Episode 51: Keeping Our Cool When it Matters Most with Carla Naumburg

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[00:00:00] Natalie: Hi everyone. It's Natalie. We all lose it. Sometimes we get busy, we make mistakes, we yell. Then we feel terrible about yelling. Do you relate? Well, unfortunately, this often happens around the people we love the most, our spouse, our parents, even our kids. None of us want this to happen, but when we're stressed, It just happens today.

[00:00:20] We're talking about keeping our cool when it matters most. And my guest is Dr. Karla. Numberg, she's a clinical social worker and author of three parenting books with a fourth on the way she works with parents day in and day out on techniques for keeping themselves together. She's a working mom and she knows how to stop those triggers from becoming blowups.

And Carla, we all know as parents and even those who aren't parents, what it feels like to be triggered and to have a meltdown. But I want to get into today how to prevent that from happening. It's like you see the whole world around you, you see it happening, but you don't know what.

[00:01:07] Carla: Yeah. I just want to start out by saying Natalie, that every single parent on the planet loses their temper with their kids, including me. And I wrote the book, right. And I lose my temper with my kids. I lose it less often now. And I recover more quickly, which is what we're going to talk about today.

[00:01:23] Um, So the first thing you asked was how do we lose it last? Was that what you asked? I lost my train of thought. Yeah. Like I

[00:01:29] Natalie: I feel like it happens so often and I know. That it's often me and not something my kid did, but it's actually something wrong in my life or I'm stressed or whatever, but yet, how do you stop it from happening?

[00:01:43] You walk out of the room, take a deep breath. Like how do you stop that moment? You

[00:01:48] Carla: know, you're going to.So in order to stop that moment, we need to take a step back and understand a little bit about why we lose our tempers with our kids. And I think a lot of parents have decided that it's just a matter of willpower.

[00:02:02] If we could just decide not to lose our tempers. Then we would stay calm or maybe we're just, we've already labeled ourselves as a bad parent. And if we were just a better parent, just a patient parent, we wouldn't lose it. And it's actually neither of those. It goes back to our nervous system and what happens when our nervous system is overloaded by stress and big emotions and exhaustion and multitasking and all those things that every parent deals with all day long.

[00:02:28] If we can take care of our nervous system and keep ourselves a little bit calmer or at least a little bit better cared for, I'd say over the course of the day, the week our lives, we will be less likely to get to that point that you're talking about, where we're on the edge of the cliff and we're hanging on for dear life.

[00:02:44] And the way I think about it with parents that I think makes it a little easier to sort of conceptualize. That have talking about nervous systems is I talk about our buttons, that all of us are sort of covered with buttons. And the more triggered we are, the more exhausted we are, the more we're anxious or worried or angry or stressed or dealing with too many things, the bigger, brighter, more sensitive and more pushable our buttons become.

[00:03:09] And as anybody who's ever been in an elevator with a kid knows when they see a bus. Right. Everybody's kids are expert gets to push it, right? They've pushed the button and it's not because your kid is a psychopath. It's because that's what kids do. Don't worry about that. They are professional button pushers and their fingers are just the perfect size and shape for your buttons.

[00:03:30] And so the more over the course of our daily life, and I know this is a big ask for busy parents, but it really makes a difference. The more we can get enough. The more we can move our bodies every day. The more we can spend time with some friends and maybe even more time away from our kids if we need it.

[00:03:47] Right. If you are with your kids 24 7, that's rough. Nobody was really designed to do that. No parent can parent well that way. The more, we can make sure we have the right amount of caffeine, perhaps not too little, but not too much. All of these things. And I go into them in more detail in the book, really help calm our buttons down.

[00:04:07] So they're darker, they're less sensitive. Our kids have to push them maybe 15 times before we lose it, instead of just pushing it once or even barely touching it once. And we explode. So. I really want parents to understand that all of these things that we traditionally think of as sort of generic care are actually highly relevant to not losing your temper with your children.

[00:04:28] Yeah.

[00:04:29] Natalie: one thing I talk a lot about on this podcast, and I know I'm as professional, I think you're going to agree with is we're modeling. So everything we do to our kids. So if we react a certain way, they're like, well, be okay for me to react that way. So how can we model this and actually talk about it in the moment?

