Stay Calm: 7 key elements
Feeling Overwhelmed? You're Not Alone.
In this episode we delve into the essential keys to staying calm when parenting emotionally intense children.
Anouk introduces the key points and topics that will be explored in future episodes, offering a roadmap tailored to the unique needs of both parents and their intense kids.
Through coregulation, understanding and supporting children's needs, avoiding escalation, practicing mindfulness, fostering confidence, dealing with judgment, and seeking support, Anouk provides a glimpse into the strategies that will be discussed in depth in upcoming episodes.
Coregulation
One of the most crucial aspects of staying calm is coregulation. It means that we need to stay calm ourselves to help others, including our children, calm down. By supporting them and being a calm presence, even when they are not, we can help them find their own sense of calmness. Remember, the first step in helping our kids stay calm is for us to stay calm ourselves.
Understanding and Supporting Your Child's Unique Needs
Each child has their own needs, struggles, and strengths. Understanding and supporting these individual needs is key to fostering their emotional well-being. As parents, we need to play the role of detectives, uncovering what our children truly need to thrive and feel good. No two emotionally intense children are the same, so it is essential to tailor our approach to their specific requirements.
Breaking the Cycle: Not Escalating
When our children react intensely, it is crucial not to escalate the situation. By remaining calm and composed, we can keep the lines of communication open and maintain a positive relationship with our children. Mindfulness is a powerful tool in achieving this. It allows us to regulate our nervous system, even in challenging moments. Mindfulness can take various forms, such as meditation, spending time in nature, engaging in hobbies, or pursuing physical activities. Find what grounds and centers you, allowing you to be present in the moment.
Confidence: The Backbone of Calm Parenting
Feeling confident in our parenting choices is paramount. Doubt and fear can undermine our ability to stay calm and respond effectively to our children's needs. It is essential to trust ourselves and the decisions we make for our kids. Remember, you are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging child. Embrace your strengths and let go of unrealistic expectations imposed by society.
Dealing with Judgment: Embracing Your Path
The judgment of others can be a significant source of stress for parents of emotionally intense children. However, it is crucial to remember that you are the expert when it comes to your child. Embrace your unique approach and respond to judgment with confidence and grace. Equally important is addressing our own internal judgment. By accepting ourselves and our parenting journey, we can better stay calm and provide the support our children need.
The Power of Support
Finding the right support system is essential in navigating the challenges of parenting intense children. Surround yourself with individuals who understand, believe, and have experienced similar journeys. Their support will make your parenting journey easier and provide a sense of camaraderie. Remember, you are not alone in this.
Conclusion
Parenting emotionally intense children can be overwhelming, but with the right tools and support, you can find the calmness you seek.
Remember the key points we discussed: coregulation, understanding and supporting your child's unique needs, not escalating, practicing mindfulness, embracing confidence, dealing with judgment, and seeking support.
"We can teach them lots of techniques and tips and tricks to calm down, but the most important one is to first stay calm ourselves."
You can stay connected by subscribing to the "Parenting the Intensity" podcast and following us on Instagram @parentingtheintensity
You've got this!
Take a deep breath, keep going, we're all in this together!
Full Transcript
*Automatically generated. Will be revised soon to make it more easy to read.
Welcome to the podcast. We are starting a series of episode about regulation and coregulation and dysregulation, All the ways to stay calm, basically. And I wanted to start by just addressing the different key points, different key topics of how to stay calm, and then we'll go deeper in each of them in different episode.
Welcome to Parenting the Intensity. Where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice, that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway, and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together we'll find solutions and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are deep down you know what they need. But you need a little encouragement to keep going on other days and permission to do things differently and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kids.
Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed and uncertain when it comes to parenting your emotionally intense child? Do you often find yourself playing with guilt, fearing that you're not doing enough to help them navigate their intense emotion? You are not alone. Many parents face these challenges and struggle to find the right path forward. But take a deep Briere. There's hope. That's why I created the parenting the intensity community. Imagine having a clear roadmap tailored specifically to your child's unique needs and your family's reality. Picture feeling empowered and confident in your parenting, knowing that you are providing the support and understanding your child needs. It may seem like an untenable dream right now, but I'm here to tell you that it is within reach. Come and join us for our monthly group support to connect with other parents and get supported with your challenge right now. You also get 1 on 1 chat and audio office hours for the things that you're really not ready to share in the group, workshop, tools, courses to help you in the process of finding that balance of parenting in a way that works for you, your child, and your family.
