6 Tips to Help You Learn How to Be a Calmer Parent
Takeaway: No parent is perfect. It can be tough to keep your cool as you navigate the challenges of raising kids (especially sensitive kiddos).
However, it is possible to learn how to be a calmer parent and to bring greater harmony into your household. In this post, we share our top tips for how to be a calm parent, as well as the benefits for shifting your parenting style and special considerations for sensitive kids.
Almost every parent that comes into my child therapy and parent coaching practice is wishing that they could maintain more "calm" behavior in their everyday parenting moments...and often feel overwhelmed and confused at how they have become, at times, the parent that they vowed never to be (i.e. yelling, avoiding conflict, feeling anxious and overwhelmed, etc).
Unfortunately, however, there is a lot of research which demonstrates that meeting your child in a dysregulated state like this can put a lot of stress on their nervous system...and lead to greater disconnection and more outbursts later.
Paradoxically, the truth is that learning how to be a calmer parent requires allowing yourself to not be calm all the time!
In fact to become a peaceful parent, you must learn how to properly process big feelings, so that you can both model to your child how to deal with their feelings and take care of your emotional health, so that you can come back to place of calm parenting, as quickly as possible.
It makes all the difference to offer your child opportunities to co-regulate with you, which also requires that you learn how to have control over your own regulation.
This article will dive deep into why and how to be a calmer mom or dad, which will put you on the right track for creating a peaceful house for your kids to thrive.
What is calm parenting or gentle parenting?
Gentle parenting is all about teaching kids how to better understand and eventually communicate their feelings more clearly, instead of punishing children for their “negative” behaviors (which are truly just results of feelings not fully understood).
This kind of parenting requires parents to know that their adult brains have much greater capacity to understand strong feelings, and thus they have a responsibility to TEACH their children tools for navigating their feelings, versus shutting them down with fear or shame.
Peaceful and gentle parenting requires that parents take care of their own nervous systems, so that can show up in a regulated state and hold space for their kids to move through big feelings, until eventually kids have the self regulatory capacities to go through this process on their own.
The “cry it out method” (which originated 100 years ago!), that was meant to teach babies to self-soothe, has since been proven across the board by legitimate research to actually create less emotional health for kids in the long run.
This kind of parenting that expects kids to learn how to regulate on their own, extended into toddler and childhood, years has the same negative effect.
The bottom line is that withholding warm connection and support when your child is having a big feeling of any kind is an ancient method of parenting that may create some short term relief for tired parents (as your child goes into a stress response of shoving down feelings and dissociating or freezing in order to survive).
Ultimately, however, this style of parenting creates much bigger issues in the future including clinical depression, anxiety, and addiction. Instead your child must be supported in building the self regulatory capacity that only comes from a parent engaging in co-regulation with their child.
Benefits of learning how to be a calmer mom (or dad)
Learning how to feel calm in your parenting approach and engaging in the self regulation required to remain calm in the most difficult moments allows you to adequately engage in co-regulation with your child.
OFFERING CO REGULATION
Co-regulation is absolutely essential for a young child to learn how to cope with their own emotions.
Think about how when a baby is in utero, they rely on their mothers heart beat and regulatory capacity to survive.
At a young age, kids still require this "borrowing" of their parents regulation in order to eventually feel empowered to engage in self regulation themselves (particularly in the face of a stressful situation).
It is unfortunate that so many well intentioned parents think they need to teach their children how to feel their big feelings of anger and upset on their own, when it is actually developmentally appropriate for kids to need a lot of support to learn how to process these big feelings.
SETTING AN EXAMPLE
Half the battle of learning how to engage in gentle parenting is to focus on setting an example for your child of healthy regulation by engaging in practices to create a calm inner world yourself.
It is from this place that it will be SO easeful to come up with the right idea in every moment to best support your child in turning on their regulatory capacity.
Reminder - Take a deep breath and please don't feel guilty if you have been engaging in a parenting approach that expects too much in a child.
The fact that you are here now and learning how to properly teach your child how to mange their feelings will keep your child feeling safe (especially emotionally) for the rest of their life!
GIVING YOUR CHILD SPACE AND TRUST TO DEVELOP THROUGH APPROPRIATE GROWTH STAGES
A developmental psychologist could tell you that as a child grows, they will naturally grow towards more behavior that adheres to social rules you may be trying to teach too early. (Check out this article on reducing shame in your parenting by understanding developmental states).