[00:04:49] Or do you recommend you walk away? Cool. Or do you talk about it? Do you say, you know what, that really triggered me or that's pushing my buttons. What do, what do you

[00:04:57] Carla: recommend first of all, I totally agree with you on the modeling, but I also want to be clear with parents that you don't have to be perfect at every moment.

[00:05:04] Right? it's also okay. To model for our kids, that we are imperfect creatures and we're always doing. We can and sometimes the best we can is actually not great. And that's okay. Right. So I totally agree with the modeling, but I don't want parents to feel like they have to hold themselves to a standard of perfection, which I think too many parents already do.

[00:05:23] Having said that the way you handle the moment in any given moment and by the moment, I mean, the moment when you're about to freak out or you are freaking out really depends. I would say on how triggered you are, because sometimes we get so upset and again, This isn't a personal failing. This is the way the human brain is wired, that we can get so overwhelmed that we literally can't find the words.

[00:05:45] There's no words. There's no conscious thinking. There's no logic, there's no awareness. There's no modeling. There's none of it. There's just losing your temper. And so in that moment, the minute you realize. But you've lost it. What I talk about in the book is, is notice, pause, and do literally anything else.

[00:06:03] So the minute you notice you've lost your temper and is any parent who's ever lost it with their kids knows you can be neck deep in a parental meltdown and have no awareness that it's happening. Right. You're just so caught up in the moment you don't even realize. Yeah. So the minute you get that little shift in perspective, just pause for a minute, just put a pin in it.

[00:06:23] Closure. Whatever, just take a breath and then do anything else. And so what does that, anything else look like? Well, if you have enough head space that you can say, wow, guys, I totally just exploded on you. I'm sorry. I need a minute to calm down. That's great. Say that, right. But if you just have this explosion of energy and you have to get it out, you can do what I do sometimes.

[00:06:47] And just cluck, like a chicken in the middle of the kitchen. Right? Cause I will be at this place where I either am screaming or I feel like screaming and the energy is in there and my nervous system is tense and wrapped up. Sorry, ramped up. And I need to get this noise out. And so I'll just say. Clock or sing or make some garbled.

[00:07:06] Right. And it breaks up the moment. It sort of interrupts this tense moment with your family. It gets this tension out and it doesn't sort of, you know, contribute to the toxicity or the difficulty. And usually everybody laughs and then sometimes the moment has passed and there's nothing to talk about. I lost my temper over something ridiculous.

[00:07:29] We can move on. And sometimes there was a situation that we need to process a little bit and we do that. So. You know, for some parents getting that tension out, dropping to the floor and doing pushups is a thing you can do walking up and down the hallway of your house. You know, putting your hands flat on the counter and taking 10 deep breaths, reciting a prayer or a mantra or counting to 10, or, you know, whatever.

[00:07:53] Some people need to calm down. Some people need to get this energy out. You will get to know yourself. But really anything other than exploding is a great way to sort of break up that moment. Yeah.

[00:08:04] Natalie: Okay. I, your book has so many good. The last book that I read a nurse, so many good tips, but if we take a step back.

[00:08:14] Carla: Before the explosion, you talk about you, you mentioned make sure you're getting enough sleep. Make sure you have enough. Self-compassion let's go through a few of those things. And again, like you said, a moment ago, we are not perfect. I even as hard as I try, I don't get a good night's sleep, but I'm trying I know you talked about.

[00:08:31] Single-tasking instead of multitasking, I am so guilty of that. We have a joke in my house. I always burn the taco shells because they only take three minutes and I leave to do something else. One of the talk shows and have it like, so that's like our version of single task mom, single task. What are some of those other things that will help us not lose it?

[00:08:51] Because we're remembering

[00:08:53] Carla: these things. Yeah. So in the book I call these button reduction practices or burps. That's my silly little acronym. So obviously a big one is sleep and the way the human brain works, you are far more likely to. The sort of out of control and lose your temper if you haven't slept well.

[00:09:10] And if you are in a situation like so many Americans, so many people around the world that you're not sleeping well, that's just something to sort of have a whole lot of compassion for yourself about don't blame yourself. Don't shame yourself and lower your standards. Seriously. If you are walking around like a zombie, you've got to lower your standards because it's like trying to drive around on a flat.

