Shouty Mummy Syndrome! How do I make it stop?

Do you relate to this? First, you ask your little darling in your kindest, sweetest voice to please put their shoes on, because it's time to go to school. They need to be there on time. You have prepped everything to make sure things go smoothly. But instead of complying, your child decides that they actually hate shoes. Who ever invented these anyway? "They hurt my feet," you might hear.

"It's uncomfortable."

"I can't do it. It's too hard."

"I don't want to."

And all the while you are trying to gently encourage them and offer help. You've got this.

But as the complaining continues, maybe some defiance starts to creep in. Maybe you get a direct "no, I won't" response to your request. Something in you snaps. Enough of this. Seriously, it's just shoes. Why all this drama? Now you're going to be late and the teacher at the gate is going to mark it down next to your child's name. And it's your fault of course. You are the parent after all. If this small person would just get a move on, you can still make it. But it continues, on and on. And eventually something emerges from your lips from deep down inside your chest that you never thought you'd say to your child, let alone in that awful tone. You are now shouting at your child to just put the bloody shoes on, or to at least hold still long enough to let you do it for them. And now there are tears on top because Mummy has shouted.

It's chaos. And you're both stressed and unhappy. You might have tears for the journey to school and you need to figure out a way to apologise and help your child to calm down at the same time, all the while rushing to the school gates. You give them a hug and send them on their way.

On the journey back, you're racked with guilt. How could you have done this? Shouting at your kid? That's not who you are. You are a loving mother who would never dream of harming her child. How could you lose control like that? Is your little one going to be okay in school, or are they going to have trouble focusing? Are they going to rat you out to the teacher and actually tell her what happened?

On it goes. Your Inner Critic shows up in full force, condemning your behaviour. And this time, you agree with her. Yes, I am a terrible mother. Only really terrible mothers ever shout at their kids.

If this is ever you, dear one, please do not despair. I'm sharing this with you from my own personal experience to let you know that you're not alone. This scenario has happened to me more times than I'd like to admit. Kids are tough, and all mothers are imperfect human beings. Even if it's not full-on shouting, we all get exhausted from having to repeat instructions or requests to children who don't always comply right away...or at all.

Let's look at what's happened here. First, it started with a simple request. For whatever reason, your child wasn't able to comply straight away and of course s/he likely has no concept of time around being late for school. As their behaviour escalated, something in you was triggered. It could have to do with not being listened to, feeling disrespected, not wanting to be late for school, or any number of other things. You became angry or frustrated because you just wanted the situation to stop, and that resulted in the shouting.

There are lots of ways to describe it and our language here doesn't matter so much as our understanding of why and how it could perhaps play out differently in the future. After all, it's probably not the last time your child drags their feet about getting ready for school. At One of Many ® we describe this 'getting triggered' behaviour as 'going into a disempowering archetype.' You might be familiar with this triangle of disempowerment as it is also commonly use to explain the dynamic between an abuser and victim. But we can all slip into any of these roles when we're triggered, i.e. when we're stressed and overwhelmed.

Shouty Mummy Syndrome can certainly become a pattern for any of us. Children are small humans with less life experience, less knowledge and wisdom than us, but with their own strong personalities, wills and desires. They're also far more ego-centric and don't always understand how their behaviour affects other people--even their precious mummy! They don't understand or care how long our to-do lists are and how their difficult behaviour takes energy away that we'd like to be spending elsewhere. They're not intentionally trying to hurt or stress us--and of course we know that--but it doesn't always help to know that in the moment when their behaviour just becomes too much.

How do we stop? I would suggest a few approaches done in combination for best results.

Trigger Tracking: it's really hard to slow down or stop our behaviour in the moment. But if we take a little time afterwards to reflect on what happened, we can start to identify triggers. You could even write it down if it helps, because you can more easily identify patterns that you might tend to fall into. Answer these questions:

1. What exactly happened?

2. What was your 'bad' behaviour?

3. Which of the disempowering archetypes did you go into? (Bitch, Victim, Martyr, or Superwoman/Anti-Superwoman).

4. What was the trigger for that archetype?

5. How did you feel?

6. What was the impact on others?

Once you can start to see patterns emerge, you can begin to know yourself better. Awareness is the key. Once we become more aware of what triggers us--what is our own 'stuff'--we can start to have more control over our reaction. And the key here is to develop better ways of responding to the triggers, not to avoid ever getting triggered. We need to accept that triggers will happen--they are unavoidable. What we can manage is our response.

Self care: Yes, that again. You'll be hearing this a lot from me, so be warned. It's so much easier to fall into our negative patterns when we're showing up already overwhelmed, stressed, or just plain not having our needs met. There is a reason our very first Soft Power Principle in One of many ® is Everything starts with replenishing your energy.

So first, after an incident which triggered you, stop and take care of yourself. In the scenario above, it's about that journey back from the school run. Once you can, sit down. Get a glass of water. Turn on some positive music which gets you back into a better mindset. Have a word with your Inner Critic (more on that later) and work to focus on positive self-talk. Forgive yourself. Journal or meditate. Do something else nurturing like going for a walk, preferably in some nature, putting some nice lotion on your skin, lighting a candle, and making sure your next meal is nutritious and healthy. If you're anything like me, this would be a key decision because it's really easy to reach for the sugar when you've just been really stressed and/or made a mistake.

It doesn't matter whether your next stop after the school run is going into work, to an appointment or back home--you can still do any of these self-care tasks which really nurture yourself. I would suggest you take an additional moment if your next action involves driving. Make sure you're calm enough to be safe behind the wheel. If your next stop is to the local café with some friends, all the better to have some emotional support in that conversation.

Once you know yourself better, you can look after yourself better. And once you can do that, you will also have far more energy to be emotionally attuned to your child as well. As you've expanded your emotional availability to your child, the better equipped you will be when their behaviour becomes challenging! It may even help reduce the frequency or intensity of their challenging behaviour.

I'm really keen to hear your comments about these tools. Give them a try and then come back to me to report on the outcome. I'd love to be able to support you further, so please feel free to ask questions on anything I've shared here.

Best wishes and sisterly solidarity!

Love,

Christine