The point is we can all RELAX around feeling like we need to teach our children lessons for how to grow into healthy adults in this very moment...and instead focus on maintaining a calm affect which will allow your child to connect more deeply to you...we actually end up teaching our children more.
It is from deep respectful connection that you can create a life long bond with your child to teach them all the things you want to teach them (in a way they will actually listen too)!
Again, deep breaths if you are feeling overwhelmed by the idea of staying calm and connecting more deeply with your child more regularly. This article will guide you in the right direction to begin your journey of learning to stay calm and not lose control of your center...so that you can support your child's behavior with patience and love.
ALLOWING YOUR HOME TO BECOME A SANCTUARY
The world is a pretty scary and complicated place at the moment. Ultimately, you as mother or father set the tone for the rest of your family. If you are living in anger, anxiety, dissociation, or depression, your kids will reflect your stuck-ness with their own version of dysregulation.
Especially sensitive kids require a lot of quiet time and peace at home, even if they seem to want to create chaos all the time (as a way of subconsciously checking the boundary). And, it is absolutely imperative that you instill a sense of patience, clarity, clear boundaries, and warm support in your home for the whole family to thrive!
We all need a safe place to retreat to and unwind from every day stress. Your home should offer this to your entire family and starts with you learning how to regulate your own system, so that you can support your kiddos with just what they need which is compassion, patience, and consistent emotional safety.
Becoming a calm parent
Although this may seem counter intuitive, your goal should not be to stay calm at all all times in order to be a calm parent. You are HUMAN! You also have a mammalian animal body.
This means that your nervous system will constantly be adapting to potential stressors and likely moving into a slightly dysregulated state much of the time, as your system assesses for threats.
6 tips to help you learn how to be a calm parent
The Rooted Rhythm website and general parenting approach provides a holistic journey towards calm parenting.
Many of the gentle parenting approaches offer an idea like "get on your child's level to offer a boundary" that makes sense in theory.
The reality is, however, that if you have not done your inner work as a mom or dad to actually maintain a calm nervous system in moments of trigger, your child will just reflect your lack of regulation back to you.
1. PRIORITIZE CONNECTION
Children simply can't hear a boundary, rule, or redirection when they are feeling made wrong or rejected. Quite literally, the part of their brain that could receive such information goes off line in the face of shame.
It is essential that you find a way to stay calm and offer loving connection and understanding no matter what is happening and then create a boundary or problem solve together for a better solution for the future later on, when both your and your child's brain is more regulated.
Check out Dr. Dan Siegel's hand model of the brain explanation (a 2 min video) for a simple explanation of this.
It starts to become sort of obvious... A child is much more likely to listen to a calm mom or dad that they feel connected to and unconditionally loved by than an angry parent that has been set off into a stress response.
2. IMPLEMENT CHILD LED 1-1 TIME
One way to maintain connection for the hard moments is to implement 1-1 connection time proactively. In my parent coaching practice, I teach parents how to do this effectively all the time, and it's truly a game changer.
The TUNED IN course actually has an entire audio lesson on how and why to offer 1-1 time to your kiddos, even if for only 5 or 10 minutes at a time. It's absolutely incredible how many times I have seen a child's behavior shift by their knowing they will get this consistent 1-1 time with a calm parent.
The key is to let this time be a meditation for you (the task is to stay attuned and present), not go into question asking or teaching. Your. job during this set amount of time is to simply offer curiosity towards your child as they guide you in play.
Many parents feel they are too busy to consistently implement this, but I like to remind them that they will spend a lot longer later when their child still gets the attention they need with negative attention seeking behavior.
3. PUT YOUR OWN LIFE MASK ON FIRST
Exercise, sleep, a balanced diet...all things that so easily go out the window as a father or mother...but that are SO essential to a healthy nervous system. It is absolutely imperative that you "put your own life mask on first" and make sure that your system physiologically has what it needs to stay regulated.
It can be life changing to schedule in even 10 minutes of self care a day with time to truly connect to yourself. This can be particularly hard to do for many parents that are truly still in a massive transition (even with older kids) of shifting into family life. It's a lot to process, and it can actually create some patterns of avoidance from truly connecting inside (as well as sometimes with your partner).
