5 Ways to Keep Calm When Your Kids are Pushing Your Buttons

This episode is all about kids pushing our buttons, and let's face it, we've all been there as parents. We talk about our rough days, where we feel irritable and impatient...even feeling like other people are intentionally trying to annoy us when we're already stressed. #relatable. 

Take a listen as we share 5 very practical tips and insights on how to handle those situations where it feels like even your kids are intentionally pushing your buttons!

Resources We Shared:

Balance VIP- Are you stressed out, feeling like you're doing it all on your own? Through personal coaching and accountability, you will break through your overwhelm and follow through with your goals to be the happy mom you were meant to be In this exclusive coaching program for women!

When Worry Works: How to Harness Your Parenting Stress and Guide Your Teen to Success by Dana Dorfman, PhD

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neff

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Transcript

Transcripts for No Guilt Mom Podcast Ep 184 - 5 Ways to Keep Calm When Your Kids are Pushing Your Buttons 

Transcripts were produced using A.I. There may be some mistakes as a result.

[00:00:00] JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to The No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn. Joined here by my co-host Brie Tucker. 

[00:00:06] Brie Tucker: Why? Hello hello, every body!. How are you? That's not a good morning. 

[00:00:13] JoAnn Crohn: Well, it's funny cause like the episode that we're talking about today, do your kids push your buttons? It's so fitting because this morning, like I've determined, is not a day that I should be interacting with humans, with other human beings because it is.

Admittedly, the day before my period, I get ragy and I could feel it. I could feel the times where I just don't have as much patience as I usually do. I just wanna scream a lot, like I feel like I'm rushing around everywhere. It just feels like an animated sense of being. Do you know what I mean? 

[00:00:46] Brie Tucker: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Those days where like, you just feel like this, it's almost like you don't entirely have control over your emotions. 

[00:00:51] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. Well, I, I, right. I try to book my brow, relax appointments right after I drop my son off at school because I feel like that's the best use of time. Drop him off already outta the house.

Go get my wax. Well, I drop him off eight 20. The wax is at 8 45. I'm like, Target's in the same plaza. I'm gonna do a target run and like get toilet paper before my wax. So I go into Target and I'm pushing my cart and like everybody is pissing me off. I'm like, like it's one of those things where it's like, why are you going so slow?

And then I'm thinking this one little like sweet lady stands in the middle and then decides to go somewhere else. And I'm like, ah, you're just here to mess with me! And then there's like at the end of the aisle, a woman is pushing one of those gigantic stroller carts. You know the ones with two seats for kids in the front that are very hard to maneuver.

She stops right in front of the end of the aisle, so I cannot get out of the aisle and I'm rushing trying to make my appointment and I just wanted to be like, 

get outta the way!

And so I'm like, this is not a day I should be around humans today. 

[00:01:58] Brie Tucker: That's some really good self-awareness. And you know me. I'm gonna tell you I could relate to 100% to all of that.

I have that all. I'm driving all the time and I'll be like, They're just trying to piss me off. This car is going so slow and this other random car pulled up and now I'm blocked in and I can't go anywhere and it's all their fault. 

[00:02:18] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And usually I would use some choice swear words, but for everybody who's listening and has kids in the car, I am not.

But know that there are swear words in my mind as I am thinking those things. But yeah, I mean, we just get into those states where we think other people are. Pushing our buttons or like, I think of it like karma is just there to mess with me today. I have to be places and karma's 

like, Nope, you're not going as fast as you're gonna go.

Forget you. 

[00:02:46] Brie Tucker: Karma's like, I have another plan for you. And completely different plan. Yeah, exactly. 

[00:02:52] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. So today's episode is really great because I know as parents that we a lot of the times think that our kids are intentionally pushing our buttons. And what happens when we think they're intentionally pushing our buttons?

Do we get calmer? No. 

We are much more likely to just blow like me in target when somebody blocks the end of the aisle. 

[00:03:15] Brie Tucker: And like me a lot of the time, a lot of the, okay, take your pick, take your pick. Last week, do you remember me telling you about my son's birthday and me trying to like, order pizza on several different days?

And the cupcakes, the world was out to get me. It never mattered what I did. It was fun. And then, and then the, the cream de cream was the end of the week when he had his ro road test. We waited the DMV in line, get all the way to the front finally, and they're like, oh, you're scheduled this a day early. He can't get his test until tomorrow and we're closed on the weekend, so see you next week.

