Everyone’s motherhood has hard moments. Decluttering your house, setting up routines, building a village, and finding hobbies to recharge all help, but nothing can really detract from the mind-shattering trial of a three year-old’s tantrum. Ear-splitting screaming at six in the morning after a sleepless night can make even the calmest mama struggle (I hope – I’m not claiming to be the calmest mama, so this is just my assumption). There’s no real hack to avoid children pushing your buttons, ripping open old traumas, and finding all your dormant triggers – the best you can do is deal with them as they come.
My biggest challenge is anger. I have a temper. I can get very mad, very fast. It’s weird putting that out publicly on the internet, but here we are. I’m a screamer, yeller, stomper, and door-slammer by nature (or nurture? maybe I came by it honestly on the family tree). Regardless of how I ended up like this, I am trying really, really hard to not pass it down to my kiddos. I can’t will-power my way out of getting mad though, anger doesn’t work like that, so I had to find some tools to help.
After searching high and low on the internet, I ended up making a regulation station. It sits in my command center – a wall of our home across from my washer and dryer that holds our family calendar, challenge trackers, meal-planning, household inventory, and birthday board. The key is making it to there before I am fully worked up and seeing red.
Once in front of my station, I do three rounds of the tactile sticker breathing, then move on to my coping flower if necessary, then try to identify the underlying emotion. At this point, I’m usually much calmer. If I need extra help I’ll grab one of the following: fidget spinner, worry stone, or tangle toy if my emotions are in the guilt/fear/sadness spectrum, or cactus or knee-doh if in the anger spectrum. I rarely struggle with envy or disgust, so I don’t have tools specifically for those.
It’s not a prefect system, but it helps. If you’re struggling with anger as a mom, feel free to reach out, you’re not alone.
Disclaimer/Reality Check: This was pretty vulnerable to write about, but I think it’s important to face struggles and keep it real online. This column will be about motherhood, parenting, and homemaking for the most part. It may be about low-cost holiday magic, or how to decide which family traditions to let die (hint: any that don’t bring lasting net joy). Most importantly, I don’t ever want this column to make another mama think she’s not doing enough. If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are, you’re doing great, keep it up. Sing it with me: no-one is doing it allllll!