[00:09:33] Yeah, you may still get to where you're going, but the road is going to be bumpier and way less comfortable and you got to slow down or you're going to make things worse. Okay. So another big one is having enough support and. Really humans were not designed to raise children on our own. The human baby would just require so much attention and support and human children as well.

[00:09:54] And I think increasingly mothers, especially, I will say, I think there's a gender divide here. Really feel like we should be able to do everything on our own and what I see time. And again is when families are in crisis, they tend to sort of like shut down and disappear and stay home. Circle the wagons and hide in our homes until everything passes.

[00:10:14] And what I really want to say to parents is all the time, but especially in those times, what you actually need is more support. Um, What you need to do is reach out to the people who care about you, to know you, to your friends, to your community. And I actually go into this in great detail in the book, the different kinds of support and how to nurture and grow it and how to be a supportive friend and parent to the other parents in your community.

[00:10:35] So support is a huge, huge thing. And just on a really like concrete level, having another parent in your home makes it far less likely that you're going to explode it, your kids. And so when my daughters were little, it was a really hard time for me. I was dealing with very serious postpartum anxiety and I would schedule play dates with as many families as I could.

[00:10:56] Cause I found that just having another adult in the space with me, because my husband was at work or wherever. Calmed me down, help me feel less worried, less anxious. And I was much more patient with my kids. I also didn't want to embarrass myself by exploding in my kid, in front of my friend. So having support around is just crucial.

[00:11:14] Another one is simplifying your life. And a lot of people, when I say simplify, they think, I mean declutter, and that may be part of it. But what I really mean is reduced the number of decisions and choices you have to make in any given day. We think we want more options, but the truth is every time we have to make a decision, it kind of wears us down a little bit.

[00:11:36] And if you're fighting with your kid about which sippy cup they want and which color plate they want, and whether they want their carrots cut this way or that way, it's just going to increase the stress, push your buttons. And so if you can just get one kind of. Your kid will not suffer if they have to use the same kind of plate every day, right?

[00:11:54] One kind of sippy cup, they get, you know, one option for this, whatever it is. And for you, if you have some clothes, you like wear the same type of clothing every day, who cares. Right? But the more you can reduce the number of decisions you make in a day, the less triggered and upset you'll be. Um, And then I think we should talk about single tasking.

[00:12:10] Cause look, Natalie, of course you multitask. We were raised in a culture that glorifies it. How many people have seen job descriptions that say ability to multitask required? Right. We were literally told that multitasking is something that we should work hard to be able to do. But the truth is that the human brain can't multitask.

[00:12:32] We do something called task switching where our brain switches back and forth between the various things we're trying to do. And our body never quite catches up. There's a little bit of a lag. And so the more things we're trying to do at once, the more our stress is increased. And I define stress as the thought belief or perception that you can't handle whatever's going on.

[00:12:56] And so the more we're multitasking, the more we're stressed now, maybe you can handle what's going on. You just can't handle all the things at once. And so the example I always give is, you know, it's dinner time when my kids were younger and I'd have one little girl at the dining room table trying to figure out her math.

[00:13:12] And by fourth grade, the new math had already lost me. And so I didn't know that was stressing me out. And then I'd have another kid in the bathroom yelling at me for me to wipe her tushy. And then. During the noodles, because we were always eating noodles back then. And then, you know, maybe my phone is dinging with some new news alert that stressing me out.

[00:13:28] And then all of a sudden, my brain is thinking about this creepy ex boyfriend and whatever happened to that guy. And look, I can handle any one of these things at a time. I can wipe a Toshi. I can sit down and figure out the math. I can stir the noodles. I can turn off the phone, but I can't handle all of them at once.

[00:13:44] And then I get one more question from a kid. Because my button is so hot and stimulated red, I'm just ready to lose it. I get one more question. And even though she's not trying to push my button, she does, and I explode, right. So multi, the more we can choose. At certain times to do one thing at a time. For example, if we're cooking the taco shells, Natalie, stand there with the taco shells that yourself a little time, or take a few breaths, whatever it is.

[00:14:13] But also if you're doing something where. It's going to be bad if you screw it up, right. If you're driving in texting, you could have some very bad outcomes. If there's a mistake there, if you're sending an important email to a colleague or a supervisor at work, and it's going to be really bad, if you attach the wrong document, something like that.

