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The surprise side benefit of regulating your own emotions

The surprise side benefit of regulating your own emotions


"Before I even notice, I’m already 10 steps into reacting with whatever issue is at hand with my kids. When I can remain calm, it certainly helps the situation as opposed to when I get heated up, which only makes things worse. It makes me sad to know that until now, I have not been a good example of emotional regulation at all. And it's so disheartening to see my kids doing things that I know they saw us do..... throw something, slam a door...."

Sounds familiar, right? Regulating our emotions is at the heart of our ability to parent the way we’d like. In fact, it’s at the heart of most of the ways we trip ourselves up, from over-eating to procrastinating to fighting with our partner. It's just so easy to get hijacked by our emotions and find ourselves already ten steps down the low road.

This very challenging task -- regulating our own emotions so that we can guide our child lovingly rather than indulging in our own tantrum -- is fundamental to good parenting.

Read the full article here. 

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