Some days it isn’t just the shouting

I’ve had a lot of families reaching out to me over the past week, and I think a lot of you are finding the summer holidays very intense. I completely understand that, because it’s pretty full on here too. Not in the way it was years ago, but we’re having our moments.

Something that was shared with me over the past week really struck a chord and really took me back.

It’s a hard thing to talk about, because it’s a bit of a taboo subject. We don’t like to talk about it very much, sometimes even within our own communities, because it just doesn’t sit very comfortably. It’s what happens when we’re dealing with some of the really extreme, really volatile behaviours from our children that get directed at us.

Sometimes we’re not just dealing with the emotional fallout and the co-regulation. Sometimes what we’re dealing with can feel like a full-on assault.

Child to parent violence isn’t something that’s talked about very much in our communities. Other than a slight nod to it, a mention in hushed tones, it stays hidden. I think that’s very much because we understand what’s underneath it. In those moments our children are in distress. We completely get that their nervous system is absolutely overloaded, and what we’re seeing is panic. I used to consider it like a panic attack. A nervous system in threat mode, activated. It’s a threat response. That child is not making a choice – that child is not doing something personally to you, to get to you, because of any way that they may feel about you.

In fact, often it’s the people closest to the child who get the worst of it, because that’s the person they feel safest with. Safe enough to be their authentic self. Safe enough to let their feelings out.

But that can be incredibly difficult as a parent.

I remember being at the point where I almost started to feel numb. Because whilst I knew the theory behind it, and I did my absolute best to keep things low demand and to de-escalate situations, when it switched to me, it’s hard as a human reaction not to feel hurt by that.

And it isn’t something we share widely, because we feel ashamed. We feel guilty. We often feel that perhaps in the heat of the moment, maybe we could have handled things better. We feel like we’ll be judged for our parenting, for what we have or haven’t done. We feel like our children will be judged, that they’ll be considered naughty, defiant, out of control. Which isn’t the case at all. The more behaviour you see, the more distress that child is in. The more that child is struggling.

I think we understand that. But sometimes lining up the theory and the reading and everything we’ve learned, and then putting that into practice and living it day by day, that’s where we find the gap. And that’s where we can struggle.

I know there will be many, many families living with this behind closed doors right now. With the heat, with everywhere being busy, with finding yourself restricted and perhaps unable to get out as much as you might like. Even those quieter spaces you could usually escape to will be more intense, louder, noisier, busier at this time of year. The summer holidays can feel a very, very long time when you’re living with a child with a highly sensitive nervous system, and whose distress comes out as violence towards you.

So let’s make this a little less taboo, and let’s consider what might actually help in the moment. Some of this came from a post I saw shared in a group recently, written by a teenager with PDA talking honestly about their own experience of hitting people before they found other ways to regulate.

Have the conversation when everyone is calm, not in the middle of it. Ask your child whether there’s anything that helps them come down when they’re heightened, other than hurting someone. Drawing, making something with their hands, slime, watching TV, breathing. The point isn’t the activity, it’s that the options are theirs and they already exist before they’re needed. Alongside that, something safe to hit. A punching bag, cushions, a pillow. It won’t work every time, but it gives the impulse somewhere to go.

And when you’re in it, and nothing is de-escalating, protect yourself. You are not a punching bag. Moving out of reach, putting a cushion between you, going into another room and shutting the door behind you, none of that is abandoning your child. It’s making sure there is still a regulated adult in the house.

And then, following on from all of that, I really want you to consider your own feelings, your own nervous system, and your own regulation.

Because if you are not regulated, then you are not in a position to bring calm to their storm. No child needs a perfect parent. What they need is a regulated parent.

You know the things that will fill your cup, and you probably have very little space or time within the life you’re living right now to do any of them. But we’re talking about snatched in between moments. The odd minute here or there where you can do some breathing, where you can listen to a meditation, where you can do a grounding exercise, where you can read a few pages of a book, listen to a podcast, or go for a short walk. Whatever it is that helps you reconnect to you and feel like yourself.

Those are the things to prioritise right now, so that you have the capacity to respond to your child with intention, rather than reacting out of a state of survival.

And please remember that if you have snapped this week, you are not a bad parent. You are doing your best in an incredibly difficult situation. A situation that most parents couldn’t possibly comprehend. You are doing the best that you can, and it is more than good enough.