Here are the 10 go-to lines you can use when you’re really mad at your kid.
10. “I’m in the yellow zone, and I feel myself heading into the red zone. I’m going to take a break now.”
9 “I love you, ____ (child’s name). And right now I’m feeling frustrated. I need you to understand that it’s not okay to ______(problem). Is there anything you need me to understand better?”
8. “My anger is getting too big right now,” or “My anger is too big to talk calmly about this right now.”
7. “I’m feeling too upset to take care of this right now. I’m going to sit down with some tea and calm down. I’ll talk about it later when I’m feeling better.”
6. “Wow, my body feels really tight and tense right now. I am going to go take some deep breaths to calm myself down.”
5. “Remember, we’re on the same team. Let’s work together on this.”
4. “Let’s both count to ten and then hug. Once we settle down we can talk calmly about how we’re feeling.”
3. “I feel frustrated and impatient right now. Let’s sit together and take some deep breaths to calm down for a few minutes,” which will help diffuse the anger while normalizing the range of emotions that kids experience.
2. “I love you too much to argue/ fight with you about this. I’m going to take a little break until I can calm myself down and then we can talk about solutions whenever we both feel ready.”
1.“Is that ____ (puzzle, book, tower, banana feel) hard to do? Do you need 1) a break, 2) to try again, 3) or some help?”
No. 1 go-to phrase works wonderfully especially if your patience is just about to run out while you are tutoring your kid. Instead of getting mad because your kid just can’t seem to understand the lesson, try acknowledging the challenge. Then patiently offer some help. The no.1 go-to phrase gives you all the right words to say in the midst of your frustration.
These go-to lines were contributed and shared by parenting experts and authors like Amy McCready, author of The Me, Me, Me Epidemic, Sarah Chana Radcliffe, author of Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice, and Katie Hurley, author of The Happy Kid Handbook: How To Raise Joyful Children in a Stressful World, to mention a few.
You will find more go-to lines on this article by Andrea Nair. She had actually listed down 15 go-to lines as shared by her colleagues.
The 15 go-to lines are very useful especially when you need to calm down. Remember, yelling at your kid will only make the situation a lot worse. You might as well just hold on to the 15 go-to lines.
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