Ways to Deal with the Kid Who Pushes Your Buttons

One of the hardest aspects of parenting is to deal with the kid who never stops to push your buttons. But then, it really depends upon the triggers that make the parents go into fight or flight mode. For instance, if we grew up in a family which had been obsessed with the cleanliness, we are going to have this very same obsession for sure. This obsession is, sometimes, so strong that we cannot bear to watch our kids playing with the mud and getting hands and clothes dirty. Same thing go for the behavior. For example, the negligence we would face in our childhood can come back to haunt us when we see our kid shouting at us and saying, “I hate you”.

Summing up, we can say that the things which get us triggered are usually the ones we have been experiencing in our childhood. But there is also good news if our children repeat that behavior in front of us. These behaviors in children can give us the opportunity to heal ourselves.

These triggers are usually pressed more often when you have more than one child, and one of the children does some awkward things after getting ignored. Hence, your behavior based on fairness can help you to bring your insecure child on board pretty quickly.

Here are a few things to help you with that.

Acknowledge your own emotions

The sooner you realize you are going to explode, the better it would be. This feeling is quite strong. You may feel that you have been punched in the face. You will start to breathe faster and your heartbeat will get louder and uncontrollable. But then, you will need to listen to this emotional emergency. When you are able to do it, you will find yourself on the way to diffuse this stress.

Give yourself some space

Sometimes, it may not be possible get physically absent from the place. But, there are some ways you can free your mind from the thoughts you are having. The very first step is to take some deeper breaths. You will feel the deep breath coming in your body and cooling the emotions while you will also hear your emotions properly. As a matter of fact, the best way to listen to your emotional state is to uncover them by staying calm.

Identify the trigger

Now that you are a bit calmer, you can ask yourself about the very element which has been causing your buttons getting pushed. That will give you the picture of the emotion in your kid that has been giving you anger. This way, you will not accuse your child but you will think about his emotional state.

Take ownership

Now when you have identified the trigger, you will need to understand the fact that the real problem is inside you. You will have to accept the fact that whatever happened to is due to the trigger which is inside you. And that it can be used by someone else too.

Move on

Now that you know that it’s your trigger which is resulting in the reactive patterns in your emotions, you need to fix it. You can stay calm and remain positive. When it comes to parenting, you can try to remain peaceful. Peaceful parenting is the ideal way to get over the big emotions which would have been bothering you for a long time.