Kim Anderson: How to Stay Calm When Your Kids Won't

I recently had the opportunity to host a "Webinar" with my counselor/therapist KIM ANDERSON with Elevate Moms.

We are all trying to figure out motherhood. Kim is now an empty nester in the Nashville area and Elevate Moms attempts to support women with group coaching.

We are often dysregulated. And our kids are getting dysregulated as well. What do we do with that dysregulation? How do we stop it? And how do we stop it from eeeeking it out onto our kiddos?

We are in a new generation of children. The smartphone has, truly, thrown-up all over all of us. Kim recommend a book entitled: Anxious Generation as we combat statistics like:

• Clinical depression levels among 12-17 years old doubled between 2011 and 2019. 
• Anxiety rates indicate 1 in 4 children struggle with anxiety.

As moms we feel non-enough-ness, shame ... and Kim is going to share TWO big tools that can help us as moms. 

Tool #1: WINDOW OF TOLERANCE

When we are in our "Window of Tolerance", we are regulated. We can live out the fruits of the spirit and stay kind and give feedback kindly. Wouldn't it be great if we could live there all the time?

Unfortunately, when we get dysregulated, we end up OUT of our Window. You are always in one of the following three places:

HYPERAROUSAL 7-10 (angry, irritable, blaming, yelling)

WINDOW OF TOLERANCE 4-6 THE IDEAL PLACE THAT WE WANT TO BE!

HYPOAROUSAL 1-3 (feeling empty or numb, detached, just scrolling or zoning out)

Our goal is to WIDEN our "Window of Tolerance." Unfortunately, when we've experienced trauma in our past, our WOT gets much smaller due to all the things that we have had to store in our bodies over the years. We want to be able to handle hard things and not get triggered as easily. 

Our Amygdalia is always scanning for threats, however. It is trying to keep us safe. 

Why does all this matter? Because if we are dysregulated, our kids are dysregulated! If we are out of our WOT, then our kids are out of their WOT. When kids are born, all they can do is cry. Our job as parents is to hold them and soothe them and rock them and to give them our calm. Our job is to give them our regulation. Our children pick up on our dysregulation and can actually cause them more dysregulation.

From "Cradle to Grave" we, as parents, set the tone for our child's nervous system. This is a lot of pressure (although we only have to get it right 33% of the time! More on that in a minute!)

Imagine your daughter Sara goes to school and is always with her BFF Kaitlin. But when you pick her up from school one particular day, you can see she is upset. When you pick up your little cub and see that she is sad, you find yourself immediately feeling out of your WOT. You see she is upset and you want to talk about it because YOU want to get into your WOT. But you have to wait for her to be ready to talk about it. She tells you that her BFF has left her and is hanging out with other people, and she had to eat her lunch in the bathroom, and her BFF is going to a sleepover and your daughter is not invited. 

When we are a regulated parent, we handle it something like this. "Honey, I am so sorry. That is so difficult when you feel alone. Hey, let's go grab dinner and watch a show and just hang out with the two of us." You are showing up and helping her be regulated through your regulation. What you want to do is call Kaitlin's mom and chew her out. But your child needs your regulation to regulate herself. 

Our children should never have to manage our emotions for us. Our kids aren't supposed to be carrying the weight of our pain and our hurt and our anger. Now, here is the good news. We only have to get it right about 33% of the time. You can mess things up 70% of the time. This is based on many different research sources. 

Part of the reason we get out of our WOT is because we put this pressure on ourselves that we have to be perfect parents and get it just right. With the grace of Jesus and the fact that we get to be humans, we do get to mess it up. 

The magical thing that makes this okay is REPAIR. We are modeling for our kids what restoration looks like. You are the perfect imperfect parent for your child. We can apologize and share about Jesus' forgiveness when we do get out of our WOT. 

Here are some great ways to get regulated:

• Breathing (Triangle breathing is inhaling for 4 seconds, holding 4 seconds, and breathing out for 8 seconds.) The exhaling really gets us regulated. If your child hangs out in hyporegulation, then you want to reverse it and inhale for 8 seconds, hold for 4, and let it out for 4. 
• Laughter (Watch some comedy)
• Music (Use the opposite type of music for your mood)
• Reaching out
• Taking a bath
• Butterfly tapping (Crossing your arms over your chest and tapping uses both sides of your brain)
• Reading a book
• Exercising  
• Journaling
• Going for a drive
• Changing scenery 

It takes TWENTY minutes for the body to reset. However, most of us want to solve the problems within those twenty minutes. Somewhere along the way we learned that we had to handle it in that moment. Buy time! Give yourself twenty minutes to calm down. 

With older kids and younger kids, you'll have to do different things to buy yourself those twenty minutes. 

Here are our goals:

• What are your triggers? 
• What are things that push you out of your WOT? 
• What are signs that you are in the WOT?
• What are signs that you are hyperaroused? Hypoaroused?
• We want to be able to identify which window we are in. 
• Use S.O.S. (Stop. Observe. Shift.) Stop what you are doing. Observe what is going on. And Shift behavior to change what is happening. 
• Take the twenty minutes to get regulated. (There is only a 6% chance of handling conflict well when we are out of our WOT.) 
• Try to parent when you are IN your WOT. If you aren't in your WOT, buy time!
• Pay attention to the "Shark Music" that is playing in the background -- this is the tune that you here all the time when things are going badly: your shame narrative. 
• When you make mistakes, REPAIR with your spouse or your children. 
• Technology really aids in our dysregulation! Use the attached guide for more about handling that in your family.
  

Our femur bones don't get strengthened if we only swim or cycle. You actually need that pressure and impact to make the bones stronger. You need ruptures and impact to heal. You need to go back and repair. 

It is NEVER too late to repair. If you have wounds with your own parents, if they were willing to repair NOW -- even though you are an adult -- it would be incredibly healing. It doesn't have to be fancy or elaborate. It is just acknowledging your mistakes. 

You also need to have consequences when your child breaks a family rule. For example, when you say "We are taking 20" and they refuse, there needs to be a consequence. (1) What is your vision for your family? (2) What are our family values? (3) What rules do we need to have in our home that protect these values?

Without a consequence, there is no boundary. It is just a preference. 

We parent based on our mood and energy level and that creates anxiety in our kids. When they go to school, the rules are posted on the wall, and they are very clear. We want to run our homes like that. We create structure and safety and rhythm and routine when we do that.