So Sallie Says

Four easy steps from someone who is not even a little bit chill.

I am not a patient woman. In fact, losing the little patience I did have was one of my biggest fears before having kids — so much so that I started practicing mindfulness. Happily, I’ve surprised myself with how much I’ve calmed down the past three years since becoming a mom. To be clear, I’ve still never been chill a day of my life, but I’m chill-er. The SSRIs help.

Anyway, it turns out that patience can be cultivated, but it takes practice. Unfortunately, the only real practice you get is when you’re in the heat of the moment, so you really have to be committed.

Here are my top tips for becoming a more patient mom (and no, I’m not trying to sell you a supplement, I just recently restarted therapy which means I’m very emotionally regulated.)

1. Recognize

One of my biggest takeaways from my now-mostly-abandoned meditation practice was around sensing, recognizing, and letting go of a thought (which I think is like the whole gist).

It’s a really hard thing to do, when your baby is screaming, your toddler is practicing his long jump off the couch, a smashed blueberry is cementing itself into the kitchen floor, the breakfast dishes are still in the sink, the laundry machine is doing its song and dance, and then the cat starts dry heaving after eating an entire can of wet food pelican-style.

It’s nearly impossible to step back and stop the swell of overwhelm. But doing so is half the battle, because if you can pause your lizard brain long enough to recognize and put a name to an emotion, you’re that much closer to regulation and rationalization than if you were to just let it seize your nervous system.

2. Redirect

After I’ve paused and recognized myself getting worked up, I find I’m usually far enough away from “absolutely bat shit losing it” to be able to redirect my brain. Cues are valuable across many facets of life: teaching kids a new skill, remembering lines during a presentation, promoting good exercise form. Cues can be as simple or complex as you want. My cue for shifting out of “lose it” mode is something like “how do you want your kid to remember me right now?” and that usually gut-punches hard enough to make me straighten up and act right. Once I’ve cued myself, my brain knows it’s time to make a different move.

Another one of my favorite cues is “this is a literal child.” I’m going to expose my emotional immaturity for a second and say that it took me a long time to realize that kids don’t “do” meltdowns “at” adults. In my experience, the worst tantrums happen during periods of abrupt transition or in new/unexpected situations. Imagine being a little kid: you have precious little control and power, most of your experiences are brand new so you have nothing as a reference point, and you rarely know what to expect next unless someone tells you. Read that sentence again, because it’s WILD.

Empathizing with this reality makes it easy to solve for it: giving control where you can, making space to get used to new and exciting things, and setting expectations for what will happen next.

3. Reset

My kids are young enough that I have authority to shift the energy by pure will power. I reset the moment starting with myself. Is it life or death to get to this Twosy Doodlers class on time, Sallie? Is my toddler smearing syrup all over the table something that I, an adult, cannot handle? Once I’ve called my own brain on its BS, it’s easier to shape the situation for my kids, like racing to the car for toddler art class or asking him if he can help me spray the kitchen cleaner.

The key to toddlers is just to make everything as fun as possible, and then they do what you want. As for older kids: not sure, ask me again in five years.

4. Reflect

Having kids has been the single most transformative event of my life (twice), and times of transformation offer an opportunity to carefully choose and consolidate who we want to grow into. A lot of times this feels like the worst parts of ourselves getting dredged up in stressful moments — of which motherhood has no shortage.

Losing my temper in chaotic moments has offered interesting exposures of my own “shadow self” – Carl Jung’s concept for the unconscious parts of ourselves we’ve pushed down to adhere to the expectations of society, our family, and our own self-image. The fun part is that these rejected parts of ourselves don’t disappear; instead, they linger in the subconscious, influencing our behaviors and spurring sudden outbursts.

In other words, the reason I lose my shit when we’re late to art class is because I’ve been indoctrinated to people-please for 35 years and have a deep fear of being late.

Anytime we have strong emotional reactions it’s important to get to the base motive(s). I’ve been trying to objectively ask why I felt my patience slipping, and what part of myself was causing that emotion. These days, I think we’re calling this re-parenting, but clearly I only took Psych 101.

Motherhood is constant labor, including the emotional labor of trying to be a better person for our kids. I’ve often thought how scary it is to know you’re going to mess your kids up, but I figure if I’m already at least vaguely aware of my own personal faults, that’s half the battle. As Jung said, “If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”

In conclusion

Losing patience doesn’t make you a bad mom. Parenting is just one long opportunity to model how you think people should behave, and often it’s the first time I’m actually consciously thinking about how to act right, so I really am just out here absolutely winging it.

And to be clear, my goal isn’t perfection — it’s just getting a tiny bit better at hitting the reset button before I start yelling about Goldfish. Along the way, I’ve gotten really good about apologizing to a three-year old, which in itself has been a humbling experience (imagine saying “I’m sorry, I got frustrated and I shouldn’t have yelled” and then getting asked “why?” 87 times in a row).

What’s your go-to cue for redirecting when you’re about to lose it? I’d love to hear what works for other parents who are also just winging it.