What to do when you lose your cool with your kids? Psychologist shares tips

Parenting is beautiful and tricky at the same time. Watching our children grow up into beautiful beings is a pleasure for every parent. But it can also get challenging. Being parents means knowing that we need to teach the right things to our children, all the while wanting the best for them to happen. However, during parenting, often such situations prop up where parents seem to lose their cool with their children. It is natural and humane. While it is important to be patient with the kids, it is also normal for parents to start feeling angry on repeated behavior or when children refuse to listen. “Oftentimes, we lose it because we're repeating our directions over and over again or unsure what to do or say when our child refuses to listen,” read an excerpt of Dr Jazmine McCoy, psychologist, as she addressed the issue.

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Jazmine further shared a few tips and tricks on what to do when parents start to lose their cool with their children:

Stop and breathe: One of the most productive things to do when we start feeling angry is to stop and breathe and tell something positive to ourselves. The way we talk to ourselves in our head impacts our behavior and mood as well.

See the child’s perspective: In most situations, we start to lose cool because we see the situation from our perspective. But if we step back and try to understand the child’s perspective, we will get better understanding and will know how to handle the situation.

Apologise: In case we lose cool, we must take responsibility for the same and offer our apologies. This ensures healthy parenting.

Process what happened: Post the situation, it is important to come back to it and address it with your child. Understand how they felt and try to understand their emotions.

Handle things differently: It always works to plan with your child how to handle such situations differently and in a healthier manner in the future.

Forgive yourself: When we lose our cool with our kids, we often feel the surge of guilt. While it is natural, we should learn to forgive ourselves and try to handle things better in the future.