Kids don’t come with an instruction manual under their arms, so most parents learn to raise their kids as they go. As you probably know, it’s not always easy. However, although there are many obstacles and difficulties to face along the way, most parents recognize that the main problem they have to deal with in raising their children is patience. Losing your temper with children is a fairly common situation in many families

We live in a society that demands too much of us. Work, housework and social commitments take up most of our time and consume our energy, so there are days when we wake up already exhausted. The problem is that this accumulated fatigue affects our self-control, leaves us with nerves on edge and we end up losing patience more easily. Waldorf Calendar – Montessori for the little ones at home.

The good news is that even if you can’t change your environment overnight, there are some tricks that give you back control over your emotions, develop your patience, help you understand your children better and create a more positive environment in your home. home.

5 tricks to stop losing your temper with children

To become good fathers and mothers it is not enough to love children and dedicate time and attention to them, it is also important to learn to be patient with them. Here are some practical and simple tools that can help you be more tolerant and better understand the little ones at home.

1. Don’t push yourself too hard

To learn patience with children, the first step is to think about yourself a little more and readjust your expectations. Ask yourself if you are demanding too much of yourself or if you are demanding too much of your children. Maybe it’s just a matter of slowing down, lowering your expectations and assuming that some things won’t be perfect and that it’s okay.

Raising a child is not an easy task, so avoid being so rigid with yourself. When you stop demanding so much of yourself, you will feel that your level of stress and anxiety is reduced and you are once again in control of your life.

2. Learn to prioritize

Do you usually have your day full of tasks that only occupy your time and energy but are not really relevant? If it happens to you often, it is likely that you feel overwhelmed most of the day and arrive at night very tired. Not only will this worsen your health and affect your mental balance, but it will make you lose your temper more easily.

To avoid it, what you should do is simple: learn to prioritize. Analyze your day and focus on those tasks that are really important while eliminating those that are not essential or a priority. A very simple strategy that can help you is to plan your day. Think of all the important tasks that you have to do throughout the day, calculate how much time and energy each one of them will consume and give yourself a margin to take into account the unforeseen events that may occur. If you have time left over, complete those less relevant tasks or simply dedicate those hours to spending more time with your family.

3. Identify your triggers

We all have a limit and we are particularly prone to losing our temper in situations that exceed those limits. Learning to identify them and recognize the factors that make you lose your temper more easily will not only help you stay in control, but it will allow you to get to know yourself better.

To identify those triggers, ask yourself in what situations you tend to lose your temper. Does a particular behavior of your children usually bother you? Do you lose your temper more easily when you are busy/or when you are calm/and are bothered? Do you lose your temper more quickly when your children ignore you or when they are on you continuously? The next step after knowing these factors is to try to avoid them and, if you can’t, use some self-control tools , such as breathing exercises, so that you regain power over your emotions.

4. Stop before the point of no return

The point of no return is that moment when you lose patience, you can no longer control your emotions or your behavior and you yell at your children. To avoid going to that extreme, the first step is to be aware of your emotions from the moment a trigger arises.

What do you feel? Is your anger on the rise? What are you thinking about? To prevent that spiral of negative thoughts and emotions from increasing, avoid focusing on the negative of the circumstances and instead, think of something positive that helps your brain go in another direction. A very simple strategy that can help you get out of that negative loop is to breathe slowly and deeply.

5. Recharge your energies

If you wake up already tired and you barely have the strength to get to the end of the day, it may be time to take a break to recharge your batteries. Keep in mind that if you are exhausted, not only will your physical and emotional health suffer, but it will be easier for you to lose patience and the people around you will end up paying the consequences.

To regain your strength you may have to reduce your social commitments and dedicate more time to yourself or, on the contrary, meet more with your friends to clear your mind. Asking for help from the rest of the family, sharing household chores more evenly and dedicating at least one day a week to doing something you really like is also a good way to regain your energy.

In any case, even if you put these strategies into practice, sometimes it is normal to lose your nerves and patience with children. We are human and we make mistakes. However, the important thing is to recognize it and try to repair the damage caused. So if you’ve overreacted, apologize to the kids and talk about what happened. In this way you will not only be able to strengthen family ties, but you will also become an example of emotional management for the little ones at home.