When All Your Parenting Tools Go Out the Window
I was tense, there’s no doubt about it.
And drained. It had been a long day, filled with unexpected demands. My neck was as stiff as an old hinge on a gate that hasn’t been opened for 10 years.
Then my daughter said it.
It wasn’t a big deal but, in that moment, everything I knew about staying grounded went out the window.
My tools? Gone.
That deep breath? Forgotten.
That reconnecting my feet with the earth? Nowhere.
And then I reacted - assuming instead of listening, sniping instead of asking, throwing up a wall instead of connecting – just like I used to all those years ago.
Afterwards, I was so frustrated with myself.
In fact, that’s got to be one of the most frustrating feelings for mothers: when some occurrence or conversation triggers us and everything we know disappears out the window.
Poof. Out into the atmosphere...
It’s not like we don’t know what’s happening. Most of us are oh-so-familiar with the patterns of our reactions. We know the signs and we know how it plays out.
But then all your know- how vanishes, along with your self-soothing techniques. And instead, you snap, you say the thing you said you wouldn’t, you raise your voice and stop listening, you spin into a tornado or you just shut down.
In these tough moments, we tend to be hard on ourselves: “I know better than this. What’s wrong with me? How come I’m STILL not getting it?”
But this isn’t happening because of some failing on your part.
It’s because, when stress or threat is active in your body, the thinking part of your brain goes partially offline. And what takes over is the urge to protect yourself. On top of feeling activated, you feel the pressure to remember the right practice (the one that works so well on regular days) and hurry up and get yourself grounded again.
I know this doesn’t work. I know it from my own experiences with my kids, and from the moms I work with. I totally believe them when they say, “I know what to do, but I just can’t do it in the heat of the moment, when it matters most”.
So, if the difficulty isn’t a lack of tools, what is it?
You can see it if you trace backwards...
You’ve got tools.
And you need to get access to your tools.
And to be able to access your tools, you need to have an inner sense of safety.
And to feel that inner safety, you need to be able to stay present and attuned with yourself.
Attuned with yourself… that’s a practice, a way of being that you cultivate in yourself.
To be able to stay present when you’re triggered.
To stay ‘in’ when you feel like getting out of the tense experience.
To witness what’s actually happening in yourself without trying to fix it.
To be with yourself exactly as you are right then.
Dear mama, no grounding practice will serve you faithfully in tense moments with your teen/ young adult unless,
It’s properly scaled and titrated so that it doesn’t add more weight to an already-overwhelmed system.
It brings you back to the present moment, even when it’s uncomfortable.
It signals your body – your particular body – that you’re here, you’ve got time and you’re not alone.
This is part of what I do with the moms I guide. Because if you’re ever going to get free from your usual triggered reaction to your teenager’s behaviour – I mean truly past it – your ways of staying steady have to be really in you, not just understood in theory, but lived and embodied, part of who you are now.
Yes, this means remembering what to do. Not just cognitive remembering, but also body-remembering and remembering readily because it’s done the practice so many times. You’ve built muscle memory that serves you when it matters most.
It’s also about learning how to stay with yourself when your system is triggered, when everything you know is about to fly out the window and your old auto-pilot reaction is ready to do its thing (and get the same result with your young adult child).
Staying present and attuned with yourself and creating your own sense of safety aren’t capabilities you learn from a book, a quick-fix parenting script or a bot.
This is human development work, building your self-awareness and presence layer by layer.
It’s choosing personal development and honoring your soul’s evolution.
It’s intricate, awkward, sacred, messy and wonderful.
And, most of all, it’s about being right there, heart and soul, with your young adult child, shining your love onto their path as they find their way.
p.s. I'm deeply aware of how much extra pressure moms are feeling these days and, of course, I want to offer some relief. So, for the time being, I'm offering 30-minute spots in my calendar for you to release some of what you're holding inside.
Set it all down and exhale, fully exhale.
“This was more than a break, it was healing. You have such a serene, wise presence and you listened in a way I’d never experienced. I felt completely understood, and left so much lighter.” ~ Ashlee T, Arizona