Relieve the Worry: Tips To Become a Calmer Parent
Remember when you were a kid, and you used to think you would never yell at your kids the way your parents did to you? Now that you have your own kids, you can see why your parents sometimes yelled. Children are overwhelming at times, which causes you to yell, even if you try your best not to. At the end of the day, you want the best for them, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
However, your childhood goal is still achievable. It’s not as easy as you thought as a child, but there are techniques to staying calm when your children stress you out. If you feel like you need to relieve your worry: tips to become a calmer parent from this guide will help you.
Why Do We Worry So Much?
Before we can figure out how to become a calmer parent, we need to understand why we worry about our children. The simple answer is because we love them so much. This love makes it impossible not to worry about everything that goes wrong in their life.
Even if everything is fine right now, there’s usually a constant fear that something is about to go wrong, which leads to worry and tension between the parent and their child. Of course, there are other parts to this, but most parents will tell you that it’s difficult to put into words why they worry so much. At the end of the day, it ties back to your love for your child and wanting the best for them.
How Do We Fix It?
Fortunately, there are better ways to curb this fear to sustain the bond between you and your child. Not all these strategies will work for you, but we hope that at least one will help ease the tension in your relationship with them.
Stop While You’re Ahead
If your child is telling you about something terrible that happened or you find out through other means, the sooner you stop, take a breath, and process the information, the better. It’s easy to hear some bad news and freak out on your child for what they did. However, with proper self-control, you can end a situation before it begins.
It’s never too late to do this either. Even if you are in the middle of a screaming match, it is possible to have a moment of self-realization and decide that what you two are fighting over isn’t worth it. Take some time to yourself and think about what went wrong, specifically with the choices you made that led to this point. After you’ve cleared your head, go to them and apologize for how you reacted. Hopefully, they’ll do the same; but even if they don’t, try to take a more level-headed approach to the issue at hand and talk more rationally about what you need to do to resolve it.
Consider How It’ll Affect Your Child
We started with the previous point because even though it’s the most effective, it’s the hardest to do. One thing you can do to help make yourself more rational is to consider how the way you react to the things your child does affects them. For example, if you yell too much, try to remember how you reacted when your parents yelled at you as a kid. If you are constantly sticking your nose in their business, consider how you’d feel about that if you were in their shoes.
If you are having trouble seeing it from their angle, ask them what they think about these topics. It is a great way to learn how your kid feels about the conflict between you two, and it gives you the opportunity to open up to them, bringing you both to a common understanding.
Stay Involved, but Not Too Involved
As we just mentioned, parents who try to know everything that is happening in their child’s life will cause a rift between them. However, it’s still important to stay involved in their life so you can help when needed. It’s a tricky line to balance on. Too far one way and your kid gets annoyed—too far the other way, and you don’t feel like their parent anymore.
One way to achieve this balance is to let them do things without constant intervening more often. Of course, you can still check up on them to see how things are going, but you should try to stick to short texts and don’t call them unless you need to. If your kid is too young for a phone, you can buy them a smartwatch that allows texting and calling. Our 4G kids’ GPS watch is perfect for reaching this balance because you won’t need to bother them with a text to see where they are. Instead, you can check their location through GPS functionality.
Ask Other People for Advice
Our final tip on how to relieve your worry and become a calmer parent is to reach out to others for help. If you have friends who are parents, ask them how they deal with their worry about their kids.
If you can’t attain any good advice from your friends, try asking your parents. Sure, you only remember their mess-ups when it came to raising you, but they had to have done something right to get you to where you are today. At the very least, they can probably tell you which things they wished they would have done differently. Almost all parents have some things they regret, so hearing them out will help you avoid the same mistakes.
If worse comes to worst, you might need to seek out some professional help. We’d recommend focusing on yourself first when it comes to therapy since taking your child might lead to more issues and backlash from them. However, if your therapist helps you get to a point where you feel like you’re a better parent, yet you’re still having problems, you might want to consider seeking professional help for your child as well.