
This lesson is an invitation to strengthen your ability to manage emotions, particularly as it relates to parenting. Managing your emotions includes the ability to recognize, respond to, and influence one’s own emotions.
One key is to understand the interplay between our thoughts, emotions, and behavior.
In this process, our thoughts play a pivotal role. These may be thoughts we do not even realize we have. They are often silently rehearsed in our minds, such as “I can’t believe what a lazy kid he is!” We may not even be aware of many of our thoughts, beliefs, and interpretations; yet they powerfully influence what we feel and do.
Self-mastery of our emotions is not easy, but even a small effort can make an important difference. Doing so will help you deal with the ups and downs of parenting, stay calm during difficult moments, and make better decisions.
To enhance your ability to manage your emotions, future lessons will teach how to:
- Strengthen your sense of self
- Learn to self-soothe
- Avoid “catching” contagious negative emotions from others