I was like about ready to cry. I was so I'm like, what? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was a good thing that my kids got to go off with their dad after that because I was in no mood. No mood. Thank you very much. 

[00:04:04] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, so if you have those feelings a lot with your kids, you're gonna really enjoy this episode and now on with the show.

You want mom life to be easier. That's our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids, and we are going to have fun doing it. We're gonna help you delegate and step back. Each episode will tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process.

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom Podcast.

Okay, so this episode was inspired by one of our coaching calls, and we hear this a lot in our balance membership about kids intentionally trying to push your buttons and how do you deal with it, and what do you do? 

[00:05:04] Brie Tucker: It can be rough. We were talking about that actually trying to come back and forth. Cause I was like, all right, we need to have an example, personal example of when we have felt like this and I was struggling coming up with one.

I could think of times where it would be like that, where I felt like someone was trying to intentionally push my buttons. But I knew in the back of my head there was an ulterior motive. So they weren't trying to push my buttons. They were trying to do something else. But yeah. Well, and you were saying too, that you couldn't come up with that.

[00:05:31] JoAnn Crohn: I couldn't come up with it for, for when my kids were younger. My belief has always been that kids who are younger, they don't intentionally try to push our buttons. It's like an unmet need they have. However, thinking about my teenager now, oh yeah. There are times when I know she is intentionally trying to push my buttons because it is her personality.

It's my husband's personality as well. And it's really funny when they both try to go at it at each other. I could give you a really, really great example. Yesterday was our anniversary and we were, we're going for massages and we're going for our dinner. And we scheduled it during the day because it was gonna be a school day the next day.

And so my daughter, who we woke up at, by the way, at 10 30, it was time to go about Oh, so early. So early, so early. It was time to go at 1130 and she's here being like, oh, now I don't have any time to do my homework or get my laundry folded today. And my husband Wow. Was dealing with her. Yeah. My husband was dealing with her and he's like, okay.

And he just turns and walks out well. At the end of our whole date, which was lovely. We were driving back and he's like, ha ha, now she has time to do her laundry. I'm gonna remind her of that. And so he was like going in to get our daughter intentionally knowing that this statement was going to drive her up the wall.

And he's like, I'm looking forward to this. 

So it's like both of their personalities, you know? Yeah. But uh oh yeah. Teenagers are like that sometimes. They like to get a rise out of you for sure. As fun as sport, it's sport. 

[00:07:07] Brie Tucker: It's that whole, it comes back to that whole saying that there's no, no such thing as bad press.

It's kind of like the same thing with attention. Bad attention is still attention. They don't care how they're getting it. It's still there. And it's interesting how this comes to play because when you mentioned doing this episode, I immediately thought back to the days that I worked in early intervention.

In that realm, you'd go to people's homes and we would work with kids that are under the age of three, helping parents with their development, helping their, their kiddos, get caught up on any developmental delays that they had. And I cannot tell you how many times I would come into a home and the parents of a kiddo that's like between, between one and three is where it always happened.

They were like, oh my gosh, my kid is completely trying to push my buttons. I told her not to touch the tv, and she waddled over there, looked right at me. Right at me and was like, I'm gonna hit the button. And then would just like stare at me waiting for a reaction. And I was like, okay, I don't quite think your child is the Mastermind yet.

They don't, they're not quite, you know, megamind with the whole like world domination. Oh, I'm gonna take over the house by hitting the buttons. I wouldn't say that, but in my head that's what I'm thinking. I'm like, they don't quite have that thought process yet. So I see this train of thought a lot in parents when our kids are little because they do that.

They are looking right at us. We tell them not to do something, they go off and they do it right afterwards. Mm-hmm. But in those cases, it's normally about trying to figure out where the boundaries are. And I think that, yeah, it's, a lot of times you're gonna, you're gonna see that it's either about like boundaries or it's about the whole attention.

Bad attention is still attention kind of thing. So it's, it's, yeah, with little a trick quite, 

[00:08:51] JoAnn Crohn: because it's not like we can like interview them and be like, and tell me what your thought process was behind this pushing of the button two year old, like, right, right. 

[00:08:58] Brie Tucker: You can't be like, Sam, that is not a cause. Even if you were to say to them, I know what you're doing. The kid would laugh because they're like, yeah, I totally, I just tried to play a game. Funny. It's working, right? Yeah. So yeah, it's. But it's normal because we so many times we think that because we as adults have that ability to do things on purpose, to push people's buttons, which I, 

[00:09:22] JoAnn Crohn: mm-hmm.