[00:14:31] That's a great time to single task. If there's big emotions going. Emotions take up a lot of brain space. There's not a lot left for other things. So if there's big emotions, you're going to want a single task. And really, honestly, almost any time you need to pay attention to your kids, kids have this way of just soaking up all the brain space.

[00:14:50] And so what I will say to my kids now, I'm stirring the pasta. You need to wait. Now, sometimes I have to say that 27 times, but kids can learn to wait. That's okay. Yep. Or some of my favorite advice by the author, Katherine Newman is either pay attention to your kids or ignore them. And I'm not talking about like hostile, you know what?

[00:15:10] I'm not paying attention to you. I'm ignoring you. I'm ignoring you. I'm just saying. Either decide that you have some time to sit down and help your kids with their homework or play a game with them or throw the ball or whatever it is, or you kind of let them fend for themselves. And especially if they're immersed in the project, they're doing a game, homework, reading a book, whatever.

[00:15:31] Don't get involved, do not go over there. And I see so many parents who want to step in and it's like, dude, if your kid is happy making that sandcastle, you don't need to improve on it. So in this case, Look, it takes a lot of training. It takes a lot of practice, but this can start. Even when they're babies.

[00:15:48] I used to put my daughter on the playmat on the living room floor and I would sit over on the side and this wasn't all the time, but for a few minutes at a time and I'd read my book or check my email or do whatever and just let her play. And then when she was fussy, I would go to her. Right. But I think for so many of us were trying to pay attention to our children while we do other things.

[00:16:09] And that is just, that's like, You're on the fast track to a meltdown with that. So those are some of those qualities that will help calm your buttons down. So they're not quite as pushable.

[00:17:26] Natalie: I'm so guilty of that as I think we all, like you said, we're conditioning.

[00:17:30] Absolutely multitask. And we try to do that with our kids. I mean, how many times I'm cooking dinner and trying to think, and look at the recipe while I'm trying to help with homework and I'm already not good at math. So this doesn't work very well. Let's talk about the, the recovery though, because we're not going to be perfect with this.

[00:17:47] We're going to try hard. We're going to take care of ourselves and be better. But if you do have this blow up or you say something you don't want to, or let's talk about the recovery, how you go back, how you talk about that how you explain it to your kids.

[00:18:02] Carla: So in the mental health parenting professions, we have a little phrase we like to say, which is rupture repair repeat, and this is the sort of normal cycle of human relationships and parent child relationships.

[00:18:16] And when I say normal, I mean, it's common. It happens all the time. Everybody does it in small and big ways. There's a rupture between you and your child. And it might be a little one, like you snap at them to put their shoes on. They never put their shoes on. Even though they leave the house every single day, I need to put their shoes on every single day and then they snap back and then they put their shoes on and it's over.

[00:18:35] You don't need to go repair that. It's just a normal thing. Don't worry about it. So we got a lot of. Obviously, we have a lot of repeats where most of us are missing is the repair, right? This middle step of rupture repair. Repeat. So let's talk about that. So again, as I said, not every rupture requires a repair.

[00:18:56] You can trust that your relationship, will handle that moment. When you snap about the shoes and the kid steps back, you put on your shoes, it's done. The bigger moments where you've really lost it with your child. And this may happen with younger kids or older kids, and maybe they got tearful.

[00:19:11] Maybe they got really upset. You can tell you scared them. And again, this happens to all of us. That's when you need the repair. So the first step in the repair is you must calm yourself down and just be honest with yourself about whether or not your. Because if you're still triggered, if you're still upset and you go to repair with your child and they don't immediately, you know, crawl into your arms and say, I love you.

[00:19:35] You're the best parent it's okay. It wasn't a big deal. If they don't immediately respond exactly how you want them to, or imagine they might, and you're still triggered, you're just going to lose it again. You are, you're just going to snap at them or whatever it is. And then you're perpetuating this thing you don't want to do.

[00:19:50] So get up. Right. Just calm yourself down. And then with younger kids, it doesn't take much, you just sort of present yourself to them, go be present with them. And they're fine. Like kids are programmed to reconnect with their parents, you know, on a really basic level. We keep them alive. So it's a survival instinct for them.

