Four Ways for Parents to Manage Their Emotions

When toddlers melt down and teens snap back, it’s natural for us to have emotions. Some parents feel overwhelmed or out of control. Others try to push their emotions away. Emotions, after all, can be quite painful.

Whether it’s joy, fear, rage, or anxiety, emotions affect parents every day. How we manage our emotions influences our children’s ability to do the same.

Parents who honor their emotions model self-awareness and self-regulation for their kids. It’s a skill set that makes our emotional lives flourish. Children who can navigate tough feelings are more likely to become resilient, self-confident, and optimistic, even when struggles emerge.

Managing our emotions, however, isn’t always easy. Nearly every parent loses their patience, especially when kids don’t listen, talk back, or continually melt down. And in a world filled with strife, anxiety can fuel rumination and stress, leaving us sick with worry.

While we cannot turn off our emotions or will them away, there are tools we can use to work with them. Understanding the mechanics behind our emotions is like looking under the hood of a car. Once you know how each part works, it’s easier to make things run smoothly. Here are four practical ways to manage your emotions, so you can help your kids do the same.

Practice noticing your body

Contrary to what society often tells us, we can’t “outsmart” our emotions with logic. Like thirst and hunger, emotions begin in the body. If you’re deep in the parenting grind, these emotional experiences may ring true:

I can’t stop worrying about my child getting hurt. Worry and rumination, especially about our children’s safety, are thoughts that manifest from the anxiety in our body. Anxiety’s job is to help us ward off potential danger. It’s an emotion that can make our hearts race and our stomachs feel upset. Anxiety also makes our shoulders feel tense and hijacks our ability to think clearly.

Parenting is so stressful, it makes me lose my cool. Anger is a turbo-charged emotion with impulses that make us want to yell or fight back. It’s an emotion that helps us assert ourselves. Physically, anger makes our jaw feel tense and our temperature rise.

I feel guilty whenever I put my needs above my child’s. Guilt is a self-conscious emotion that prevents us from hurting others, including our children. However, as parents, we often feel guilty when we’ve done nothing wrong. We feel guilty for choosing self-care over playing with our kids. And we feel guilty for not being the “perfect” parent who never makes a mistake. Guilt gives us a bad feeling inside and causes fatigue.

Simply noticing how your emotions show up in your body is the first step to working with them. One helpful tip is to check in below the neck. Imagine you’re an emotional detective, and notice the sensations that arise.

Get to know your emotions

Emotions are brilliant messengers that tell us what we need and what is good for us. We need them to maintain relationships, navigate tough circumstances, and survive.

Some emotions, such as guilt, anxiety, and shame, are called “inhibitory emotions.” Inhibitory emotions protect us and others from our “core emotions,” such as sadness, anger, fear, disgust, joy, and excitement. For example, maybe your teen sometimes offends you, and you feel guilty. Or you constantly feel anxious around your mother, who always criticizes your parenting. In both cases, guilt and anxiety block access to the core emotion of anger.

Core emotions are pre-wired in the brain to help us survive. They prompt us to take actions that benefit us. Anger helps us stand up for ourselves, while sadness helps us mourn. Fear prompts us to avert danger, while disgust prevents us from ingesting things that can poison or harm us. Positive emotions, such as joy and excitement, can help us celebrate big wins.

Work the Change Triangle

Growing up, if our emotions are repeatedly rebuffed, shamed, or neglected, we learn to block and suppress them, even as adults.

As parents, we may beat ourselves up for making a mistake, shut down when we’re angry, or drink too much when stress reaches a fever pitch. These behaviors are defenses that protect us from unbearable feelings.

With the parents we work with, we provide an emotional health tool for parenting called “The Change Triangle.” Initially developed by David Malan for psychotherapists, I (Hilary) adapted it from the academic literature to teach the general public about emotions. This tool guides you from your defenses and inhibitory emotions to experience your core emotions.

During any tough moment, you can locate your emotional state on the Change Triangle. Anxiety, guilt, and shame are inhibitory emotions. Additional defenses include eating or drinking too much, trying to control our kids, or spending too much time on social media.

For example, imagine that you feel guilty whenever you can’t fix your child’s problems or make their pain go away. Guilt is an inhibitory emotion on the Change Triangle. Remember that inhibitory emotions block core emotions.

We can identify our core emotions by scanning the body from head to toe and noticing the physical sensations that arise. Heaviness in the heart is a sign of sadness, while an impulse to run points toward fear. Excitement and joy make us feel larger than life. Anger makes our blood boil and comes with an impulse to yell, while disgust makes our stomach churn.

Once you identify your core emotion, remember to name it. Naming our emotions helps dial down distress. Psychologists call this “emotional granularity.” Research shows this small act helps regulate our emotions and improves our overall well-being. Naming our emotions also calms the limbic system in the brain, helping the body relax.

The next time you feel sad, angry, guilty, or experience any other emotion, pause, name, and validate your emotion.

Once you know how you feel, you’re in a better position to use that information to identify its cause, calm your body, and problem-solve.

Exercise self-reflection

Self-reflection helps us better understand our emotions and identify their root cause. When distress arises, try to answer these questions: “What is bringing up this emotion right now?” and “Is this emotion somehow related to my own childhood?” “If so, how?”
We call these types of questions “self-awareness stretches,” and they foster introspection about our emotional lives.

We learn how to parent from the way we were raised, and, without awareness, old patterns repeat. For example, if our parents shamed us whenever we made a mistake, we may do the same to our kids. Or if conflict was always avoided, we may steer clear of tough conversations, even when concerns need to be addressed.

Even when old childhood wounds and traumas show up in the present, there’s always hope for change and relief. Learning to name, validate, and work through our emotions forms new neural pathways in the brain, a process called neuroplasticity.

Whenever we face stressful parenting moments, we can navigate our emotions by bringing awareness to our bodies, naming and validating our feelings, working through the Change Triangle, and using self-reflection to guide us.

Each of these tools helps us manage our feelings skillfully. In a more regulated state, we remain connected with our kids and model what it means to emotionally thrive.