[00:09:23] Brie Tucker: We all totally do. But if you really think down, deep down, we're not typically doing it just to be annoying. We're doing it because we want somebody's attention or something along those lines. 

[00:09:34] JoAnn Crohn: But is that true? I'm thinking cuz the bo, the person I do this to the most is usually my little sister Uhhuh.

But it, it's not like I don't do anything malicious. I do stuff that I think is a little mischievous and funny and will just get her annoyed just a little bit. 

You're hoping to like, it's like connection. 

It's connecting. Yeah. Yeah. It's a connection 

to make her laugh. Yeah. 

[00:09:56] Brie Tucker: Yeah, so like it's a connection but maybe in a different way.

So like I do that too, and I know that my daughter does it to me a lot, my son sometimes. The only problem is, is that my son has no poker face. So if he's doing something to like poke at me, he's sitting there smiling while he is doing it and I'm like, I know what you're doing. And he'll be like, do you, do you, do you know what I'm doing?

Well, you have a huge smile. 

[00:10:18] JoAnn Crohn: The first thing though that you have to realize when somebody else is doing something like this to you, especially your kids, is just to take note of those physical reactions. Yes. And to make sure that if you know your heart is racing, if you feel like the rage building up inside of you, like me in a target aisle blocked by a two person stroller- that is a cue that, hey, this is, this is triggering me in some way and I, if I'm not intentional in this moment, when I get those feelings, it tells me, okay, I need to stop here, or something needs to change here, or I just need to get outta here as fast as I can because I'm gonna blow. 

[00:10:59] Brie Tucker: I think that that's perfect.

And that's exactly what I was thinking too with that whole, okay, so like the first thing you need to do to get outta the loop is notice your physical reactions. I was immediately thinking about your tar target story right there. Cause it was so perfect. Mm-hmm. You were like, you could feel yourself getting upset.

And I think that's the biggest thing when it comes to realizing what's going on with us emotionally. That's the number one thing. Right. In all situations. Just be aware of you. Yes, and how you are feeling. That's the foundation right there of figuring out how to work through any emotional situation is knowing what's going on with me.

Yeah. Am I getting angry? Am I getting sad? Am I getting hurt? Understanding those reactions, this is the first step to anything, being able to move forward. 

[00:11:42] JoAnn Crohn: It's so hard if you're not used to honoring your reactions and honoring your body feelings. It's really easy to just be like, oh, I should just deal with this, or I need to just hang on a bit longer.

And then you get to this point where you just can't control it anymore and you yell. So yeah, if you are one of those people who feels like you have no control over the yelling or over the explosions, a really, really helpful thing to do is to start journaling when you have those expo explosions. It was really helpful for me cuz I had a tendency to not acknowledge my own feelings and my emotions enough thinking like I just needed to be tough.

I just needed to have it together and then everything would just fall apart because, I was overloaded and couldn't do anymore. But when I thought back and when I had those extreme either crying and breaking down cuz of something that happened with my kids, or all of a sudden I was telling myself I was a bad mom or I didn't have things right.

I did this thing called, it was called Circle. I forget what it was, but it was like circle journaling where you go back and you're like, okay, well when did I notice the change? And then you're acknowledging like what your thoughts were, what led to which feelings, which led to which actions. And the more you do this after the fact, the easier it is to become aware of it when you're in the situation.

[00:13:06] Brie Tucker: I could see that for sure. Because again, you're practicing it. Mm-hmm. You're practicing that self-reflection, and anytime you practice any skill, you're gonna become better at it. It's gonna become more of second nature, so yeah. Yeah, that would be excellent. 

[00:13:18] JoAnn Crohn: And it's something our Balance VIP members do in our Balance journal.

Like they are constantly practicing this self-reflection with their daily page and their like four boxes so that you become more aware of your emotions when you reflect on them, but you're never expected to control them right away in the moment. That's not yet how you get there. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:13:40] Brie Tucker: And everybody has a different emotional bag that they can fit things in.

Some people can, yes, handle things for longer periods than others. I like to say that my emotional baggage is about the size of a coin purse. I can't handle this much frustration. Tiny bit of frustration before. I'm like, I can't handle it anymore. 