[00:20:09] They want to be connected to us. So for the little ones, just go back and play with them, snuggle them, read them a book, whatever it is. And you can say is they get to the right age. Whenever you feel that is. I'm sorry, I got mad. We all get mad sometimes. And I got mad and I'm sorry, but actually I'm going to hold on, Natalie.

[00:20:26] I just caught myself saying something that I that I want to make this important distinction. And it's such a common thing we do that I even did it, which is you will want to apologize to your child. You never have to apologize for your feelings. And if people were listening, what I just said was, I'm sorry, I got mad.

[00:20:44] You don't have to apologize for being mad. There's nothing wrong with that. What you can do is apologize for your behavior. You can identify your feelings and apologize for your behavior. I'm sorry. I yelled at, I got mad. I'm

[00:20:59] Natalie: sorry. I acted this.

[00:21:01] Carla: Yeah, I'm sorry. I yelled at you. I was feeling angry. Right? And because the truth is Natalie, no feeling is ever wrong.

[00:21:10] Some of them are deeply unpleasant. Some of them feel downright horrible, but no feeling is ever wrong. And that's really important to remember. So when you apologize to your child and it's totally okay to apologize to your child, it's not going to undermine your authority. I don't know, some parents really feel hesitant to do this, and there's not only is there nothing wrong with it, but it's a great way to repair your relationship with your child and also to model the kind of behavior that you want them to show.

[00:21:36] Right. We were talking about modeling. This is a great opportunity, right? So apologize very specifically for the thing you did. I'm sorry. I stocked out of the room so angrily and that scared you or whatever it may be. I'm sorry. I threw the remote control around the room. Like whatever. And then you can identify the feelings because children aren't necessarily going to understand that part.

[00:21:56] I was feeling angry. I was feeling out of control. I was feeling really anxious and that's actually how that came out, whatever it is. And then talk about what your plan is for going forward. And this is when you can be really honest, please. Don't say, I promise never to do that again. Because you cannot make that promise.

[00:22:12] We all know none of us can make that promise and it's not going to, it's not going to hold any weight with your children. But what you can say is what is the plan for the next few hours? And maybe the plan is, you know, I realize I need to put my phone in the other room, so it's not distracting me and giving me bad news or maybe the plan is, you know, I realize.

[00:22:31] This math homework is really hard for you, and I'm not the best person to help you with this right now. So let's wait until we can call your tutor. My co-parent gets home or whatever it is, and they'll help you. And maybe it's, you know what I just realized. I'm so tired today and I'm so overwhelmed. I don't think I can do anything.

[00:22:48] So why don't we sit down and watch TV until it's bad. Yeah, really. And if that's all you have in, you be honest about it. Right. And there can definitely been days when I'm like, you know what, Daniel tiger is far preferable to me, screaming at my kids for the next hour. And I'm tapped out. I got nothing.

[00:23:05] There is no way I can show up for these children. And so they end up eating their Mac and cheese at the coffee table in front of the TV. And those are the nights when I felt like a total failure. And now my daughter is five years later. Like, mom, Remember those nights, when you let us eat dinner in front of the TV, those were the best.

[00:23:24] And I was like, oh, dang, we should've done that ever

[00:23:28] again. Get yourself, calm, apologize for what you did. You don't have to apologize for your feelings. Make a plan. And if you need to talk to your child about their button pushing, you can do that. You know, you can apologize for your behavior, even as you say, Hey, but I told you not to throw that in the house.

[00:23:46] And so what do you think. The consequence should be. I often ask my children, this they're now 11 and 13. So you can do this with older kids. What do you think is a reasonable consequence? Cause we talked about this, you threw that thing in the house, you broke this other thing and then talk it through. You never know what they're going to come up with.

[00:24:02] And sometimes what they come up with is actually way harsher than what we would've come up with. And then you need to like back them down a little bit. So that's the repair. Yeah,

[00:24:11] Natalie: I love the, the notion of, I can only do so much right now. And to just give yourself grace and say, I'm not perfect. I'm going to do the best I can.

[00:24:22] And how important that is for us to do as parents, because we do set the standard of, the perfect parent or what other parents are doing instead of just, what can I handle right now to just to get through. And

[00:24:35] Carla: we all have to do. All of us lately. And another point is that it's, it's really okay if you know that there are situations with your child that are very likely to trigger you talk about that ahead of time.

