TG27_Got rage How to move through a parenting shame spiral
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Hey guys, it's Ashley. Welcome back to the teenage guide podcast, the show for you parents. If you are parents of teenagers and you are ready for a healthier relationship, more influence in their life and more peace in daily life with them, I cover real life challenges with an introduction into what I call my soul to systems toolkit.
So today's episode, it's a big topic and it is coming up a lot. Inside my monthly membership and community thrive each week inside this monthly membership. I coach parents around their biggest challenges and one that's coming up again and again is dealing with mom or dad rage. And then what follows the rage, the snapping and anger because shame, regret and numbing kick in.
And it perpetuates a cycle and a spiral. That can leave a parent feeling absolutely terrible. So if you've ever found yourself reacting in this way or experiencing something like this, you are so not alone. It happens to everyone. If you're ready for change and you're ready to do what's required for change, this episode is for you.
Let's get to it. Believe that parenting a teen is destined to be terrible or that you don't have any influence in their life is outdated and it's unhealthy. It's time for a new paradigm in these teen years. Where your midlife is equally considered to their adolescent years and you officially speak each other's language, you understand them in a way you always wish someone understood you and you know how to relate to them in ways that boost their confidence and motivation, where no matter how much they showed you typical teen behavior, you still felt Close and you could trust each other where you knew exactly how to guide them to become the best version of themselves.
And you'd never felt better as a parent. Welcome to your new reality. Hi, I'm Ashley Chandler, and in this podcast, I guide you. Through the proven self regulation mindset, behavior, change relationship, and skill building strategies and sold to systems tools. I've learned throughout my 18 plus years as an educator and coach for parents, tweens, and teens in this podcast, I share the latest research.
You must know, along with my personal experience as the mother of a teen to help you and. Your adolescent develop a bond and skills that last a lifetime. This is the teenage guide podcast. All right. So welcome back. This is a biggie episode. You guys, as I like to say, there are no bad emotions. It's what we do with them that counts.
And. Sometimes we feel like we're going to explode. We feel like we are bubbling over with rage. This happens to a lot of parents. And then what happens if we feel that we're at a bubbling point, and then when we do explode, we feel terrible. Right? So inside this episode, I'll explore Why we really explode as parents, what we can do to mitigate it before it happens and how understanding this gets us to stop the shame spiral with our teens.
So why do we get so triggered? Well, parenting a teenager is no easy feat. I don't need to tell you this. But I do want to validate you. We've got a lot of different hormone and hormonal changes happening in the house, right? There's yours, independence seeking behavior, boundary pushing can be so frustrating, especially when you're your own human holding so much from aging parents to your own career.
Financial considerations, managing schedules, health, while also supporting them in school. It's a lot. And the majority doesn't come with an outpouring of gratitude for your work, right? Thank you so much for doing everything, mom, dad. I see you working hard day in and day out, and I'm so grateful. I would just, I just thought I would throw that in for you because you're probably not getting very much of that at home, if at all.
So inside my Thrive Parent community and membership, I coach you through different categories and I've mentioned them before on the podcast. It's really important. It's on the self regulation categories of invisible stress. Or tangible stress that most people don't realize are underneath the surface of absolutely everything, everything you're believing, the ways you react, the ways that you show up and so much more.
So from sensory triggers. To unhealed childhood experiences and or unrealistic expectations. These are examples of things that are always with us, always potentially underneath the surface that can cause us stress, whether we realize it or not. The truth is, if we are aware of our own triggers, when our teen interacts with us, snarky or not, our brain and entire nervous system perceives that trigger.
That's seemingly no big deal. As a giant threat and our fight, flight, freeze, and fawn response can kick in. So we might immediately jump to anger. We might immediately run away where we feel frozen or we just coddle, right? We make sure everyone's okay around us. The people pleaser kicks in. So once our nervous systems fight, flight, freeze, fawn response kicks in, we react unconsciously, oftentimes with fear, impatience, control.
And often rage and once we rage and we get some space and distance from whatever it was that happened. We feel ashamed. And at this point, our teens have likely completely shut us out. They are potentially in their room with a locked door, and we feel terrible. Maybe you even tried to talk to your teenager outside of their room.
Or through text and they don't respond, we may even make a promise to ourselves in that moment when we're at our most vulnerable and we feel so ashamed, or we may even say it out loud to them. This will never happen again. And then maybe it does. And when that happens, we know whether we're conscious of it or not.
