How to Become a Calmer Parent
I sat down, ready to engage in Play-Doh cookie making with my four year old. The rain beat steadily on our living room window panes. “You’re doing it all wrong!” she whined. “Okay, show me how you’d like me to make the cookie,” I said. She had been out with Grandma all morning running errands and not slept well the night before because of allergies. Her irritability was mounting, and I tried to keep perspective. We began going back and forth, her trying to control my every Play-Doh making move with unkind instruction. “What has happened to my child?”, I wondered. I was frustrated and she was nearing aggression.
My daughter and I both have the trait of High Sensitivity (coined by Elaine Aron, psychologist and researcher). One piece of this trait means that we absorb the feelings of those around us. When I walk into a room, I can get a clear sense of how the person I’m interacting with is feeling, even if no words are being spoken. This can be a gift, as it often leads to an ability to empathize, but when I am drawn into the feelings of those around me, I can get stuck there. And if those feelings are negative, then we have a problem.
When my daughter starts to spiral downhill from an overstimulating morning, I can easily find myself riding the descent right along with her.
My solution? A psychological technique called “going Brain Dead.” I pause. I breathe. And I go through the steps below…
How to practice the “Brain Dead Technique”:
1. Recognize that things are escalating (Is your body tensing? Is your voice rising in pitch?).
2. Decide you want to restore the calm.
3. Stop. Breathe. Develop a “brain off” mantra in your mind. Mine usually goes like this “My brain is off. There is nothing you can say or do that will affect me.”
5. Stay silent for as long as possible while repeating this mantra in your mind. If you must speak, repeat the same response intermittently. My response is usually “I know.” Or “I see.”
6. Continue steps 4 and 5 until you recognize that the situation is no longer tense. You feel calm again. The person your are interacting with is calmer, kinder, and has moved on.
My daughter was almost to the point of throwing her Play-Doh across the room. And I wanted to do it right along with her. She was feeding off my growing anger and my responses were only overstimulating her more. I recognized it (I don’t always!). So I stopped. And went through the going brain dead technique. I said nothing for 10 minutes! My daughter sat and played by my side, talking the entire time. And I observed as her angry tone changed back to her happy, playful self. And I was calm again by then too. “Mom,” she asked, emerging from her monologue, “Want to build the biggest Oreo ever?” “Okay!” I responded, smiling. The calm had returned.