The Therapy Edit - On how to navigate difficult parenting moments

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Sometimes as a mother, you'll find yourself at a loss as to what the next step can be and how you can move your family out of a moment in time into a calmer, happier environment where you all feel in control. Sometimes there is just no control to be had. And in this episode I share my tips for managing those moments and how to handle the feeling that you don't have the answers or the strength to navigate through.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi everyone, welcome to today's episode of the Therapy Edit. I want to share with you a moment that happened yesterday. It was a moment actually I shared on my Instagram and got so many people sharing their stories. and response. So I thought I would share it with you. It's one for those times where as a parent you just think, oh my goodness, I actually don't know what to do right now. I wish there was a parent, I wish there was an adult who could step in and help guide me through this. It's, yeah,

those moments where you just want to throw your hands in the air and say, I've got nothing. I feel like I don't even know where to start with how to navigate this situation. And, And it's something that occurred to me in that moment because there was simply nothing else I could do that I'm going to take forward and remember next time that moment occurs, which it will come again. We all have those times. So yesterday, it's Easter holidays now as I'm recording this. I took three very tired children into town to just go and pick up some essentials. I think I bought some milk. I had milk in a bag.

some heavy things in a bag and I'd promised them that they could choose an ice cream at this little newsagent so they all chose their ice creams and they ate them happily on a bench so happily I even took a photo because it was the sweetest little moment anyway it all went awry very quickly after that as it so often can isn't it amazing in parenting how we can have those moments where we are looking at a child or the kids and thinking oh my gosh I am the luckiest person in the world and we just feel that real swell of gratitude and then the next minute it can be an entirely different story and that's what happened here so one child started screaming oh the reason was because he'd finished his ice cream first and he felt this huge injustice

as he watched his two siblings enjoying their ice lollies and he he couldn't handle it he was not happy that his had gone his was a distant sugary memory and he was beside himself beside himself it's very tired and then the and then my youngest my three-year-old started screaming she did the full my boys never did this but she's a master at it she threw herself face down on the floor proper proper toddler tantrum i literally cannot even remember why um so i had this bag of shopping one child on the floor this was in the middle of the high street and got a town centre, one child kind of beside himself at the injustice of finishing his ice cream first. And I literally, I couldn't do anything. I tried to pick up my three-year-old and carry

her. But every time I did so, she'd kick off her wellies. And wellies can travel quite far, can they. Wellies can be flung quite far and wide. So I'd be then scabbling around picking up the wellies, but it was really hard to carry her and the shopping. So I asked my, the only one that wasn't crying, whether he could carry the shopping. And it was too, it was too heavy for him. So I had absolutely no choice, but just to sit down on the pavement and, and wait for everyone to calm down. Because there was quite simply nothing I can do. And I, I avoided the looks of everyone who walked past. I'm fine with people thinking what they want now. You know, that used to really be a hard thing to feel any judgment or I know a lot of it is assumed, but let's face it, there will

have been people walking past thinking, oh my gosh, she's completely lost control. I had. I totally had. I had lost control. I had no control. And I just had to sit there on the pavement as my three-year-old was face down. My other son was leaning against the news agents screaming and there was nothing I could do. And I thought, isn't this just the epitome of wait for the storm to pass? There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say. They were beyond it. Nothing, you know, no coaxing, no, no, no snuggling. it was just I had to sit and wait it out. And whilst it was hard and loud and screaming and attracted quite a lot of attention, it made me think about how often in those moments where we just feel like I have got nothing. Not only was I low on resources in that moment, it was also

I actually didn't know how to play it. I didn't know how to play it. And how often in those moments, we try and change them. You know, we often do. We often pull out all the stops. We often try and halt it. We try and speed it up. We try and move it along.

Try and make it quiet. Try and restore calm. You know, how much energy so often we put into those moments to change it when actually storms pass on their own. storms pass on their own and I mean we actually think about the weather because I love a metaphor you know me we think about storms that happened there was a massive one that happened and in England recently rolled through the country blue fences down and a big chunk of tree fell on my friend's roof and smash some bits and you think what could we do apart from watch it happen we could do we could do our

to tie fences to things and, you know, make sure the trampoline had some, was kind of slightly bolted down. Once someone's trampoline literally hopped over a fence, but what can you do? You just have to wait for that storm to pass. I am sure there are people and scientists who have gone as far as to try and manipulate the weather. Wouldn't we love to do that? Wouldn't that be wonderful if we could just make it sunny? But actually, we're meddling with systems that we're not even fully knowledgeable about if we were to do that. And I think there was so much value in how in that moment I was forced quite simply to wait for the storm to pass.

And I'm someone who I call myself a, I like to feel like I'm in control. And it's those moments that really take us back to that truth, I guess, uncomfortable truth of being human that we have far less control than we like to think we do and sometimes the best thing might just be to stop and let it wrong and let it pass and their tears slowed and Florence got bored of kicking around and the cigarette butts and the goodness knows what else and we continued on kind of we got to the car in the end but I feel like I reserved quite a lot of myself in that moment by not trying because I couldn't. And I think I'm going to take that on.

And that's what I shared yesterday after this had happened. You know, what are those moments that come about maybe today, maybe tomorrow over the next week, where you would normally put so much energy? Maybe the kids are crying. Maybe your child is having a really just rough day. maybe you are feeling an internal storm. Maybe you just aren't feeling quite right. And it's so easy then, isn't it, to think,

what can I do? What can I do to make myself feel better? What can I do to kind of bring a clear reminder? What can I do? And actually, what if you were just to remind yourself, as I'm going to try to do? What if you just wait and let it roll on past and trust and start to trust a little bit that it will?

start to trust a little bit that it will and you know when we think tension in our body we think you know when we're tensing and we're trying and we're holding and it's so stressful isn't it what if you were just to to hunker down to hold on something solid and breathe your way through it and trust that it will pass obviously this won't work for everything and sometimes we do need to be proactive and sometimes we do need to do but I guess it's about using that sense of what might it be like just to button down the hatches as we did in that storm and just wait for it to roll by and how much of yourself how much energy might you preserve in doing so and how much trust might we start building in the fact that these moments these moods these episodes

these tough days, these tough minutes, they come and go. And one minute I might be marveling at my children eating their ice creams and taking photos and sending them to my family. And the next, I'm sat in the dust on the floor, not knowing what to do. So I thought I would share that with you. And I think we need to mother ourselves through those moments, don't we?

That little voice inside. I mean, I wanted someone to come and mother me. I wanted someone come and pick me up and look after me and tell me what to do. And sometimes we just need to be that voice for ourselves, don't we? Hold on in there. This will pass. Most storms pass alone.

Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worth. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mothers' mental and emotional wellbeing. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.