[00:13:58] JoAnn Crohn: Oh my gosh. I saw the best thing about this too, and it was a cool metaphor, and I forget it was something on Instagram, but she had this hose and this fishbowl and she's like, here's the stress. Was the hose and the fishbowl was like, here's what you can handle. And so she started filling the fishbowl with like tons of stress and it, it was getting to the top and it was almost overflowing when your, when your stress gets outta control. But the key point isn't to reduce the stress because that stress is gonna keep flowing.

And in fact, sometimes it may flow bigger than normal. She then took out a drill and then she's like, but you can release the stress by connections with friends. And she drilled a hole and then the water was coming out that hole. Adequate S leech, drill the wall comb me up that hole exercise drilled the hole water coming up that hole.

So after she drilled all these holes with all these self-care things, like you could see how same amount of stress was pouring in, but the water wasn't going to the top anymore because it had all these release points. And so that what you said just made me think about that. I'm like, oh yeah, that's really cool.

[00:15:05] Brie Tucker: I like that. That's a Yeah, cuz I, I'm a visual person, you know, that I need to see mm-hmm. Something a certain way that helps. So, yeah. Number one, first thing you need to do is realize those physical reactions and you went into another point that will, will come by a little bit later down on the list. But notice your physical reactions and don't beat yourself up about them because everybody has them.

Yes. And if you have a, and if you have a little kid, I'm going to encourage you, well, actually any age, but especially when they're little. Cause like when they're under the age of five. We teach our kids a lot about emotions, right? We talk about happy, mad, sad, and we, mm-hmm. We help our kids kind of recognize as different emotions.

One thing that we kind of gloss over a lot in society is that we don't tell our kids about the physical reactions that come along with that. Right. Like the feeling of how it feels when you're angry. We might be like, oh, when someone's going like this, er, they're, they're angry, or they're mad facial, we don't like talk.

Right. But we don't talk about the fact that like, also when we're angry, sometimes it feels like our face is getting hot and it feels like we have all this energy that just has to come out. So when we don't give them physical cues, it can be harder. Mm-hmm. For them to understand that there are physical reactions that go along with those emotions.

Or even 

[00:16:16] JoAnn Crohn: like, cause a headache early throat tightening up or like Yeah, or stomach. Stomach aches. Stomach tightening. Stomach aches, 

[00:16:22] Brie Tucker: yeah. Yeah. Stomach ache when you're upset or stress, all those things. If we don't tell our kids about that when they're younger, then they're not going to be able to put the, at their, our physical reactions that come along with emotional reactions and that they work together, they're not gonna get that.

Mm-hmm. So that's based in box for two minutes about the early, early childhood side of it. So, so after you notice your physical reaction, what's the next thing you can do? 

[00:16:45] JoAnn Crohn: You're gonna pause and you're gonna give yourself a chance to disconnect emotionally. Right. I have another example of this, this weekend.

[00:16:53] Brie Tucker: Okay. 

[00:16:55] JoAnn Crohn: It was another time I was mad. I was very bad this weekend. Um, being late is one of my triggers. It is. So one of my triggers if I feel like I am late for an event that is gonna close without me, like, not like a party at a friend's house or anything like that, because those are things like, people show up late too all the time, but like, This particular instance, we booked an escape room and escape rooms.

You have to be there at the time else. They take your time away or they don't let you do it. 

[00:17:21] Brie Tucker: It's written in there. Yeah, 

[00:17:23] JoAnn Crohn: it's written in there. And so we, my husband kind of put off grocery shopping all day. And then he, he decided to go off grocery shopping, and then when he got home from grocery shopping, it was 10 minutes until our escape room time, and it takes us like 15 minutes to even get to the escape room.

So I was just, I felt it inside. I was raining. I was like, I spent the entire 15 minute drive, like hands in my lap, like closing my eyes. So I couldn't look at the clock and just like deep breathing. Because I'm like, okay, this is gonna be a reaction where if I react right now, it is going to potentially ruin this really fun time we have with each other.

Really fun time we have with each other, and I can talk with him about this when I am in a calm state. I just wanna get there. Right. Uh, and, and we did, we got there. They, they called us on the way there and they said, yeah, we have to take off a little time. I'm like, okay. And we ended up passing the room anyways, which is very important to me to pass an escape room.

[00:18:23] Brie Tucker: I know, right? Yeah. I've done one escape room with you. But yes, you, that was very repetitive. Have to pass. Yes. 

