How often have you pledged to yourself that today will be different, that you won't raise your voice or lose your temper? The grocery shopping, dinner preparation, and myriad other responsibilities seem to pile up, and it feels like the weight of the world rests on your shoulders.
Join us as we explore the inevitable cycle of yelling, guilt, and promises to do better next time.
Discover the underlying reasons behind the outbursts and explore practical strategies to foster a more serene and nurturing environment for you and your children.
Tune in to this thought-provoking episode and gain valuable tools to transform your parenting journey. It's time to break free from the cycle and create a home filled with understanding, patience, and genuine connection.
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The Discerning Parenting Podcast is a free informational resource for parents. As a valued listener, you acknowledge that any information you get from this podcast is for your general guidance only, and must never be considered a substitute for the advice provided by a doctor, therapist, or other qualified medical professionals who know your child specifically. Read our full disclaimer policy here.
You've promised yourself, time and again, today will be different. Today, you won't raise your voice, you won't lose your temper, but amidst the chaos of daily life as a parent, the stress of juggling everything from getting groceries,
Having a meltdown at the shopping cart, getting dinner ready, it feels like the entire burden of doing everything, taking care of everything, and staying calm on top of that, all of these rest on us. Then it happens. The yelling starts before you even realize it. It's a cycle many of us are all too familiar with.
We yell. We feel guilty. And we promise ourselves, next time, we will keep calm. And well-meaning people who witness this may even tell us, Relax, chill, just keep calm. In this episode of the Discerning Parenting Podcast, we talk about why promising to keep calm is not the way to stop yelling.
Are there days you feel you've had it with the sleepless nights, the temper tantrums, the constant fatigue of trying to keep up with an active baby? Does it feel like you're always working so hard as a parent, trying to do everything for your kids and family, and yet it never feels enough? We get it. You love your child more than anything, and yet parenting is also exhausting and challenging.
Especially when you're bombarded with criticism and pressure to be the perfect parent. Which, spoiler alert, does not exist. That's why we created Discerning Parenting, the podcast that helps you cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters in your parenting journey. This podcast is jam-packed with valuable insights and practical tips specifically tailored for parents of kids aged 5 and below.
So join us and discover how you can use the combined power of science, knowing your child, and your own intuition in making the best parenting decisions for you and your family.
Those who know me well will tell you that emotional regulation didn't come naturally to me. I'm not proud to admit that I had tantrums, not just as a child, but as an adult as well, despite continually telling myself to keep calm and have more patience and willpower. When I became a parent, I realized that I could not go on this way, and that's why I went on a journey of discovery and healing.
In this episode, we'll explore why it's not just a matter of willing ourselves to stay calm. Yelling at our kids doesn't mean that we're bad parents or we have some character flaw that leaves us weak-willed. It doesn't mean that we love our kids any less. Rather, this can be part of a built-in response that has been programmed into our brains.
We'll talk about what we can do about it that's more effective than simply willing ourselves to stay calm. Let's dive in. It's all a matter of willpower. All you need to do is think positive. You can do it. Believe in yourself. I'm sure all of these have heard. I'm sure all of us have heard these at some point.
And they're very encouraging affirmations and they do have a role, in fact, entire besian preaching this kind of message to the point that we're now conditioned to think that we have 100% complete control over every emotion we feel, every tiny action we do and everything that happens to us.
Is stopping yelling really only a matter of the brain? When we keep telling ourselves to stay calm, when we have all these good intentions to stop yelling, what we're engaging is a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. This is also often called the higher brain, the upstairs brain. This part of the brain can assess situations rationally, consider long-term consequences, And it can control our immediate impulses, like when we feel the urge to yell, the prefrontal cortex will tell us it's not a good idea to yell right now, but stop and do something that is more effective.
But yelling, at its core, is an emotional response. It's often an instinctive reaction when our brain perceives a threat, and what's responsible for this is the limbic system, it's often called the primitive brain, or the fighter flight brain, the reptilian brain, the downstairs brain, and the limbic system plays a huge role in this emotional response.
It's responsible for our survival instincts and basic emotions like fear, anger, or joy. When we're stressed or we feel threatened, the limbic system kicks in quickly and it prepares our body to respond with a fight, light, or freeze reaction. And yelling often emerges as a fighting response in a high-stress moment.
This is a primal reaction that dates back to our early ancestors. And it's a survival mechanism. Stress hormones are released. Your heart beats faster. Blood pressure goes up. Your muscles tense up. And this primes your body for action. All these are reactions that allowed our ancestors to better handle the threats that they faced.
