When our kids are whining, begging, fighting, or escalating, every parent would like a magic wand to make it all stop. We may try rationalizing, accommodating, compromising, giving in, or even running away, but these are not very effective in the long run. We want it to stop and we want it to stop now. But what we often forget is that we have the simplest parenting tool in our toolbox at the ready any time we need it: The Pause.
What is the pause
Using the pause as a parenting tool is exactly what it sounds like. It is you doing nothing for an intentional moment. You simply notice that your body is activated and longing for a quick fix. Then you choose to do nothing but be present and assess your options.
Clearly, if safety is an issue, you don’t have this luxury and will need to intervene asap to keep everyone safe. But even in that situation, you can still implement the pause. After you have stepped in to keep everyone safe, you can use the pause to decide what to do next.
Sound bite parenting advice online has given a lot of parents the sense that they need to have the perfect response to every situation at their fingertips. Reels and posts showing influencers responding to a simulated parenting situation are not realistic. These are not in real time and the content creator had time to think and spend time coming up with the perfect one-liner that seems to make all the difference. Life is not like that. It is messy and unpredictable.
The pause is your friend. It helps you be intentional, purposeful and clear with your child. It gives you the space to evaluate your options and come up with a plan. That pause can be as long as you need it to be. As a good friend used to say to her kids, “If you need an answer right now, the answer will be no.” The urgency is often coming from your children. Don’t take that upon yourself. If it’s not an emergency remind yourself of that fact. You can say, “This isn’t an emergency. I have time to make an informed response.”
How to use the Pause
Here are some guidelines for using the pause skill in your parenting.
Say “hi” to the rising sense of urgency within you
This can be a simple as saying to yourself, “Ah, there’s that alarm going off inside of me again.” Or “This is uncomfortable.” Notice where you feel the tension rising in your body and place a hand on it and give it permission to be there.
Acknowledge that this sense of panic is connected to something you deeply care about
You feel the way you do in these moments because you want to be a good parent and you love your kids. Underneath pain and struggle is often something we care about. You could try saying to yourself, “This is uncomfortable because I really want to be a good parent.”
Take a breath
Simply stop and close your eyes and take a slow, steady breath. Then, even more slowly, exhale. Here are some other things you can do during your pause:
- Count backwards from 10
- Look down and wiggle your toes in your shoes
- Close your eyes and tap your hands alternatively on the sides of your legs
- Whisper, “Mommy needs a minute to think.”
Realize that your pause is not the intervention
The pause is creating the space you need to come up with a response. It is not the response. So that means that while you are wiggling your toes or taking a breath, your kids will STILL be engaged in the behaviors that precipitated this moment. You will need to intentionally attend to less activating stimuli in your environment – look out the window at the leaves on the tree, feel the fabric of your shirt on your skin, try to listen for other sounds in your environment.
Why the pause works
When we are in a stressful moment, our nervous system creates a stress response. Depending on your unique wiring, events from your childhood, trauma, or even cognitive rules about how kids should behave, your body will react to this perceived threat. What is the response to threat? Shut it down, get safe, fight, flee, freeze. None of these are helpful in non-emergent parenting situations.
The pause communicates to your sympathetic nervous system that you are safe. You are okay and it can stand down.
If you have a history of giving in to your child’s demands in escalating situation, your nervous system will need to undergo some rewiring that can take some time. You see, you have created pathway in your brain: giving in aborts the impending doom, creates a sense of safety within your system and you relax. Instant relief. It’s effective in the moment and it is because it is so effective, you will want to repeat this behavior in the future. Your child learns: If I have a really big reaction, or even threaten to do so, I get what I want. You learn, if I give in, the escalating feeling inside of me dissipates. You can see why so many parents struggle with this.
Be patient with yourself as you learn this new skill. It takes practice and sometimes the threat will be too much to resist responding with an old knee-jerk reaction. That is okay. Parenting is not about getting it right all the time. It’s about repairing the rifts when you don’t get it right. If you find that you reacted in a way that is not consistent with the type of parent you want to be, then own up to it. You can learn about how to apologize to kids here.
Give yourself grace and your kids will learn how to give themselves grace too.
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