129: The physical reasons you yell at your kids

Why do we yell at our children - even when we know we shouldn't? Why isn't just knowing what to do enough to actually interact with our children in a way that aligns with our values? For many of us, the reason we struggle to actually implement the ideas we know we want to use is because we've experienced trauma in our lives. This may be the overt kind that we can objectively say was traumatic (divorce, abuse, death among close family members...), or it may simply be the additive effect of having our needs disregarded over and over again by the people who were supposed to protect us. These experiences cause us to feel 'triggered' by our children's behavior - because their mess and lack of manners and resistance remind us subconsciously of the ways that we were punished as children for doing very similar things. These feelings don't just show up in our brains, they also have deep connections to our bodies (in spite of the Western idea that the body and brain are essentially separate!). If we don't decide to take a different path and learn new tools to enable us to respond effectively to our child rather than reacting in the heat of the moment, and because our physical experience is so central to how this trauma shows up in our daily lives, we also need to understand and process this trauma through our bodies. If you need help understanding the source of your triggered feelings and learning new ways to navigate them so you can feel triggered less often, my popular and highly effective Taming Your Triggers workshop is open for registration through midnight Pacific on Sunday February 28 for a Monday March 1 start. Sliding scale pricing is available, and the community meets on a platform that isn't Facebook! Please reach out to support@yourparentingmojo.com if you have questions about the workshop. https://www.yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers (Click here to learn more about Taming Your Triggers)   Jump to highlights: (01:00) This episode’s rationale (03:12) The two ways trauma shows up