What To Do When Your Child Triggers Your Anger

When your child pushes your buttons, it can be hard to stay calm and in control. This talk explores where parenting triggers really come from, why children push on them, and how your own nervous system shapes the intensity of a conflict. Sabrina Ragan, child psychologist and certified play therapist, walks through practical ways to recognize your triggers, regulate yourself in the moment, and repair with your child afterward - turning conflict into an opportunity for growth and deeper connection, rather than something to fear or avoid.

Transcript

When your child knows your triggers, It is so important to stay calm and in control. But how do you do this? First, It's really, Really important to recognize your own triggers. Our emotional responses can be so complex. They can come from past traumas, Met needs, Whether they were unmet needs from the past or day-to-day unmet needs, And they can even come from day-to-day experiences. For example, Being overwhelmed at work, Having too many things going on as a parent, Conflict with something else and then your child has a need and that emotional response is diverted towards them. Knowing where your triggers are coming from, Being able to trace it back to its origin allows you to figure out how you can change, How you can grow and how you can respond differently to it in the future. Number two, Recognizing that it's actually not manipulation on your child's part to know your triggers and push on them, But it's communication and what's going on internally for them. Your child isn't trying to be mean and your child is most certainly not trying to be manipulative. Maybe as they get older as a teen and they're thinking, How can I get away with this? But as a child, They actually don't have this developmental capacity. What's happening for them is that they have something going on inside of them, Whether it's emotions, Thoughts, A need that's unmet, And they don't have the verbal ability to communicate this to you well enough So what ends up coming out in behavior? Number three, Recognizing that arguments and conflicts are normal. It's not that you're triggered. It's not that there's a conflict, But it's how you respond to the conflict and the trigger. That's really, Really important. And in fact, If you're not having conflict as a family, Whether it's between parents, Parent, Child, Children to siblings, What's actually happening is that you're not being real. You're not communicating or your child's not communicating what they're opinions, Wants, Needs, Emotions are, And they're being almost too nice or pushing things down to keep the peace. We all are different personalities. We have different experiences and different opinions and different emotions, And those need to be honored. We need to speak them up. But the problem is because they're different, They sometimes will cause conflict. And if there's no conflict in the family, I'm actually quite worried about that. We need conflicts, But it's how we manage the differences in opinions and the triggers that That will change whether it's a good growth opportunity or whether it's destructive and needs repair. This is an opportunity for self-regulation. Take a step back, Take a breath and try and manage your calm because your child responds not only to the situation, But to your nervous system. And if your nervous system is struggling, You are going to have different experience, Different emotions, Different muscle tone, Different voice tone. And their nervous system responds to that, It will heighten the behavior of what's going on and then cause everybody to go into this downward spiral. So if you can learn to manage that a little bit, It will actually help the process, Even if your child is pushing on your triggers intentionally. Additionally, It's actually incredible role modeling. So what's happening is your children recognize that it's okay to have emotions, That it's okay to express them, But then And they see how you manage that by taking a step back, Taking a deep breath. And even though you're frustrated or mad or worried or anything negative, They can see that one, It's okay to feel that way. Two, There's ways of managing that. So three, Everybody can stay intact through the whole process. They watch what you do. They model what you do. And so it's an incredible growth opportunity for your kids to be able to see you manage this. Amazing learning opportunity. So whether you successfully got through the triggers using some of these tips and tricks, Or if you lost control, There's so much potential for growth. When you are both out of your lower brain, Meaning you're thinking brains back online, You're not in fight or flight mode where you're not reacting, But you're able to respond and think through the process. This is the time where you can sit down with your child and talk about, Okay, What happened? Need that triggered the interaction? How could they have asked differently or interacted differently in the situation? What did I need from them to be able to respond differently? And what do I need from myself to be able to maintain control? All of this is really, Really, Really good information for you to be able to be more successful in the future. Everything is growth. We are all on a journey of learning and we never stop learning. So this is such a wonderful and powerful opportunity to grow from. One other thing that you can do. At the end of the day, If there's things that you feel like you didn't manage well, Sit down and journal. So what happened? What was a trigger? What did your child do? What did you say that you didn't like? And then write down what you wish you had said. The more times you go through this exercise, The more you're rewiring your neural pathway to be able to respond better in the future. The more you flex that muscle, The more you're growing that muscle, The more you're strengthening that muscle, And then you're more likely to use it in the future. The next one is to set boundaries with empathy. So this is really important. Your children need to know what is appropriate behavior and what is not. In the moment, In the power struggle, That is not the time. When they've triggered you, That is not the time because you're going to react. And sometimes what we say and do is so much bigger than what the situation calls for. What you want to do is when everybody's calm, Sit down and come up with a list of rules. What is acceptable behavior? What is acceptable for responses and what are consequences for breaking those rules. So that when you're in this situation, If you have your thinking brains on, You can remind them of the rule to make sure there's appropriate behavior. If your thinking brain is not on, This is when you need to nurture them to calm and yourself, Nurture yourself to calm. And then when you're calm, Go back and say, Oh my goodness, That was quite a scrap. You did this and you did this and you did this. Breaking the rules. And so the consequence we talked about was apps, And make sure that you follow through on that. So another really important one is to make sure that you repair after conflict, Conflict will happen, Mistakes will happen, We can prepare as best as we can. And sometimes those triggers are just so big, Especially when they pile up, And we explode, And we cause hurt feelings. This is not the end of the world. And in fact, It's also a great growth opportunity. And here's why when you explode, And then you go back and repair your children, Learn that mistakes happen and that mistakes are okay. But the process of coming and saying, Sorry, And repairing that mistake is the most important part. So when you can go back and repair the relationship, They will learn that when they make mistakes, It's important to go back and repair the relationship. This builds resiliency and this builds your relationship with each other. We're all on a journey of growth. We're all learning. We're all practicing. And as long as we're recognizing that, And we're trying to get better and better, As you go through this process of recognizing your triggers, Calming yourself, Regulating yourself, Making sure everybody gets self-care, Repairing, You are stepping forward and growing. If you can follow this process, Walk through these strategies, Acknowledge your triggers, Know that they're there. We can get rid of our triggers. From them, But we will always be triggered to a certain extent. And if we can just own them, Acknowledge them, Know that they're there, So much growth that happens. By staying calm and recognizing what's happening beneath the behavior of your child, Beneath your own behavior, You will do incredible.