Now today, we're not facing wild animals. And no, your toddler doesn't count as a wild animal. And if you have a child who has refused to listen to every single thing you've told them to do for the past hour and instead of listening, they stomp their feet and they shout, we know that it's not the same as a lion attack.
But, for our primitive brain, it's not about that level of actual danger, but about it getting activated. That's why. We can have all the best intentions and strategies to stay calm, but during these stressful moments, that rational part of the brain that promised to stop yelling and be more patient simply shuts off and the primal brain takes over.
Now, you may be asking, if these are all automatic reactions built into how our brains and bodies work, then why doesn't everybody yell? Why do people react differently to the same stressor? I know this firsthand because I often experience being compared to my friends or family members who are much calmer than I am.
I'm often told, There's nothing to be angry about. See, your friend didn't even get angry. But there are individual differences in how each of us will react to the same stressor. And many of these individual differences are also wired into our biology. Each of us is unique. We are different in how we perceive something by our genes, and even our physical conditions, such as how tired or even how hungry we are. And past experiences are a huge influence. Even past experiences that we don't remember. Let's learn more and more about the brain. We discover how early experiences during the first three years of life exert a huge influence on how the brain develops and our automatic responses.
These deep-seated influences Tape how we react today. Many of our reactions and behaviors as adults are influenced by patterns and brain wiring that were established in our childhood. And these patterns are like imprints that were deeply ingrained in us even before we realize it. For instance, if you grew up in an environment where yelling was a common way of expressing frustration, Even if we were babies at that time, and people thought that we didn't even know what was going on, we might find ourselves defaulting to that behavior, even if consciously we know we don't want to do that.
And here is the hopeful part. If on in our brains and in our bodies that is recognized that yelling is not a result of a personal failure or a lack of effort. When we recognize that it's a brain-based response to stress, then we can address it better. We can better give ourselves grace and focus on strategies that address the root cause.
Which is creating shifts in how the brain processes and responds to stress. Our brains can change and adapt in response to new experiences. When we regularly practice new behaviors, we can create new pathways in our brains. Over time, This can help calmer responses, more automatic, so it becomes less of an effort to stay calm because our brains have been rewired.
Now I'd like to highlight three general strategies, management and wellness strategies. strategies. If we can reduce stressors, this can decrease the chances of our brains going into fight or flight. That's why in our previous podcast episode, I talked about three things we can give ourselves permission to stop doing in 2024, and this can help decrease the things that you're stressed about.
Second, mindfulness and emotional awareness. Methods such as deep breathing, or simply pausing to acknowledge our feelings, already getting stressed and angry. We can intervene early. While our higher brains are still working and haven't shut off, and our primitive brains have taken over, it's going to be very difficult to get back on track. And third, deep emotional and subconscious healing.
If we are to heal these Deep-seated responses that have been programmed into our brains ever since early childhood. We need to manage our built-in automatic responses. Now, strategies that focus on the higher brain, Yes, are an important part of managing stress responses like yelling, but we also need to heal the subconscious.
As we said, many of our built-in automatic responses were formatted in our subconscious, our subconscious memories and many of them influence our behavior like yelling, and we may not even be aware of it. This work on the subconscious is a huge part of the healing journey I went through personally.
That's why I offer a holistic approach that combines parenting strategies, which come from the higher brain, and you will need your higher brain to be able to implement these parenting strategies. And we combine them with the integrative heart healing method, which works on the subconscious. For more about these, Listen to the three podcast episodes before this one.
In these past three episodes, we talk about your wellness as a parent, as well as stress management and mindfulness strategies. We also talk about the powerful heart-healing method for deep emotional healing. In the previous episode, we talked about three things you can give yourself permission to cross off your to-do list so they stop stressing you out.
I have a coming free webinar where you'll have the chance to experience part of the same transformational heart-healing journey I went through. This journey helped me rewire these automatic responses. Head over right now to DiscerningParenting. com slash email me. Again, that's DiscerningParenting. com slash email me and sign up for our mailing list.
So you'll be among the first to know when this free webinar is open for registration. Thank you for joining me today. I hope this episode has helped you gain some peace of mind, and release the guilt that you've been feeling, So we don't get stuck there, and instead, we can start our healing journey.
Remember, you're not alone. We are all walking this path together, learning and growing together each day.