[00:18:31] JoAnn Crohn: And you only get clues, Brie, when you can't think of 'em after a while, you don't get them right away. That is not, 

[00:18:39] Brie Tucker: oh my God.

I'm like, listen, we got clues. Let's just use, let's just, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, hey, we know. That's my personality. Also, my personality is hoping we get there on time. But at the end, please is ever in charge of transportation? Go on at At 

[00:19:03] JoAnn Crohn: the end I was able to. I was pretty calm starting the room, and we were good.

We were good going through the room, and I calmed down and we took the picture at the end and my husband picks up the Justin time sign. He's like, well, this is right. For many reasons, isn't it? Admitting that he, he was, he was late. Well, is he, 

[00:19:20] Brie Tucker: and that's. That's important too, right there. It's important when you can have that self-reflection.

I don't know how to say that. Like yeah. Being aware where your role is. Self-aware. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:19:31] JoAnn Crohn: Knowing, knowing your role, your contribution to the situation as it is. Yeah. But just that pausing and giving yourself myself a chance to disconnect emotionally helps deal with the situation, and it helps me deal with the situation and think through lo I waited until I was in a logical place to deal.

With what was going on. Um, yeah. But then the third point, Brie, the third thing we have on there 

[00:19:56] Brie Tucker: is for you to be able to identify your trigger. So your trigger. And that, that's a big one for me in my household, because you've heard me say this, anyone who listens to the podcast has heard me say it before, that my daughter is a mini version of me and I, when she was younger, I would constantly say to her, listen.

There's only room for one of us here, and I came first because, like she'll, she'll do a lot of my behaviors that I, I myself know, is triggering. I know when I do the behaviors that I am, like pissing people off, I'm triggering them and I'm trying not to. I'm trying to like, you know, keep it in check and be a normal, hospitable human being and not let my emotions just blow out at me like a volcano.

But it's about taking, again, it builds on top of the pausing and giving yourself to a chance to disconnect emotionally. Identifying your trigger is like, okay, what about this is pissing me off in the moment? What about this is making me mad? And sometimes with me and my daughter, it's the fact that she won't engage.

That's, that pushes my buttons. When you, when I ask somebody a question and they ignore me, like, gimme the cold shoulder. That is a button pusher. And I don't, yeah, I dunno if it's because like I talk so much or what it is, but I mean, I do know that I've had people in my life that that's how they dealt with when they were angry with me, they would just cut me out.

And to me that was like, whoa, 

that's not cool. 

[00:21:19] JoAnn Crohn: Well, you bring up a very interesting point because part of identifying your triggers, I was reading this book actually, we're gonna interview this person, Dr. Dana Dorfman, which she wrote a great book called When Worry Works, and she suggests you identify your triggers.

And one of the things she suggests is to ask yourself the question, when in your past have you felt this way before? And you say people have intentionally cut you out. When they're not responding, which really makes sense to why when your daughter doesn't respond to you, you get emotionally feel emotionally reactive because it probably triggers that 

[00:21:58] Brie Tucker: it does. And now that you mentioned that, let, we'll just take a moment and sit on the, the Freudian couch here for Brie. That person who would do that to me, that past relationship, that person would do it intentionally because they knew that connection was important to me. Mm-hmm. And so it was easy to. Let me know they were mad at me by taking away any emotional support I could have. And so they were doing that intentionally. So then when my daughter does it, which she's 14, nine times outta 10, when she's doing it, it's because she doesn't wanna talk. I wish. That's the same reason I wish that, yeah, I wish that she wanted to talk about her feelings and work through things that way, but that's not how she works.

She's the whole Leave me alone. Let me process for a bit. And then I can maybe come back and talk about it. And me, I push, push, push to have us talk about it because that makes me feel better. 

[00:22:50] JoAnn Crohn: So it's your anxiety. Yeah. 

[00:22:52] Brie Tucker: It's, it's so and so then, like when she does that thing where she won't talk to me, it triggers me because I'm like, oh my gosh, she's doing it on, it's, it's exactly what we're talking about here.

She's trying to push my buttons. She's doing it intentionally to cut me out and to be mean to me. Yeah. No, she's not. No. I need to realize that that is my trigger, not hers. Yeah. If I were to even say to her, it makes you feel like you're doing this on purpose to be mean to me, she'll point blank be like real quick of like, no, I'm not.