Because it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, there's so many things to think about, so many things to consider when we're talking about staying calm or helping our kids stay calm. I wanted to start with a list. So a list of all the different things that needs to be addressed and that needs to be considered in how we stay calm and our how kids can stay calm. And I went to the first one is coregulation, and I've already talked about that in a previous episode. I'm gonna link it. And I'm gonna try and come back and link the future episodes on the different topics too.
Try to remember to do that. But regulation and co regulation and and co regulation is really the fact that we need to stay calm ourselves to help others calm down and by supporting them in the way they are. But also just being calm next to someone who is not is helping them to calm down. So this is one key very, very key point. And for that reason, it's the the the most important step is for us to stay calm if we want to help our kids calm down. Yes. We can teach them lots of techniques and things and tricks and to calm down, but the most important one is to first stay calm ourselves. And I know how hard that is, but it still is their first step.
And as I said, this is just an introduction of the different things. We will go deeper in all of them in later episodes. Another key is to understand and support our kids' needs in different and that can look different. And, really, each kids have their own needs and their own struggle and their own strengths. And for that reason, we really need to play detective, I always say that, and support the kids for what they really need. And, this is very key because no 2 Emotionally kids, no 2 kids for that matter, needs the same things to thrive and to feel good. So understanding what they really need is really important. The other one, and we already addressed it, is to not escalate when things are getting hard, when they are reacting intensely, not escalating.
And it's directly related to co regulation is that we are not putting, like, oil on the fire. We are we are able to stay calm. And by staying calm and not escalating, we are keeping the line of communication open with them, and we are, allowing for a deeper and more positive relationship. The way to stay calm and not escalate is to practice mindfulness. This is key. It's not all any kind of set of self care that we need to do. It's something that helps us regulate our nervous system so that we can stay calm even when things are hard. So we will go deeper into that, but it can look a lot of different ways.
The most obvious are like meditation, but going out to nature, yoga, sports, knitting, gardening, photography. That's mine. My favorite one. There is there is so many like, any kind of crafts, anything that grounds us, that help us, most of the time, like, be present in the moment. That's that's mindfulness. It's being present in the moment. Most of those, like, all of those things would help us regulate our nervous system. So we will definitely go deeper in many of them over the next episodes, and there was already some in the previous episodes.
Another key to be able to stay calm is to feel confident. Again, I'll go deeper into that because that's one of my favorite topics. But when we doubt ourselves and doubt that what we're doing for our kids, the way we are supporting them, the way we are adapting, lowering expectations, or anything. But if we doubt, if we're not confident in what we're doing, it makes it really hard. And it makes it that we cannot be regulated and calm because we get into fear. And when we get into fear, we're not regulated or calm at all. We are in fear based response, and we will not be reacting in a way that best support our kids. When we feel judged, for example, we need to be very confident in our position to be able to keep that position and react the right way.
So this is very key to stay calm. And dealing with judgment is another one. I just addressed it. Being able to support the judgment, being able to respond to judgment, and being able to just put judgment aside and forget about it, and dealing with our own judgment ourselves In the same way as the confident part, when we judge ourselves, we're not in a regulated we cannot be in a regulated state. And the last key, is support. We need to be supported by people who understand, by people who believe us, by people who who've lived it or who are there or experiencing it. They understand. They they know what we're going through.
This is very important because it will support everything else. It will make things so much easier, or it can make things harder if we don't have the right kind of support. So those are the key things that help us take on. There's, of course, all kinds of sub sub things, sub subjects, anyway, that, will be part of it. But, coregulation or regulation, understanding and supporting the kids' needs, not escalating, practice in mind mindfulness, feeling confident, dealing with judgment, and getting supported are the key ones that are basically related to everything else that we will be talking about. I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids. To get the episodes at Soon as Day Drop, make sure to subscribe to the Also, check out all the free resources on my website at familymoments. Ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now.
And take a deep breath. Keep going. We're all in this together.
Resources mentioned on the podcast
Resources mentioned
All the episodes about Regulation for kids and parents. You can check back often, more will be added.