by TRISH WILKINSON
Coauthor Brain Stages: How to Raise Smart, Confident Kids and Have Fun Doing It
Sometimes, while raising kids, we neglect ourselves, which can cause serious problems. I know. Like so many things on my parenting journey, I learned this the hard way.
When our older daughter was in second grade and our younger daughter was in kindergarten, I taught first grade. Since I don’t know how to teach within contract hours, our girls spent long days with me at school.
On the bright side, their friends would often stay after school and play with my girls. We’d eat cut veggies and peanut butter filled pretzels for snacks.
After some downtime to pretend in the classroom, they’d all do their homework together. If they got stuck, they’d ask me for help, but between the girls and their friends figuring out their assignments together, that didn’t happen often.
Sounds great, right?
Until the top blew off the pressure cooker that was me.
The problem was that I never took downtime. I gathered materials for the next day, worked on lesson plans, corrected assessments, put cool projects together for my students, fulfilled my duties as a staff member at the school, and on and on.
Outside of school, there was grocery shopping, laundry, and herding cats in the tasks of setting the table and cleaning up after dinner. (Thank God for my husband’s culinary skills—I seldom had to cook dinner.) Then there was breakfast, making lunches, and getting everyone ready to get out the door in the mornings. (Sound familiar?)
One afternoon, when my husband was out of town on business, and I was even more overloaded than usual, our older daughter and I got into it.
She knew exactly how to push my buttons. I became temporarily insane and caused an adverse childhood experience or ACE for our older daughter that affected her for YEARS.
My attitude that she “pushed my buttons” should have tipped me off that I had a problem that I needed to deal with.
Except, like many of us when we have struggles with others, I thought of her as “difficult”. If she wasn’t so sensitive and volatile, we would get along just fine.
But my difficulties with her had far more to do with my past. Though I had lovely parents, they weren’t perfect, the way none of us are.
While I was growing up, my parents, and thus my three siblings as well, joked that I was “scatterbrained.” They made fun of me for forgetting things and having trouble staying focused or organized. Though I did well in school, I grew up thinking I was stupid.
It turns out, I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). My brain literally functions differently than a “normal” brain—which seems to feed my creativity too. I discovered this while reading everything I could get my hands on to figure out how to deal better with our daughter after that fateful day. Like her, I had EVERY symptom for ADHD on the lists I read from the experts.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as it became clear that I wasn’t stupid after all.
Never mind my near straight As through college, or that parents routinely requested for their children to be in my class, and lots of other accomplishments. How my parents, and thus my siblings, treated me had a huge influence on my self-image.
As a result of that discovery, I embarked on a journey to learn about ADHD—to help our daughter and, eventually, to re-create my own life.
Today we use the way our brains work to our advantage.
But on that terrible day, we didn’t know what we know now.
Helping her to get organized when she was little felt like torture since I had trouble keeping my own ducks in a row.
That fateful day, I was trying to help her clean up the colossal array of toys and clothes strewn across her room, to find and sort her school papers to go into her backpack for the next day.
“You’re stupid!” she screamed at me. “You don’t even know what you’re doing! Get out of my room!”
BUTTONS PUSHED.
I tried to keep my cool. At least that’s what I told myself. But it wasn’t the case.
I’d felt disrespected and undervalued my whole life. When my daughter spoke to me that way, rather than helping her sort out her feelings so she would be capable of a sincere apology—especially since kids with ADHD are about 3 years behind socially, so it was like an outburst from a four-year-old—I saw RED.
“You can’t talk to adults that way! Period,” I yelled. “That’s a safety and danger issue. Talking to an adult that way could get you into a LOT of trouble. If you talk to me that way again, I’ll have to spank you.”
What a load of crap.
I invoked our “safety and danger” rule. Spanking was only supposed to happen in life or death circumstances. The last time it had happened, she was two, and I couldn’t get her to stop running into the middle of the street and taking off in parking lots. We’d had a couple of near misses, but no amount of reasoning worked to get her to hold my hand in parking lots or on sidewalks.
Finally, I smacked her on the butt to prevent her from becoming roadkill, and from then on, she would run across the front yard, and stop short at the curb.
She was immature due to ADHD—and gifted. Not an easy combination. She was smart and often right in her arguments, and super stubborn about accepting when she was wrong.
Unlike her running in front of cars, her disrespectful behavior was not life-and-death. But when she yelled, “Go away!” I lost it.
Worse, when I tried to spank her, feeling righteous because I had warned her of the consequence if she mouthed off again, she jumped onto the floor so I couldn’t reach her backside.
And I kicked her instead.
A good-sized red spot appeared on her back, and a bruise followed later.
Wow. It’s hard to believe I did such a thing and hurts SO much to admit it now, publicly, but I’m hoping you’ll learn from my mistake and try out the “5 Ways to Take Care of Yourself so You Can Raise Healthier Kids” listed below.
