Under Stress, You’ll Regress

We all want to be more conscious in our parenting and yet during times of stress we can end up regressing into old behaviors of blaming and complaining about our children.

In my parenting when this happened I would beat myself up since I knew better. And yet the harder I was on myself the more I acted out.

I had to find another way and I did.

First, I opened the door to unconditional kindness. Now, this is very different from conditional kindness.

My definition of conditional kindness was“be nice” and I definitely wasn’t very nice when I was under stress.

Unconditional kindness looked like offering kindness to the feelings that were driving my behavior.

Instead of trying over and over to “be nice” and failing I took myself to my SafeSeat when I acted out and listened to the one who desperately needed to be seen and heard.

This “younger” self always had a BIG feeling story to tell.

Creating a space where kindness was present to those BIG feelings opened my heart in a profound way.

I didn’t actually know what true love felt like. I’d learned early to purchase love by rejecting and abandoning myself and doing my best to act “nice”.

Under stress my “mean” came out and over time I learned to offer her unconditional love without guilt and shame.

Listen into my podcast Ep 28 “Under Stress You’ll Regress” to learn how to offer unconditional kindness to your child when they regress.

Listen to podcast Ep. 28 “Under Stress, You’ll Regress”