That we're breaking trust. So I want to share one of my tools for getting out of the rage cycle. This is a cycle. This is a collection of tools that's going to get you out of the rage cycle. Again, I coach you through this more in depth inside thrive, but inside this episode I really wanted to give you a sneak peek for how to reduce rage and get out of the shame spiral.
This is my number one tool. Okay. Whether you're walking into. These are all metaphors. I know you love metaphors. Here we go. Whether you're walking into a boiling over pot of soup and everyone's fighting about homework or maybe you're in a public place. And moods are tense because everyone's hungry or tired, or you're about to leave for school and work and the clock is ticking.
Everyone's racing against the clock, rushing around, trying to get to school, trying to get to work all the while with every single one of these scenarios. Tensions are rising, stress is tangible, and you're close to dysregulation. In other words, you're close to rage, anger, and the subsequent shame spiral.
Real quick interruption, if this episode is resonating with you, then at the end, you are going to want to check out and know about my new free class, Confident and Connected. In less than an hour, I walk you through the top three mistakes, even the most well intentioned unconditionally loving parents make when it comes to connecting with their teenagers and building confidence.
Plus my four part framework. That is guaranteed to get your teen listening to you, doing what they need to do, all while building trust and joy between you. Parents have described this class as life changing in so many words, and I want you to know about it. Click the link here in my show notes at the end of this episode to register for a day and a time that works for you.
I can't wait to see you in there.
So what do you do in those moments? What's the number one thing you need to do? Well, first You become aware that you're in that moment. Oh, crap. I'm about to yell or I am yelling, right? The number one thing is to become aware in that moment of what you're feeling. I'm feeling super stressed back up, pause and remind yourself the moment that you become aware of it.
That there's no fire to put out. There's no immediate fire. There's no reason to trigger the trauma response. The unconscious fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. The soup can boil over. The homework can wait. You're going to find the nearest imperfect snack when people are hangry. Maybe that's you. Sometimes people are late to school and the majority of the time you want to preserve your own self awareness and connection with your team.
That's the number one thing you need to do. Preserve your own self awareness. And connection with yourself and with them. Sometimes you'll need space to make this happen. Sometimes you'll need to stop talking and just be there. Sometimes you'll need to cry or process emotion and not make sense. Sometimes you're gonna need to say the words, I'm feeling so stressed because do.dot.
Okay, and all of these. Our way is that you metabolize the stress of the moment. So you don't rage. So you stop the shame cycle. So what's the number one thing you can do? Become aware that it's about to happen where it is happening and pause and remind yourself in that awareness, there's no fire to put out, right?
Again, all of these are ways you metabolize the stress of the moment. Because, when you're in fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, your nervous system perceives attack. So when you become aware and you signal safety to your nervous system, there's no fire to put out. I'm going to get space. Maybe I need to cry.
Maybe I need to say I'm stressed. I need to notice my sensory environment. Again, there's a step by step toolkit. I walk you through inside my thrive monthly membership. So if you're curious about it, check out the information in the show notes. It's absolutely incredible. And it works. And if you want to DIY this in your own life, listen to this episode, repeat it, keep it simple.
Rage doesn't end. With more rage, it doesn't stop by experiencing more rage and anger and snapping and dysregulation. It ends in this way. When you feel like crap defeated and grieving rage ends with awareness and compassion and a self regulation toolkit that you and your team will carry with you for the rest of your lives.
So to recap, here's what I covered inside this episode, recognizing all your holding, including the invisible stress and how it impacts your ability to be present and respond to triggers with your team, with self regulation and the simple practice. The number one thing you can do is recognize when you're about to spiral before it happens nine times out of 10, you're preserving the relationship.
Before you're saving face in a public place before you're preserving dinner or before you're being on time to the next thing in your life, recognize it, preserve connection because breaking free of the rage and shame spiral takes practice. It takes commitment. It takes co regulation with your team and you modeling this.
And doing this work for yourself, I am not exaggerating. It is some of the greatest work you'll ever do. It is the gift that will keep on giving for you and your teens. So don't give up. I know it's hard. I know it's not an easy cycle to break. Chances are, no one modeled it for you. People were quick to snap.
People were quick to rage. They didn't know how to manage their emotions. They didn't know how to process them, metabolize them and express them in healthy ways. But you do. You're learning. You're committed. So make it happen. I know you have limited time and energy. So thank you for being here. And kudos to you for investing in this time for yourself and for your team.
If you enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to continue the ripple effect. And like, subscribe, review, and or share with a fellow parent who could also benefit. Remember the number one way that you have influence in your teenager's life is in your relationship with yourself and with them. So never doubt how much power you have because you are the teenage guide too.