Of course, I apologized, but the damage was done.
It took a long time and many heart-to-heart talks for her to trust me again. I’d think she was over that horrible experience because we’d have lots of fun in between times. Then something would happen where it would become apparent that we had more to work through to get past it.
If I could RE-DO one thing on my entire parenting journey, I would have done what was necessary for self-care instead of making myself the last priority. If I had done that, our daughter never would have suffered through that experience.
The good thing that came out of it was I realized that I had to take a hard look at why she pushed my buttons so intensely. I read books are articles, talked to friends and professionals. I learned how to manage my ADHD, redirect my thinking, and better communicate with our daughter. I started running in the early mornings to burn off stress. I got back to praying after a long hiatus from anything spiritual. In the end, I became calmer and capable of solving problems rather than escalating them.
If you’ve ever been on an airplane, you’ve heard the flight attendant say in an emergency you need to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others, right?
FYI, our older daughter and I are close now. I love her to pieces, and she has become an amazing adult. She’s socially conscious, has a clear sense of empathy, is spiritual, has healthy relationships with friends, and she’s a crackerjack software engineer.
If you’re reading this post, my hope is that you will do the 5 things below before you make a mistake you’ll regret for a long time—like I did. Or maybe you’re already on shaky ground with family dynamics at home. In that case, this post came just in time.
5 WAYS TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF SO YOU CAN RAISE HEALTHIER KIDS
- Identify the thing (or things) your child or children do that “push your buttons” (we all have them).
Once you can identify what really gets under your skin—the thing that triggers a flash of anger, catches your breath, or clenches your fists, you can take steps to figure out the reason that thing they do causes you to react that way.
- Do some soul searching to pinpoint why this thing (or things) affect you.
Next time you’re in the shower or in the car on your way to work, let your mind wander over your past with the intention of discovering the why behind when your buttons get pushed.
Everybody has a story—events in our lives where we make decisions about ourselves, real or imagined.
For example, my family never called me “stupid.” I made that decision because of their teasing.
The trouble is that kids younger than 11 or 12 don’t process teasing or sarcasm well—even when people think it’s good-natured.
Little kids’ brains interpret what they hear and see in concrete terms. In this example, if you call children “scatterbrained,” or tease them when they’re forgetful, they’re likely to get more confused and disorganized, and come to believe they aren’t smart.
Think about it—how many of us truly enjoy being teased anyway—unless in a special circumstance?
What experiences stand out where you made a decision about yourself that may be triggering your buttons to be pushed when dealing with your kids?
- Talk about the experience(s) behind your “buttons” with someone you trust to clarify them in your head.
Have a conversation with a trusted, wise friend or a professional to form a clear picture of the event(s) behind what triggers stress, frustration, or anger for you.
For example, you might discuss what happened in your experience that causes you to yell at your kids instead of engaging the upper, thinking parts of their brains with questions to enlist them in finding solutions.
- Visualize what you want to change, and take steps to reprogram your brain.
The great thing about our brains is they’re what scientists call “plastic.”
Technology and many experiments have proven that we have the power to change our thoughts, actions, and attitudes. In doing so, we can actually change how our brains function.
I’m not saying if take medication for anxiety, you should stop taking it. Keep taking your meds.
I’m saying that if you tell yourself something daily, consistently, and spend a few minutes visualizing where you want to be, researchers have proven that this is effective for changing aspects of your life over time.
Anyone who says “That’s just the way I am” doesn’t understand what they’re giving up.
Re-creating our mindset takes consistency, varying amounts of time for different people, and some may need help from a professional, but the point is—we can do it!
- Include intentional actions in your routine to relieve your stress and improve your mood.
Experiment to find things that relax you, and incorporate them into your routine.
Things you might try are adding prayer to your visualization, physical exercise, yoga, nightly or morning reading, a little journaling, and being intentional about when you get to bed.
Getting enough sleep usually makes a huge difference in how we feel.
You may think you don’t have time to do things for yourself, but everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, and this is essential for both you and your family.
Taking care of yourself saves time—and heartache.
Otherwise, whether you know it or not, the tension you feel passes to your kids and alters your household.
In Brain Stages, there are parenting scenarios in each chapter—examples of “harried”, “helicopter” and “angel” parents. We may see ourselves in all three categories at different times, but if you do these five things, you’ll have the bandwidth be intentional about how you communicate with your kids to create a nurturing environment.
What do you do to nurture your mind and recharge so you have the bandwidth to raise happy kids? We’d love to hear from you!
Halcyon Books just released Little Secret, Big Change: The Only Strategy You Need to Create a Healthy Relationship With Your Child by Nancy DeMaria, MPH about this very subject.
Check it out. I highly recommend it!
Here’s to parents taking care of themselves!
Best wishes on your parenting journey,