I just want you to leave me alone for a few minutes and then I'll talk to you. Yeah. 

[00:23:21] JoAnn Crohn: So. Well, it's like with the late thing, I was thinking like, oh my gosh, you're not on time. Why? Why aren't you more considerate of my feelings by like being on time? And these are the thoughts going through my head and I know that's not, it's not true.

And I go back to, okay, when did I feel this way? And so I don't, I just thought of another one actually right now. When I felt that way about time, my dad was always very inconsistent about the time he picked me up from school. Now I was an afterschool program, so I was always very well taken care of. Yeah.

Um, I just didn't know when he was coming, you know, sometimes it would be by five, which is like chapel time. I went to an Episcopalian school, so I'd have to go to chapel with all the nuns and then we would go back to the, their house after that and they'd all be sitting dinner and I'd still be there.

And so it was just very, Inconsistent and I would worry something happened to him and I would be like, why aren't you here on time? So, I mean, that could have been it. Now my dad is just, he was stuck in work and it was all fine. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it's like my personal, my trigger. But no, it's the one 

[00:24:27] Brie Tucker: That's funny you say that though, real quick. I was gonna say my kids. Yeah. Now that you say that. They would tell me that all the time that they were only in childcare after school for two years, but they would constantly bring that point up to me and I couldn't understand it, but

[00:24:39] JoAnn Crohn: . It was like a worry. It was like, what happened? What happened with my parent?

Where is he? I know my son gets those worries with me now, which is why he loves having a phone in life 360, cuz he can constantly see where I am and when I'm coming. And so he manages his anxiety that way. But another time we were late, we, it was, I was 20 years old and it wasn't our fault. It was a flight.

And there was a big microburst in Phoenix, and we were flying up from Tucson to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Vancouver to get a cruise the same day. And the flight was late coming outta Tucson because of the microburst the previous night. And we were at the door of the plane going to Vancouver with all of our luggage on it.

By the way, our luggage made it and 

[00:25:21] Brie Tucker: they shut the door on you?

[00:25:23] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, you can't get on. And the crew, it was like 10:00 AM in the morning. Crew left the dock at 5:00 PM that night. And my parents had no idea what to do. I was the one who took charge. I went to the airline desk. I found us new flights. I helped, like I got people on flight.

 I found us new flights. I, I got everything and we were the last people on the ship. They pulled up the gangway when we got on and we didn't have clothes for like two days. But my dad got insurance and we got to spend money in the gift shop.

So that was great. But I think being late in terms of that situation, I'm like, oh my gosh, if we're late, this is gonna be like so much work and so much stress and da da. 

[00:26:01] Brie Tucker: Okay. That that right there is traumatizing. I'm sorry. That stay with you for life. I mean, here we are talking about it 20 plus years later, like it that sticks with you.

Something like that. 

[00:26:12] JoAnn Crohn: When we went on our cruise, that's why I was so insistent. I'm like, we are not flying the day of our cruise. We are coming in early. There is, I like that. No way. One too. Yeah. 

[00:26:19] Brie Tucker: I, I, so as someone who is constantly late, I know I need that buffer, so I'm like, whatever. Anybody suggests being somewhere early, you notice the only time I argue is if I'm expected to be up before the sun.

And I only argue because I know I, I physically move slower before the sun is up. That's why like hate Phoenix in the summer because I can't stand the heat, but I love the sunlight. It makes this thing so much easier for me. But I realize I'm going off on a tangent. 

[00:26:51] JoAnn Crohn: It's all good. Yeah, because the next point is once you know your trigger, you can give yourself some self-compassion.

And I know. It's like, okay, this has happened to you. It's okay. It's okay, and it helps calm you down in the moment instead of putting that blame with your child or with somebody else you're relating to. It's really the situation you're going through and you can take some, some self-care and some self-compassion in that moment.

[00:27:16] Brie Tucker: Well, and you said that earlier, we were talking about the physical reactions, and you said it doesn't make you a bad person because you're getting mad and frustrated. Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of times we immediately go there. Right. A lot of times we try to deny that we're mad. We try to deny that we're frustrated because in our brain that little called it, we are in our balance thing.

Recently you, you were talking about that inner voice. You're Bob. Yeah. Whatever it is. 

[00:27:39] JoAnn Crohn: In your inner voice, it's called Bob. Yeah. It's like, what is Bob doing today? Karen? 

