What’s the alternative to yelling at our children?
P arents love their children, but this doesn’t mean they always like what their children do. And when they don’t like what they do, they react in different ways.
“I know it’s awful, but I find myself screaming at my three-year-old a lot. He drives me crazy. He seems to purposely defy me, and that really triggers something in me.”
It makes sense that people scream when they’re triggered. When the subconscious mind is reminded of danger, it steps right in to release the emergency signal that sends adrenaline into the bloodstream. As far as the brain is concerned, a life-threatening emergency is underway — even if all that happened was that a toddler stuck his tongue out at his mother.
How does a toddler’s rudeness trigger such a torrent of emotion? Perhaps the mother was consistently hurt by a parent or older brother or is badly treated by her husband. Perhaps she cannot take yet another display of hostility or disrespect as it assaults her already fragile sense of self. And while the toddler’s intention would clearly be different from that of the previous abuser’s, the similarity of the optics is enough to open the floodgates of trauma.
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