047 - Stay Calm: 7 key elements

Parenting the Intensity · Jun 25, 2024

Transcript

Welcome to the podcast! We are starting a series of episodes about regulation and co -regulation and dysregulation, all the ways to stay calm basically. And I wanted to start by just addressing the different key points, different key topics of how to stay calm and then we'll go deeper in each of them in different episode.

Welcome to Parenting the Intensity, where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together we'll find solutions and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are, deep down, you know what you need. But you need a little encouragement to keep going on harder days, and permission to do things differently, and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kids. Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed and uncertain when it comes to parenting your emotionally intense child? Do you often find yourself playing with guilt, fearing that you're not doing enough to help them navigate their intense emotion? You are not alone. Many parents face these challenges and struggle to find the right path forward. But take a deep breath, there's hope. That's why I created the Parenting the Intensity community. Imagine having a clear roadmap tailored specifically to your child's unique needs and your family's reality. Picture feeling empowered and confident in your parenting, knowing that you are providing the support and understanding your child needs. It may seem like an unattainable dream right now, but I'm here to tell you that it is within reach. Come and join us for our monthly group support to connect with other

parents and get supported with your challenge right now. You also get one -on -one chat and audio office hours for the things that you're really not ready to share in the group, and workshop tools, courses, to help you in the process of finding that balance of parenting in a way that works for you, your child, and your family. Because it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, there's so many things to think about, so many things to consider when we're talking about staying calm or helping our kids stay calm. I wanted to start with a list. So a list of all the different things that needs to be addressed and that needs to be considered in how we stay calm and how kids can stay calm. And I would say the first one is core regulation and I've already talked about that in a episode, I'm going to link it. And I'm going to try and come back and link the future episodes

on the different topics too. Try to remember to do that. But regulation and co -regulation. And co -regulation is really the fact that we need to stay calm ourselves to help others calm down. And by supporting them in the way they are, but also just being calm next to someone who is not is helping them to calm down. So this is one key, very, very key point. And for that reason, it's the most important step is for us to stay calm if we want to help our kids calm down. Yes, we can teach them lots of techniques and things and tricks and to calm down. But the most important one is to first stay calm ourselves. And I know how hard that is, but it still is the first step. And as I said, this is just an introduction of the different things. We will go deeper in all of them in later episodes. Another key is to understand and support our kids needs. And different and that can look different. And really, each kids have their own needs and their own struggle and their own strength. And for that reason, we really need to play detective, I always say that, and support the kids for what they really need. And this is very key, because no two emotionally intense kids, no two kids for that matter, needs the same things to thrive and to feel good. So understanding what they really need is really important. The other one, and we already addressed it, is to not escalate when things are getting hard, when they are very reacting intensely, not escalating. And it's directly related to car regulation, is that we are not putting oil on the fire. We are able to stay calm, and by staying calm and not escalating, we are keeping the line of communication open with them and we are allowing for a deeper and more positive relationship. The way to stay calm and not escalate is to practice mindfulness. This is key.

It's not all any kind of self -care that we need to do. it's something that helps us regulate our nervous system so that we can stay calm even when things are hard so we will go deeper into that but it can look a lot of different ways the most obvious are like meditation but going out to nature, yoga, sports, knitting, gardening, photography, that's mine my favorite one there is there is so many like any kind of crafts anything that grounds us that help us most of the time like be present in the moment that's that's mindfulness it's being present in that moment most of those like all those things would help us regulate our nervous system so we will definitely go deeper in many of them over the next episodes and there was already some in the previous episodes

Another key to be able to stay calm is to feel confident. Again, I'll go deeper into that because that's one of my favorite topics. But when we doubt ourselves and doubt that what we're doing for our kids, the way we are supporting them, the way we are adapting, lowering expectations or anything. If we doubt, if we're not confident in what we're doing, it makes it really hard and it makes it that we cannot be regulated and calm because we get into fear. And when we get into fear, we're not regulated or calm at all. We are in fear -based response and we will not be reacting in the way that best support our kids. Because when we feel judged, for example, we need to be very confident in our position to be able to keep that position and react the right way. So this is very key to stay calm. And dealing with judgment is another one. I just addressed it. Being able to support the judgment, being able to respond to judgment, and being able to just put judgment aside and forget about it and dealing with our own judgment ourselves in the same way as the confident part, when we judge ourselves, we're not in a regulated, we cannot be in a regulated state.

And the last key is support. We need to be supported by people who understand, by people who believe us, by people who've lived it, we're we're experiencing it, they understand, they know what we're going through. This is very important because it will support everything else, it will make things so much easier or it can make things harder if we don't have the right kind of support. So those are the key things that help us stay calm. There's of course all kinds of sub sub -things, sub -subjects anyway that will be part of it. But co -regulation or regulation, understanding and supporting the kids needs, not escalating, practice and mindfulness, feeling confident, dealing with judgment and getting supported are the key ones that are basically related to everything else that we'll be talking about. I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids. To get the episodes as soon as they drop, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and please leave everything in review so other parents can find it too. Also check out all the free resources on my website at familymoments .ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now. And take a deep breath, keep going, we're all in this together. you