[00:27:44] Brie Tucker: Mine's definitely Karen. Karen's a good one. Yeah. 

But, but what that that does it tells us, oh, if you're mad, if you're mad that this is happening, you're a bad person.

You're a bad mom. Yeah. How dare you be upset with these kids. Kids. 

[00:27:56] JoAnn Crohn: You should feel grateful that you have these kids and that you're able to have this life. Why are you mad? Yeah. That's the voice. Yeah. That's the voice that totally like, and that's this voice. It's not a nice voice. It's that overbearing, horrible person voice that interest.

[00:28:12] Brie Tucker: Having emotions are normal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you can, and you can be mad. You can be frustrated at your kids' behaviors. 100%. You can be mad at them. Mm-hmm. But again, it's about what our reactions are, like what we actually do with those emotions that are the things that we're striving for. 

[00:28:32] JoAnn Crohn: So, well, it's so interesting cuz Dr. Kristen Neff, who Oh, I so want on the podcast. Please come on. The podcast we're working on. She wrote, 

[00:28:39] Brie Tucker: we're Working on you, Kristin. We're working on, 

[00:28:41] JoAnn Crohn: we're Coming For You. Dr. Neff. 

She wrote a great book called Self-Compassion, but she wrote a follow up book called Fierce Self-Compassion. And what fierce self-compassion is, is recognizing that anger and using that anger as a force for action.

So the thing is though, if you're self-critical about your. Anger. If you're self-critical about being mad, that anger gets stomped down and you stay in the same place and you don't take any action to improve your situation, nor do you take action to improve the situation for others. But if you give yourself that self-compassion and that caring, you could use that anger to be like, okay, something needs to change here.

This is my indication that something needs to change. And with that self-compassion, you're able to get to that logical place and you're able to think back and be like, what needs to change for me to, to be better in this situation, for me to feel better? Cuz we deserve to feel better. We shouldn't have to do the same thing over and over and over again.

[00:29:36] Brie Tucker: Nobody wants to be angry all the time. Nobody wants to be frustrated. Nobody wants to be holding. Back, all those emotions inside of you, nobody wants to be there, so, yeah. 

[00:29:47] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. Nobody wants to be, she tells a great story in the book, um, about this too, and it's actually about a director of a child center who was very inappropriate with his college staff.

And because of the fierce self-compassion she gave herself, she was able to take action and get him removed, even though he was a close friend at the time. 

[00:30:06] Brie Tucker: Aw, that sucks. 

It's a, it does suck an the close friend part of it. 

[00:30:11] JoAnn Crohn: It's a very good example of how though she, you could use anger to protect others and to make good in the world.

So anger's not a bad thing. 

[00:30:21] Brie Tucker: Okay. Okay. And then, so what is the last thing that we could do to get out of this loop with our kids? 

[00:30:28] JoAnn Crohn: Just try to connect with them. I mean, and it's, and it's impossible to connect with them when you're in this bad, wanting to yell and scream at people. I always tell this to my kids because my, my son in particular is very aware of when I'm upset about something very, very aware.

When I was upset about being late, he's like, mom, are you okay? Mom, are you okay? And I had to tell him, I'm like, I'm just really angry. I don't like being late. And he left it at that. But if it was a situation where they were causing it, I, a lot of times I go to them and I'm like, Hey, I just wanna let you know that the reason I was angry, it's not really to do with you.

It's not your fault. I am angry because I, I have these other things going on, these other emotions. Mm-hmm. Because as we talked about, we all have triggers. It's really not, yeah. The action our kids do. It's our thinking that makes us mad. Right, 

[00:31:21] Brie Tucker: right, right. Most of the time it's not. It's if you think about it and like there's a good question to like askers.

Again, everything we talked about, going through it in that order is what helps. First notice your physical reactions, then pause and give yourself that distance. Then identify what the trigger was that made you feel that emotion. And it, most of the time, once you get to that where you can identify the trigger, you can normally figure out that, oh, I'm not mad at them.

I'm mad about this trigger. For whatever reason that's happening. 

[00:31:52] JoAnn Crohn: Um, yeah, the same situation can happen and different people will see it two very different ways based on their past experiences and their thinking. 

[00:32:02] Brie Tucker: Right. So like, quick example, the whole DMV mix up on Friday would I, that frustrated me so much because again, being divorced and having to get my kids.

