Let me tell you a story about being a bad parent. It stars me, at 35 years old, trying to be a great mom to a blended family that included six children aged 2–17. This was well before my career as a professional counselor, and I’m not ashamed to admit, I was barely hanging on. This story stands out in my mind because it was a turning point in my understanding of motherhood and came to inform many of my interactions with my kids in the following years.

Allow me to set the stage. Imagine a house filled with kids, kids’ friends, dogs, cats, gerbils, and who knows what else on an ordinary weekday afternoon. The volume is loud. The energy is high. The needs of all these various creatures (including me) are acute. Food! Rides! Laundry! Homework! Band-Aids! Sanity! And for some inexplicable reason (I remember this well)—fireworks! I can still hear my son saying the word “fireworks!” over and over until I thought he would pass out from the e􏰀ort.

Back in those days, before cell phones were a thing, we communicated in the house via an old-fashioned intercom. You could either speak from room to room—the kitchen to a specific bedroom, for example—or from one room to the entire three floors of the house. On this day I was, as always, knee-deep in dirty clothes. I had been asking (begging?) the kids for days to come get their clean clothes out of the laundry room and put them into their own rooms. Not one of them had done it.

As I stood there in the laundry room, I started to see spots. These spots were a brightly colored expression of fury, and my head was swimming with them. I saw myself, as if from outside my body, go to the laundry room intercom, hit the “all rooms” button, and start to scream. “COME. GET. YOUR. CLEAN. CLOTHES. RIGHT. NOW. OR. IAMTHROWINGTHEMALLAWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” My voice echoed around the house, which was uncharacteristically silent for a moment… just one moment, until I heard one of the girls laugh and say, “What a psychopath!” Well. I am not proud of the reaction I then had. I didn’t get physical, but su􏰀ice to say, “psychopath” was probably not far o􏰀 base.

What I was not wise enough to know then was that, in large part, that whole situation happened not because the kids were acting up, but because I did not have the tools to emotionally regulate myself. “Emotional regulation” is a hot-button phrase now, but it wasn’t then, and despite a growing awareness of it, I still, as a clinician, see a dearth of skills in both parents and children that could make it as commonplace as it should be.

After my little performance in the laundry room that day, my husband pulled me aside and said calmly (because he is actually quite skilled at emotionally regulating himself, a fact I often find maddening), “You seem to be yelling a lot lately.”

“No, I’m NOT!” I yelled. “And even if I am, if I don’t YELL, no one LISTENS!!!” I then stomped o􏰀 in a fit of righteousness.

After the colored spots faded from my eyes, I realized how bad I felt. I had been yelling a lot lately. And it wasn’t that the yelling wasn’t often justified, but that it made me feel worse, and it never accomplished what I wanted it to. I made a decision then, which I mostly adhered to, that I wouldn’t be a “yeller” anymore. But what should I do instead?

First, I needed to realize that I, as a parent, had to set the tone for my children. If I wanted my kids to eat healthy, I had to eat healthy. If I wanted my kids not to spend too much time staring at screens, I had to limit my own screen time. If I wanted my kids to have healthy relationships, I had to have healthy relationships. And if I wanted my kids to stop yelling, calm down, and interact with me in a respectful way, I had to do all of that myself first. I also understood that all of these things needed to happen whether the kids were there to witness it or not. That’s a big one. Kids absorb everything about their parents, even when they are not directly in the presence of it.

Many parents bring their kids into treatment with a report of behavioral problems, be it defiance, emotional outbursts, school refusal, or any host of other ways that children can “act out.” For the most part, these are good parents, and by good, I mean they are regular people who deeply love their kids and who provide for them as best they can. They are also typically people with plenty of unresolved problems themselves—like trauma, stress, a lack of good role models, a marriage that could use some improvement, chronic health issues, etc., etc. What these parents fail to realize is that, very often, their child’s behavior is a direct reaction to, and a reflection of, the environment their parents have created.

Please note, this is not about blaming parents! It is about raising self-awareness and learning how to do and be better.

So, step one for me was getting some distance from myself. I often talk about “fly on the wall” thinking, which is exactly what it sounds like. Take a look at any situation as if you are a fly on the wall and give it an honest assessment. Is that fly impressed with your behavior? If not, how can you adjust?

Next, I had to understand how fear-based my reactions to my kiddos were and the fact that fear is never a strong position for a leader to take. What was I afraid of? Well, a loss of control, I think, but also being a bad mother and possibly drowning in the ocean that can be my family. I realized that if I could name my fear, I would also diminish its power almost instantly.

From this, I noticed that taking a moment to breathe and give ourselves some active support is a powerful thing. We can say things to ourselves like, “I have a right to be upset,

but I don’t want to make things worse either,” “I can make the choice to walk away and see if any better solutions come to me,” “All parents struggle with issues like these”… and so on. In doing so, we move away from feeling like the victim and more like the adult tough situations require.

Practicing emotional regulation at times other than when we are in conflict with others helps a lot, too. If we are driving, for example, and feel that familiar rush of anger at someone honking at us or cutting us o􏰀, we can breathe deeply, teaching our bodies that it is possible to feel discomfort and still be okay and that emotions surf in and out—and we can ride that wave.

Becoming an emotionally regulated parent will not solve all of our parenting problems. We still may have kiddos who exhibit behavioral di􏰀iculties ranging from disrespect (“psychopath!!”) to drug and alcohol use, risky sexual behavior, self-harm, and more, but it puts us in a much better position to help. It also gives us the advantage of intelligence because when we stay regulated, we are thinking with our prefrontal cortex rather than our amygdala, or lizard brain, which is all about instinctive self-preservation rather than thoughtful decision-making.

If, as a result of our own trauma and life experiences, emotional regulation seems too unattainable, therapy is a great direction to go. When one person in a family system gets healthier, the entire system benefits. It will take time, and there will be stumbling blocks along the way, but we owe our kids– and ourselves– the healthiest version of us available.