Children don't control our emotions. We do!

What one adult may react to or be triggered by, another adult may not. That's because we're all had different experiences, upbringings and we feel our feelings differently. So we CAN'T blame our emotions on our children - we control how we respond to stimuli.

This DOESN'T mean we suddenly become robots who don't experience stress, anger, hurt and overwhelm. We are humans too. It just means we don't blame our kids for our reactions. We don't say "You're making me so angry", or "You're making me sad" because our children don't have that control.

Making our children feel responsible for our feelings can affect our relationships and fracture their attachment style. It is emotional blackmail, after all. When we turn it around and take responsibility for our own feelings, we are modelling for them what it looks like to manage emotions without hurting others. It shows emotional maturity. It eliminates emotional blackmail.

And it's what we want out kids to do right? We want them to lean how to manage their emotions. To do that they first must SEE US DO THE SAME.

It's likely you didn't see many models of this when you were a child, so it's hard work to learn to do something we never saw. Remember to give yourself grace on this learning journey.

Instead of saying "You're making me angry" you could say "i can feel myself getting angry, I'm going to step away and take some deep breaths to calm down".

Watch the full reel here

Tag a parent who's coping with some big behaviours and save this reel to reflect on later. You've got this.