When Our Nervous Systems Hijack Our Parenting

0:00You want to stay calm. You want to be that grounded, sturdy, pilot, leader to your kid. and then there's a slam door. There's an I hate you. There's a you never do anything for me right after you did 5 ,832 things for your child in the last hour. We all yell. We all say the words we promised ourselves we would never say. We all have moments when our nervous system hijacks our parenting and our value system just hasn't had the time to catch up. It is so important to demystify what yelling is really about and to understand what yelling is not at all about. That's exactly what we'll be talking about today.

0:51I promise you by the end of today's episode, you're going to have so many new aha moments as in, oh, that's a totally different way to think about it. And you're going to have a bunch of heartfelt moments. Like, that hit me somewhere I really needed. You're going to feel empowered and hopeful, and you're going to have a new way of looking at the moments we all struggle with. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. We'll be back right after this.

1:36here's a story from my private practice that has always stayed with me i was seeing a mom and she was telling me about a moment from earlier in her week where her and her daughter were arguing non-stop about what clothes she was allowed to wear out and then the moment ended with her daughter looking at her and just screaming i hate you and then the mom screamed right back well I don't like you either and then silence and I remember her telling me about how her body was shaking and how she felt scared not because she didn't mean what she said but because in that moment she did and that terrified her I asked her what she did next to try to get a better sense of the whole situation.

2:27And she told me she somehow found herself then in the kitchen eating cereal she wasn't hungry for, scrolling on Instagram, looking for some relief that was impossible to find, and then just feeling kind of frozen and having no idea how to recover and move forward. I ended up asking her, this might seem off topic but just tell me how would your mom have reacted if you yelled i hate you in her face and she just looked at me and said she would have given me these dart death eyes and even without saying anything those eyes were so terrifying and then she'd say something cold and monotoned like, who do you think you are to say something like that to me?

3:24And those would be the last words I heard before a week of the silent treatment. The room felt heavy, but it felt important, and I stayed quiet. And she started crying, and she said to me, I feel like that's exactly what I just did to my own daughter. I'm here talking to you to try to not repeat these same patterns. And that's exactly what I just did. This is the moment that so many parents recognize. In our brain, we know exactly what we don't want to do. and then we have moments where we watch our body do that exact thing. Why? What's going on? We want to break certain cycles and yet we often repeat moments that were very painful.

4:27You are not alone if this is happening. This happens to every single parent. What we ended up talking about and one of the things I want to say to you right now is it is never too late to repair. If you haven't gone back in yet, you still can. Whether the moment happened 10 minutes ago, a day ago, a week ago, a month ago, you and I both know that longing for a parent to return, to come back in, to talk calmly. That longing doesn't go away with time, meaning it is never too late. And that's often how we start breaking cycles, by going back, by repairing. And if you can get caught in the thought pattern of, but my daughter should be apologizing to me.

5:29She can't scream things like that. I hear you. and there are moments for teaching and there are moments for connection over correction. And the moments after we yell, the moments after we do the things we promised ourselves we wouldn't do, I promise you those are the moments for connection. And that is really where cycle breaking starts. So why does it often feel like we're destined to repeat the past? Why does it feel like these cycles we want to break sometimes keep repeating? Well, a big reason is so often our nervous system steps in before our values can catch up. And that's exactly what we will be unpacking today.

6:33Let's jump into parent questions first. Sometimes I don't yell. I just go totally cold and I shut down. Is that the same thing? It's a great question. Well, it's not the same thing on the surface, but I think what this question is getting to is it's also a protective mechanism. You know, we talk a lot about fight or flight, which are two animal defense mechanisms. Yelling, right? is a version of fight. There are also other protective mechanisms like submit, freeze, and play dead. And so if you're prone to going cold, to shutting down, that probably means your animal defense response is more in the submit, freeze, play dead camp than the fight or flight camp.

7:26Fight or flight means a lot is coming out. Submit, freeze, play dead mean everything shuts down inward. And so you're noticing this is one of the ways you must have learned to protect yourself when things felt overwhelming. And while that probably was protective early on, it might not be as protective now when it sounds like you want to better communicate or more openly communicate with your kids. So absolutely, this is your version of an animal defense response. And I promise you, it's not something you have to be locked into forever. Next question, second one. I can't really picture how my parents responded when I was a kid.

8:12Is that normal? Yes, this is totally normal. And I actually think what's underneath here is unpacking the idea of memory. I can't tell you how many adults I've sat with in my private practice. And often they would come to me around some parenting struggle. It's really hard for me to stay calm when my kid is tantruming or when my kid protests a decision. But I don't remember what my childhood was like. I don't know where this response came from. Here's the interesting thing about memory. One form of memory, for sure, comes out with our words and our memories that we can actually recall. Oh, I remember my parents yelling at me.

8:56I remember how my parents dealt with my tantrums. But actually, for so many of us, that's not even our most common form of how memory gets expressed. So often, memory gets expressed in our triggered moments. how we respond to our kids when they're protesting a decision when they're whining when they're having a tantrum is a memory our body has from how similar moments were responded to when we were a kid so i guess what i'm saying is yes it is so normal that you don't have some coherent verbal form of memory of tough moments in your childhood, you might actually start to be curious about the way you respond in some of those moments and use that as data of sorts to think about how moments might have gone in your own childhood.

9:54Let's go to the last question today. Sometimes I think I've already traumatized my kids. I've yelled so much, the damage is done, it's too late. Is it ever too late?

10:09I tend to answer questions with a lot of nuance. I don't like to kind of peg myself to one answer, but this one I can be pretty simple about. It is never too late. And I want to share kind of an exercise of sorts that in some ways proves this more than anything I could convince you with through facts or logic. I actually did this live in my TED talk and I've gotten so much feedback that it was so powerful that I want to make sure I bring it to you all today. Okay, so I want you to imagine that you get a call from one of your parents and if neither of your parents are alive, imagine you find some letter that you just saw today.