The Insight Timer meditation timer app has some great guided meditations for moms and dads, or maybe for you it's scheduling in more walks or runs. It also might include space to actually feel your emotions.
Check out this article on how to properly process feelings if you need some support. Your son or daughter will feel a huge difference if they can trust that you are doing your work to stay calm and process your own emotions.
Your hard work will quickly pay off and soon you will see it reflected back in how your kiddos learn to control their own ability to process emotions. A more peaceful home will be created.
4. KNOW YOUR OWN NERVOUS SYSTEM
Child therapy expert and founder of the Synergetic Play Therapy Institute, Lisa Dion, describes in detail in her work how our nervous systems will shift into either a hypo aroused state or a hyper aroused state when responding to a perceived threat.
Lisa created a list describing each nervous system state which in brief looks like:
Regulated (Mindful)
Think clearly
Think logically
Able to make conscious choices
Able to make eye contact
Display a wide range of emotional expression
Feel "grounded"
Able to notice breath
Sleep cycles stable
Poised
"In the body"
Able to communicate verbally in a clear manner
Hyper arousal symptoms (Fight, Flight, Freeze)
Increased heart rate
"Pounding" sensation in the head
Overwhelmed, disorganized
Habitual defensiveness
Aggression
Hyper alertness/hyper vigilance
Excessive motor activity
Uncontrollable bouts of rage
Highly irritable
Overwhelmed others
Anxious
Hypo-arousal symptoms (Collapse/Fall Asleep)
Helplessess
Inability to set boundaries
Tired
Automatic obedience
Non-expressive
Numbing
Lack of motivation
Lethargic
Emotional constriction
Isolation/depression/dissociation
More sleep than usual
Any of these patterns sound for familiar? For you or your family members in your house? The key is to understand that there is nothing wrong with any of them!
It's just about recognizing where you are on the spectrum and then making a choice to come back to center, as soon as possible, so that you can both show up to the next challenging parenting moment with presence and confidence and so that you can begin to model to your kids how they can learn to self regulate without feeling they will lose control.
5. OFFER COMPASSIONATE LOVE
A study of a group of mothers demonstrated that compassionate love for their child indicated lower stress reactions while parenting.
Specifically even among parents who showed an increased stress response during challenging parenting moments, those that clearly demonstrated high compassionate love for their children offered both less harsh parenting decisions and tactics, as well as presented with less observed negativity (Miller et al., 2015).
There's also a ton of research on how both high warmth (a consistently open heart) and high control (clear and loving boundaries) make up the most effective style of parenting.
6. MAINTAIN PATIENCE AND TRUST IN THE PROCESS
Parenting is the ultimate test of patience and trust. Being a mom or dad becomes easier with time.
Children grow through developmental stages rapidly and learn how to process their emotions more easily as their brains grow. What makes them upset now will likely create no charge just a couple of months from now (or sooner). Keep calm, carry on, and choose not to lose hope in your journey as a mother or father.
The more in trust and in control of your journey that you are feeling, the more your kids will experience being in trust and in control of their journeys.
It will all make more sense eventually. For many more tips like this, check out the Rooted Rhythm TUNED IN parenting principles or jump right into our signature transformational course.
Rooted Rhythm's offerings teaches you to be the WHOLE and integrated mom and dad that your child needs in order to really learn from you and grow into their potential. These tips are a starting point for ditching the angry yelling and becoming the cool and collected parent, as much of the time as possible.
My advice is that you also seek proper therapeutic support to make sure that you are clearing old and sub conscious patterns, that are preventing your room showing up with a calm attitude and causing your to lose your center in difficult moments.
What to avoid when becoming calm parents
When becoming a more gentle mom or dad, you'll want to avoid some of the following tactics, behaviors, or thought patterns.
ALLOWING A HARSH INNER CRITIC TO RUN THE SHOW
Many of us have a harsh inner critic that is a driving factor in causing us to lose our cool in difficult moments.
When the parenting moment is difficult and stressful to start with, having an inner dialogue that is telling you that you are not good enough or should be different can simply push you beyond your edge.
Self love becomes key in slowing down those negative thought loops, so that you can show up with more clarity and calm in the difficult moments.
