When we can manage our own emotions, “tough” parenting moments become powerful opportunities for us to love and connect with our teens and teach by our example.

“Emotional adulthood is recognizing that all of your feelings are caused by your thoughts.”
~ Brooke Castillo

Emotionally Intentional Parenting is POWERFUL!

Some parenting experts say, “You’ve got to parent WITHOUT emotion.”

I think that idea is SO WRONG! Our teens don’t want to be parented by robots. they want parents who are emotionally invested. Rather than parenting without emotion, we need to parent with intention and control when it comes to our emotions.

Most of people in the world think that how they feel is based on their circumstances.

YOU HAVE THE POWER to turn challenging parenting moments into opportunities for connection, love, and learning.

Understanding the model (explained in episode 007), Circumstances, Thoughts, Feelings, Actions, and Results can help us process challenging parenting moments.

We can use the model to learn from our past, plan for the future, and show up intentionally in the present.

Flight or Fight CANCELS Learning

We limit our teen’s ability to learn when we trigger their amygdala.

When’s the last time you got yelled at?
What did you do?
How did you feel?

Chances are that you, even as an adult, went into Fight, Flight, or Freeze mode.

Fear, anxiety, shame, and embarrassment do not foster positive learning environments.

When we lose emotional control, this often leads to actions such as yelling, arguing, and fighting. This often triggers our teens’ amygdala, the primitive part of the brain that is responsible for our fight or flight (survival) response.

No matter how badly you want to yell, scream, throw things, hit or any action done out of emotional control, this will only shut down your teen’s ability to learn and process, and it will make it hard for you to connect with them.

Opportunity to Model Desired Behavior

Human beings are herd animals. We like to function as a herd. As part of this, we are really good at reading other’s emotions and mirroring them back to them.

This is part of the reason that being emotionally intentional will change EVERYTHING! As the parent, you are the leader of the back. Your teens are mirroring your behaviors on some level. If you want them to show up calm in tough situations, show them what you’d like it to look like by showing up that way yourself.

Our actions are way louder than our words.

Demonstrating emotional control in tough parenting moments will teach your teen that #1 It is possible to be in control even when your upset, and #2 that, this is how I want you to act.

Take Away: Turn Challenging Moments into Opportunities

YOU HAVE THE POWER to turn challenging parenting moments into opportunities for connection, love, and learning.

Most parents are simply reactive in challenging parenting moments. This leads to parents taking actions out of fear, shame, frustration and anger, and self-doubt.

Knowing that challenging parenting moments are opportunities will help you be proactive and intentional, rather than simply reactional. You will be able to choose what you think in the moment, how you feel, what action you take, and what result you want to achieve.