What do you notice about yourself when you are caught in a stressful situation?

Our brains are designed to respond to pressurising situations in a fight, flight, freeze or shut-down manner. This is biologically normal as it serves to protect us. However, this also means that you could be reacting to your child ignoring your instructions the same way you would be reacting to a bear chasing you.

A reaction is emotionally charged. It is driven by feelings and it comes from a place to make you feel better; be it a defensive reaction to protect yourself or a steam-releasing behaviour to lessen the pressure you are having internally. Your reaction to stressful situations can be scary to your child. Also, it's modelling how grown-ups manage stress to which your child may very likely use the same method. If you tend to yell, they will also tend to yell when things get escalated.

A response is a conscious effort to behave with an objective in mind- often, the objective is an outcome you have thought about achieving in that situation. Emotions are not the driver when you respond, your thoughts are.

Responding is not easy but it can be done. It typically looks like this: something happens, you pause, you check your own feelings, you think about what you want to achieve (help your child to regulate his/her emotions, teach problem-solving skills, help him/her learn from something, etc.), you think of a way to proceed in the direction of an objective in mind.

Some examples of how you could be responding instead of reacting:

Reacting: "How many times have I told you to put the dirty laundry in the basket? Why won't you just listen to me?"
Responding: "It seems like there are difficulties putting the dirty laundry in the basket. Could you help in creating a solution for this? or How do you think we could resolve this?"

Reacting: "What is wrong with you?! Stop crying!"
Responding: "We are both frustrated right now, let's stop talking and take 5 minutes to cool down."

Sometimes it can be challenging to choose responding instead of reacting to your child because of stressors from other sources such as work, finances or marriage. Be aware of these layering feelings and make a conscious effort to respond as best as you can. Remember to breathe and take as much time as you need before attending to the situation.