A few weeks ago, I was really struggling to be a happy, calm parent. I was getting irritable with the kids, they were irritable with me, and on the whole there was a lot more yelling and door slamming than normally goes on.
At the start I assumed that I was frustrated and annoyed because the kids were being frustrating and annoying. I thought that I was running out of patience because my kids had already run out of patience. I got to work trying to figure out what had caused them all to be more angry and on edge than usual. Were they not getting enough sleep? Had we been watching too much TV while the Olympics were on? Were they getting sick? Was it because of the weather? Had they been having too much sugar? Was it because of the full moon?
I racked my brains trying to find a cause I could pinpoint, but nothing clicked. And as the days went on and nothing improved, I got more and more frustrated. I was taking breaks more often, losing my patience more often, and it felt like everything was going wrong. Finally, I had a meltdown, a long cry, and woke up the next morning with a headache but feeling a bit better.
And that’s when I realised what I had been doing wrong.
I had been focusing on my kids… and not on me.
“In fact, most of what we call parenting doesn’t take place between a parent and a child but within the parent.” -Laura Markham
It seems counterintuitive, but parenting is way less about our kids than we often think it is. And when we focus on our kids, our parenting often slips. That was what had been happening to me. I was focusing on their behaviour, getting bogged down by the frequency and intensity of their outbursts, catastrophising within myself to the point that I thought that it was always going to be like this.
I hadn’t been focusing on me. I had been forgetting to take my iron pills (and low iron = irritability for me). I had been getting overwhelmed with the size of my to-do list as I was preparing for an upcoming camping trip. I was readjusting after a month of working harder than normal at home while my husband was working harder than normal at work. And as a result, I had been choosing frustration over play. I had been allowing myself to feel like the victim instead of remembering that I get to control how I feel and respond.
And once I remembered all that, I was able to start shifting things.
I started doing the things that I needed to do for me again, like taking my iron pills and getting enough sleep.
I started doing things to manage my mood again, like choosing to respond playfully when my kids starting to push my buttons and starting a dance party when the emotional level in our house started tending negative. I focused on shifting my mood rather than just taking a break and numbing my feelings while watching TV, scrolling on social media, or eating chocolate.
I started focusing on responding rather than reacting. Reminding myself that I have control over my behaviour.
And within days, the whole mood in our house shifted.
There was more laughter than yelling again. More music than banging doors. More play than fighting.
See, there’s this thing that psychologists call a locus of control. It refers to how much a person believes they have control over their life and operates on a continuum. People can have an internal locus of control (believing that their circumstances can be shaped by their own actions), or an external locus of control (believing that their circumstances are shaped by outside forces). Researchers have found that people are happiest when their locus of control is “bi-local”, representing balance between believing that they can control their circumstances and accepting that there are factors that are uncontrollable.
The locus of control has been applied to outcomes in many fields, from academic achievement, health, career prospects, and even to how people save money. In general, people achieve more, live healthier, and save more for retirement when they tend towards an internal locus of control. However, being extremely internally oriented also has it’s downsides, leading to excessive stress, anxiety, and guilt from assuming too much responsibility over life’s outcomes.
The concept of a locus of control also applies to parenting. When we believe that our own behaviour and emotions are caused by our kids’ behaviour and emotions, we don’t do our best parenting. We may feel that our anger is justified and that they deserve the punishments we mete out in frustration. We believe that the way we parent is shaped by the kids we’re trying to parent. We may even think that all of our kid’s bad behaviour is caused by things outside of their control, blaming things like sickness, the school environment, or even other kids. An external locus of control leads us to feel more reactive (these kids make me so angry!) and may lead us to parent more permissively (I can’t control these kids!) or with angry outbursts and harsh punishments.
This is where I was at when I was feeling like my limited patience was being caused by my kids making it run out, and when I was trying to figure out what was going on for them to cause them to act so badly. Being externally focused wasn’t working out well for me.
On the contrary, an overly internal locus of control also doesn’t help. It can lead us to stress about trying to create the perfect environment in which to raise our kids. It can lead us to take on unnecessary anxiety as we assume that everything we do and say has the potential to impact our kids for life. It can lead to guilt when we take on the full responsibility of our children’s misbehaviour.
This is where I was at on the night I had my big cry. I was wrongly blaming only myself for my kids’ behaviour, assuming that I must be doing everything wrong for them to be acting up so much.
We are happiest and do our best parenting when we find a “bi-local” locus of control, or as Laura Markham said, when we remember that “most of what we call parenting doesn’t take place between a parent and a child but within the parent”.
We find our happy spot when we stop trying to control and assume responsibility for our kids’ emotions and behaviours or letting their emotions and behaviour impact our own. We do our best when we focus on shaping our own moods, regulating how we express our emotions, and making sure that our behaviour is in line with our values.
We do our best parenting when we focus on what we can control (us!), while accepting that there are things we can’t control (like our kids!).
I'd love to hear your thoughts! What are some things you do to shift your mood when you feel yourself getting irritable?
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