How To: Respond to Your Kid's Tantrum Without Throwing Your Own

How To: Tips for Living (Guest Expert Edition)

I am so excited to introduce to you a friend and colleague of Mine, Andrea Andree. Andrea empowers moms to stop living based on others’ expectations, and live life fearlessly, joyfully, and purposefully, on their terms. You can find her on her website AndreaAndree.com and Facebook: Empowered.Moms.Club

Here’s a super helpful “How To” that I wish I had when I was raising my kids ;-)

How to Respond to Your Kid's Tantrum Without Throwing Your Own

“Maybe you see that glint in their eye and have a moment or two's notice, or maybe you are completely taken by surprise. Either way, here is a trick for learning how to compassionately respond to their emotions without getting sucked into your own. 1. When you feel ready to yell or otherwise react, take a pause. Then follow your breath down into your abdominal area. Your kid is expressing big emotions, and you are getting reactive because they activated some old, big emotions in you. 2. If you feel discomfort, that's an old emotion within you that was stirred up. Allow yourself to feel it. Imagine it expanding bigger and swirling down and out of your body, like a toilet flush. It won't feel great at first - after all, we've been taught to suppress our painful emotions. But if you allow yourself to feel it with the intent of releasing it, the feeling will pass in 60-90 seconds. 3. Send breath to your heart space, and ask your heart for guidance on what your kid needs right now. Maybe they're tired, hungry, or over-stimulated. They express their big emotions not because they're naughty, but because they don't have the words to describe what they're feeling. It's our job as moms to lovingly guide and support them in their needs, but we can't do that when we have our own reactivity running the show.”