[00:24:48] So I have one kid that has this one piece of homework she has to do every week and she gets very anxious and frustrated by it. And when she gets anxious and frustrated, she gets kind of mean. And I know she doesn't mean it. Right. But even though I know exactly what's going on, I know it's not personal.

[00:25:04] It's not about me. She's anxious. It triggers me like crazy. And then I snap at her and she snaps at me. And finally, I just said, Hey kiddo, this is not a good match. I am not the person to help you with this homework. So you can either wait until dad's available or you can stay late for tutoring at school, but I'm not going to help you with this homework.

[00:25:24] And she gets upset with that. She doesn't like this boundary that I've set because she's anxious about the homework and she wants to get it done. But after like a year, I'm pretty confident that we have enough data to say that I am not the person Delta with this. And as much as I'd like to be that like all purpose.

[00:25:40] It's totally available, mom to her. It's not going to work. So if there are situations that, you know, trigger you, you can either just not do them. Or if you don't have that option, you can say to your kid, once they're old enough, Hey, we know I tend to get pretty cranky when we do this. So let's come up with a plan.

[00:25:58] How are we going to solve this problem for when I get cranky? Sometimes the kid actually will have a pretty good idea, but even just predicting that you're going to get cranky. Hey, and then what had happened? You can say, look, I told you so I'm good. Right? Then it just kind of takes the edge off it, it makes the child less likely to blame themselves because children.

[00:26:19] Super self-absorbed they think the world revolves around them again, it's not because there's anything wrong with them. It's just how kids work. Yeah. And so when we lose our tempers with our kids, they assume it's because they've done something wrong. And in all honesty, sometimes they have, right.

[00:26:33] Sometimes kids do really noxious stuff. but the problem is We're the ones with the fully functioning brains, we should ideally be able to stay calm even when our kids are pushing our buttons. And so when we can give our kids that story and make it predictable that we're going to lose it, Hey, I will help you with this homework.

[00:26:50] But about 10 minutes in, I'm probably going to snap at you. That makes it less painful. Yeah.

[00:26:56] Natalie: Yeah. When I, what I keep hearing kind of a theme through all of this is good communication. Having it with yourself, with your spouse, with your kids, like being able to talk about these things. And that's not easy for a lot of parents.

[00:27:09] It's not, they did that for many of them. They probably didn't grow up that way. So now they're trying to reteach this to themselves of understanding and having that communication.

[00:27:18] Carla: Absolutely. And for some parents, there is so much shame around this that it's really hard to acknowledge to yourself that you lose it because it's so painful.

[00:27:29] And so one of the reasons I talk about this so much and acknowledge, I mean, honestly, you guys, if my 13 year old was standing here beside me, listening to me, talk about my Bullock and losing it, she would be laughing and rolling her eyes so hard. They'd fall right out of her head because I still lose it with her.

[00:27:43] Right. And so we. Do it every single one of us. And once we can start to sort of open up and acknowledge that with ourselves, it's very freeing it lessens the shame, and then we can really start to work with it a little bit more.

[00:27:58] Natalie: Ah, learn so much. The time goes so fast. So I know you have three other books.

[00:28:03] I know you're working on another book and now you have a website. So tell people where they can get

[00:28:07] Carla: more. Absolutely the best places by website Carla number.com. Um, And my next book, which is slated for publication in the fall of 20, 22 is all about self-compassion for parents, which is again, another one of these practices that will change your life, change your parenting. I don't mean to sound cheesy, but that has been absolutely true for me.

[00:28:27] Makes it far less likely that you'll explode at your kids. So that book is coming out again, fall of 2022. And if you go to my website and you can find all the ways to follow me and learn about the book and that's Carla number dot. All right,

[00:28:41] Natalie: Carla, thanks so much. We appreciate it all the best to you and your two girls and your husband.

[00:28:47] And I hope to talk to you again soon. I want to hear about this new book. So we'll, we'll touch on that when it comes out in the fall.

[00:28:52]Carla: Thank you, Natalie. And thanks for everything you're doing to provide amazing information and support to parents. Thanks. Take care.