Children’s brains are wired differently to adult brains. The bits of the brain that help us manage our emotions and impulses, reflect on what’s going on around us, and respond with kindness, aren’t fully developed until we’re well into adulthood - roughly our mid-twenties. When adults are overwhelmed, we lose some of the connectivity to these more sophisticated bits of the brain - we’re more emotional, more impulsive, more fixed in our opinions, and generally less kind. It’s a survival trait and nothing to worry about or feel ashamed of. But we can do a lot of damage when we’re overwhelmed so we need to be careful not to hurt others - especially our children.
Human brains develop to match the environment they grow up in. So if children grow up with loving interaction and kind words they’ll be best equipped to manage in a world with love and kindness - that’s what they’ll gravitate to and that’s what they’ll recreate. If children grow up with anger and hostility then that’s what they’ll feel comfortable with - it’s what they’ll seek out and recreate.
It’s a sad and somewhat unfair reality that good parents who love their children and want the best for them can cause a lot of harm if they’re frequently so overwhelmed that they can’t manage their behaviour or what comes out of their mouths.
We can’t avoid getting dysregulated sometimes, at least not in the short term, and we can’t just decide to snap back into being regulated when we’re dysregulated. We can take steps to increase safety cues and decrease danger cues but regulating back to a place of safety takes time, sometimes much much longer than we’d like.
One of the easiest (and most difficult) ways to avoid hurting others when we're dysregulated is to say nothing. Literally nothing. Breathe deeply. Occupy your mind by repeating a helpful statement in your head. Breathe deeply. Notice things around you - the colours, materials, textures. Breathe deeply.
Say nothing until you’re able to function a bit better.
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