Dad's schedule. Get him there at the D M V and we're all waiting there. My daughter had to come with us cause we had to pick her up from school, blah, blah, blah. We get there, we go through the whole thing, and then the guy tells us that it's the wrong day. I was vividly angry. Mm-hmm. And I could tell that I was stressing out my son.

And I, the whole time I'm standing there, I'm like, you're a terrible mom because you screwed up the date. You made everybody come here and they didn't have to be here, and now your son is upset and he's disappointed that he didn't get his license, blah, blah, blah. All those voices, Karen wishes having a, a feast with me that day.

And then once it was all said and done, we left without his, his driving test. We did get it rescheduled. He went off with his dad. I was able to like calm down and be able to like text my son cause mm-hmm. He prefers text. He's not a, he said don't call me kind of person. Yeah. So it's, I texted him and I'm like, I just wanted to let you know, in no way was I upset with you while we were there.

It was everything I should have. I. Paid attention to the date earlier, I should have printed off some extra documents to have, cuz other things popped up too, that they were like, you don't have his birth certificate with you. And I'm like, it didn't say too. So all these other things are what made me upset, had nothing to do with you, and I just wanna let you know that I'm really proud of you and can't wait to see you on Tuesday when we take your driving test again or.

Try it again. And that is what was important was getting to that step. But I had to go through all those other steps first. I had to identify that I was upset, I had to disconnect. I had to figure out what the trigger was, why was I really mad and go through all of that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. And then, and first, when you get to connect after that.

[00:33:43] JoAnn Crohn: You do get to connect.

You do get to connect. I feel like when, when you tell me these stories, that you have an underlying story theme of a lot of self blame about things you should have done. That you, you had control over, which I feel like, honestly, honestly though, that DM v screws with you on a daily, like government agencies.

Like I, I could, I could say this, the city, when we had to go . Get passports the first time when you get a passport, they send in a copy of the birth certificate. But they expect you to bring the copy of the birth certificate else. They'll be like, well, we could make a copy. Maybe we can make a copy. No, you're gonna have to go away and, and bring back a copy of the birth certificate.

They don't tell you this anywhere on the site. Yeah. And. So like in those situations, it's beyond your locus of control and like you had no bearing, like no one told you to bring his fricking birth certificate that was on the D M V. Right. 

[00:34:36] Brie Tucker: But also, like you said, the burden of the blame. I'm like, well, I'm the one who set it all up.

I should have known everything. I should have had everything control. That was Karen. Karen is 

Karen, but I feel like you. 

[00:34:49] JoAnn Crohn: You need someone from an outside source to be like, no, like Karen, you're wrong, Karen. That is not Brie's fault 

Karen. Like that was a positive. 

[00:34:58] Brie Tucker: Luckily I'm able to have this conversation a lot of times with Miguel and he'll yeah.

He'll be like, honey, that was that of your control. Yeah. And then I'll be like, so I texted, I texted Robert. He's like, that was a good thing. I bet. Enjoyed hearing that. And I'm like, thank you. I needed to hear that. So yeah, you guys good. Keep. He is. He's good peeps. So we wanna a lot of times connect with our kids right out the bat, but we can't until we've gone through those other steps.

Yeah. And connection is normally what they were looking for. That any attention is good. Atten is attention. They were normally looking for that probably to begin with. If it was a situation where they were, where their actions were actually trying to get a reaction out of us. It's just not normally pushing buttons.

It's normally. 

[00:35:38] JoAnn Crohn: And not even any like intentional connection, but maybe they're feeling unsettled inside and they just don't know how to react in the situation. Exactly. The connection how many times helps, helps them feel less unsettled. 

[00:35:53] Brie Tucker: It does. It does. Yeah. So hopefully this episode has helped you. The next time that you're in a situation with your kiddo and it feels like it feels so strongly like they are doing it on purpose, whatever it is they're doing, walking slowly to the car when you're already late.

Yeah. Taking extra time, whatever. It not talking, not answering you. When you ask them a question and it feels like they're doing it just to be mean to you, chances are extremely unlikely that they're doing it just to be mean to you. 

[00:36:22] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. Chances are they have really big emotions themselves and they're trying to deal with it. Yeah. As well. 

[00:36:28] Brie Tucker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or we're 100% reading into it. Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:33] JoAnn Crohn: So not too, yeah. So remember, the best mom is a happy mom. Take care of you. 

We'll talk to you later. 

[00:36:40] Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.