ENGAGING IN AUTOMATIC PATTERNS PASSED DOWN GENERATIONS THAT AREN'T TRUE TO YOUR CURRENT VALUES
How many times have you had a parenting moment where you are mortified that you just turned into your mom or dad? The reality is that our brains receive imprinting early on from how our parents parented us.
It is only natural that you will sometimes become them (or that you will take such effort to swing the other direction than your parents that you still show up with extreme behavior at times).
It takes incredible conscious effort and healing to unwind from parenting patterns you learned that aren't true to who you are now and to determine what your authentic values as a parent really are. (The our signature TUNED IN course guides you in this kind of deeply transformational work).
PARENTING HOW YOU THINK YOU "SHOULD" INSTEAD OF WHAT YOU FEEL IS RIGHT FOR CHILDREN
Speaking of authenticity, kids really do not respond well to you showing up in ways that are not congruent with who you truly are. Beware of being bogged down by "shoulds" from society or other family members that prevent you from staying relaxed and calm in your truest self with your kids.
Showing up authentically creates a positive feedback loop that looks like this. (1) You feel good in your own skin. (2) Your child responds with ease and contentment to you feeling confident in what's true for you, and (3) You then have an easier time staying calm and gentle in your interactions back to them. It's a win-win.
SHOWING UP ANGRY AND YELLING IN REACTION (VS. RESPONSE)
One of my mentors taught me that as adults we have a RESPONSibility to RESPOND instead of to REACT to triggering moments. Of course sometimes we all lose our sh*t and yell for a moment with our kiddos...but the majority of the time, we need to self regulate even when angry and overwhelmed so that we can offer discipline or direction to our kiddos with a responsive and attuned tone of voice verse a reactive angry one.
There's actually research that kids learn more effectively and remember more accurately if the tone of voice is calm versus charged with emotion. This is why learning healthy ways to regulate and then set boundaries from a place of regulation is so important. (All of this is also covered so much more in depth in the TUNED IN course!)
Supporting your sensitive child through calm parenting
If your child is sensitive, it is absolutely crucial that you engage in learning to become a gentle and calm parent. Sensitive children require this kind of parenting, because they are more deeply impacted by both negative and positive experiences, than their nonsensitive counterparts.
This means that if they receive harsh or inappropriate parenting, they are more likely to create long lasting negative self concepts of themselves and suffer from not being properly supported in learning how to make room for their big feelings. Read this article for an in-depth explanation of the highly sensitive child.
Benefits of calm parents for highly sensitive children
The benefit of becoming a calmer parent of a sensitive child is that they will perceive the subtle and bigger shifts you are making and reflect back a greater ability to regulate. If your sensitive child learns how to regulate with greater capacity, they will be more likely to talk to you about their feelings and needs.
You will also learn how to hold space for their "emotional waves" to pass more ease fully. It is imperative that as a the parent of a sensitive child, you accept that they will often have high highs and low lows. The more you can learn to hold space for the passing of feelings through (and not making feelings wrong or trying to fix them), the more your child will feel supported in processing big feelings and coming back to regulation with ease.
There is nothing more dysregulating to a sensitive child than feeling like the feelings that already feel scary and overwhelming to their system are also "too much" for their parents to handle. This can become an incredibly isolating experience for a child, which can actually result in even more outbursts later. Learning to be a calm parent will help you stand in your power and support both yourself and your child through it all!
Learn how to be a calmer parent with the help of a parenting coach or course work
Getting the right support in learning how to embody a gentle parenting approach is so important! A parent coach or coursework can can be really supportive in the process. A parent coach will work 1-1 with you and your co-parent to help you create a more conscious approach to parenting.
As a licensed therapist, I offer an approach to parent coaching that combines education of relevant child development and parenting theories, as well as support in unpacking psychological blocks to showing up as the best parent you can be. Check out all the details on parent coaching here.
Many parents in the Rooted Rhythm community choose to engage in a self paced learning process with the 40 day transformational course, TUNED IN. This course can be started anytime and provides everything you need to know in order to become a more gentle parent for your sensitive kiddo. Your family will experience a massive shift if you dive into this work.
More resources
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Citations
Miller JG, Kahle S, Lopez M, Hastings PD. Compassionate love buffers stress-reactive mothers from fight-or-flight parenting. Dev Psychol. 2015 Jan;51(1):36-43. doi: 10.1037/a0038236.