10:58Okay, here's what that letter might sound like or here's the call. Hey, I know this might sound a little bit out of the blue, but I've been thinking a lot about your early years. There were so many moments that I think felt really bad to you. and you were right to feel that way. There were moments I yelled, said really harsh words and you were left alone after to figure out how to recover. I'm sorry. And if you ever want to talk about any of those moments, I'd be happy to listen. Not listen to prove myself. Not listen with a comeback. Just listen to better understand. I love you. I don't know many adults who hear that and say back to me, nothing, Dr.

12:03Becky, nothing. Nope, I wouldn't do anything. Now, I'm not trying to say the opposite extreme is true. I would not expect one moment like that to heal every single thing that happened that felt bad in your childhood. but there's a lot between nothing and everything. And when we say it's too late, we lock ourselves into nothing. And I think for a lot of us as adults, even now, that call would be meaningful. It wouldn't shift everything. But it would shift some things. And what I know, even though math is not my area of expertise, is that your child is younger than you. This is always true. And so if that type of moment with your parent or reading that letter would have a visceral impact on you, that is proof that it is never too late to repair and reconnect with your own kid.

13:10your child's story is shorter than yours by the very fact that they're younger which means it's even more amenable to change and repair so i can say this with confidence it is never too late take that first step repair listen without defensiveness it's going to be uncomfortable and it's going to really, really matter.

13:52Here's an important idea. Our nervous system is living in the past. Our triggered moments, that reactive scream we have when our kid says, I hate you. Yes, it's happening in the present moment, but the circuit that activates to have those words come out of us is actually a memory, a pattern from our past. Besser van der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score, maybe says it best. The body remembers even when the conscious mind does not. I know for you, your conscious mind, your value system says, when my daughter screams, I hate you. I want to be able to pause. I maybe want to be able to say, I need a moment.

14:41Then I want to come back when I'm calm and grounded so I can intervene in a way that I needed when I was her age. Here's the thing. Our amygdala, which processes fear, reacts in milliseconds so much faster than counterthinking, logical, values-based brain can respond. And so if you're having that quick twitch reactivity, that's a sign that something from your past is actually interrupting and responding in the present. Why do we yell at our kids even though we don't want to? Why do we yell the exact words we don't want to say? Here's what I want you to think about, and it's going to sound counterintuitive at first.

15:26Our body thinks it's protecting us in those moments when we yell at our kids. Now, our body is misguided. It's not protecting us. But here's where that comes from. If you think about when you were a kid, so many of us grew up in homes where anger was disrespectful. thankful anger somehow meant i don't also love my parents or feel grateful for them anger was dangerous forget just i hate you being mad in any way equals danger it actually threatened our attachment with our parents we got sent away we had a heart's punishment nobody talked to us for a week so what did we learn when we were young and our bodies were wiring anger is a 10 out of 10 danger.

16:18Anger equals threat. Okay. Then what would our body do based on that information? Well, it would adapt to protect us. Okay. I am going to try to shut down anger. Whenever anger comes up, it needs to be shut down as quickly as possible. And how do you shut things down quickly? harsh mechanisms. That's the only way. Fast forward many, many decades. Now it's our own child expressing anger to us in the ways kids often do because they don't yet have skills for anger. I hate you. You're the worst parent. Get out of my room. A slammed door. And we know in one part of our mind, I want to stay calm. I want to do this differently.

17:02And instead we say the words our own parent would have said. But in that moment, your body isn't trying to betray you. It's trying to protect you. You have anger coming at you from your kid. Essentially, your body says, what do I know about anger? Is it safe? Is it tolerable? Is it manageable? Can I stay connected to someone when there's anger? Or is it bad, awful, toxic, dangerous? If you learn that, your body goes back to that old circuit. Shut it down as fast as possible. How? Through harsh mechanisms. Then your body yells at your kid. And it is kind of the set of words we don't want to say, but our body in that moment is just activating a very old circuit.

17:53Our past is interrupting in the present. So often we confuse two things. Understanding why we yell is not the same as condoning that we yell. Understanding that our body is trying to protect us, understanding that our past interrupts our present, is actually the foundation for figuring out how to change these patterns more effectively. So I just want you to hold that in mind. My body thinks it's protecting myself. It's just trying to shut down what I learned was incredibly dangerous when I was a kid. I promise you that's not the last step, but it definitely is a first and necessary step for change.

18:52So right now, I want to take that idea of protection and do an exercise that might feel odd, but I promise you is really powerful and important. I want you to thank the part of you that learned how to adapt when you were younger. thank you to the part of me who noticed that anger was dangerous thank you body for storing anger as threat because for a long period of time when i was young and helpless it was after you thank that part of you i promise you it's going to be more amenable to shifting its role. Because after you thank it, you can add something like this. I'm going to show you over time that anger isn't so dangerous after all.

19:55That anger is actually a very normal and healthy part of any close relationship. And I know it'll take some time for you to believe it, but we're going to keep working on this together. Here's one of the things I want you to take away from this episode. Those moments when we worry we're not breaking cycles at all, we're repeating them. Those aren't proof of who we are. Those moments don't define our parenting. Those are moments where stories from our past are interrupting our present. And still, it's never too late to make a change. If today's episode resonated with you, please take a moment to share it with another parent who might need to hear it, or to rate and review it, or drop a comment if you're listening on Spotify or YouTube.

20:49And let's end with a grounding moment where you place both feet on the ground. and join me in putting a hand on your heart and let's remind ourselves even as we struggle on the outside we remain good inside I'll see you soon