A lot of advice about how to deal with tantrums says the first step is to remain calm yourself—that losing your cool when dealing with your kid will not make the tantrum go away and will actually make things worse. A small problem, though, is sometimes it feels impossible to stay calm when the person in front of you is spewing all that raw emotion straight at you. How do you stay calm when your child is anything but? I decided to ask a neuroscientist for help.
What is “emotional flooding”?
To start with, Dr. Cindy Hovington, a neuroscientist and co-founder of Wondergrade (a company with an app that teaches parents how to help their kids calm down and regulate big emotions) says that the feeling of being overwhelmed, either as the tantruming child or as the adult too stressed to deal with it, is called being emotionally “flooded.”
“Emotional flooding can feel like that instant rage we feel that leads to yelling or behaving in a way where you feel like you don’t have any control,” she says. She described feeling that way herself after the birth of her third child with two young children at home already—she felt “anger rather than empathy” toward her children.
For me, emotional flooding often presents as anxiety, usually accompanied by tears, shaking, and the inability to decide what to do to de-escalate the situation. Flooding is your fight, flight, or freeze response and, when you’re in it, “telling yourself to stay calm doesn’t work,” Hovington says. “It is as if your brain won’t listen to you.” This is a concept I’d studied when learning about The Whole-Brain Child: When a child is tantruming, it’s almost like they’re not “there.” Similarly, when a parent is flooded, they cannot think rationally.
How to ease the emotional flood
It’s scary to think of yourself as too overwhelmed to think when you’re supposed to be parenting, but Hovington has some solutions for parents who find themselves flooded by their child’s tantrums. She calls it a “reset” and told me the Wondergrade app even put in an update that has a two-minute “parent reset” audio that allows parents to hit a button and listen to verbal cues to help them calm down during emotional flooding while parenting.
To reset yourself during a tantrum, Hovington says, “If possible, you can step away to reset. It could be another room or just being further away from your child.” If this isn’t possible because of your location or because of needing to ensure the safety of your child, you can reset with your child, which can be a teachable moment. “It is healthy for your child to see that you need a moment to reset during intense emotional moments,” Hovington says.
Hovington says to close your eyes. “Slow deep breaths can help regulate your nervous system during moments of stress,” she says. Look into “belly breathing” or “diaphragmatic breathing” techniques if you flood often. You can also try other nervous system “hacks” to find which ones work for you.
Setting a good example when we get it right (and when we don’t)
Especially if it’s a public tantrum, you may be feeling frustrated, embarrassed, or angry about their behavior. “We need to remind ourselves that the emotions our child is feeling are normal even if they are uncomfortable for them and for us,” Hovington says. “They are not reflections of us, and if we can find a way to stay calm through our child’s negative emotions, we will model emotion regulation skills for them.”
Kids learn first by watching us, so having them see us learn how to calm down will help them learn these skills for themselves. If we have flooded and behaved in a way we are not proud of, such as yelling at them before we had a chance to reset, we will need to repair.
“Losing control of our own emotions is normal and happens,” Hovington says. “Apologizing is not a sign of weakness—it’s a moment of connection with our child.” It also models apologizing—seeing you do it sets another good example.