I have a confession. I am extremely easy to irritate. People have asked me why I am such an angry person, and the reality of it is that I am not, however, to get an outward look at myself, I can understand why other people might see me that way sometimes. The truth is that because of my ADHD/ anxiety combination, I am constantly on edge, ready to be set off at the next thing that comes along. Which is, more often than not, something not worth being upset about. I want to talk about that a little bit because I’ve really had to look at the way my anger, and in particular, my inclination to yell when I am angry, has affected my family. It has caused me to take a look at what I might be able to do differently so that I can have the exterior of a calm, in control person, even though I often don’t feel that way on the inside.

First of all, I feel mean when I yell. I don’t like that feeling, and I tend to beat myself up over it on a regular basis. I remember being yelled at as a child, how that felt, and can surmise that it likely makes my children feel similarly. Seeing the looks on their faces when I yell furthers my own self-flagellation, as I have now hurt someone I love in the name of self-preservation. But the looks on their faces, their tears, and my own feelings aren’t the only things that made me feel like I need to evaluate my habit of yelling and find a way to get myself to stop.

Over time, the yelling can change the format of a child’s brain so that instead of learning to self soothe when they get flustered, they are learning to be aggressive or to shut down entirely. This is why if you got yelled at as a child, it is extremely likely that you, too, will feel compelled to yell at your children. It is a learned response passed down from one generation to the next, and I cringe every time I hear my angry self come out in my son when he gets frustrated with his sister. Not only are we teaching our children our own misguided habits when we yell, but studies have also shown that our yelling now has future repercussions on our children, such as depression, anxiety, and other chronic health related issues.

Not to mention, yelling doesn’t do as much as we might assume it does. When a child gets yelled at, they learn to block it out. What’s more, children that have ADHD, and often even the ones that don’t, have the tendency to seek out conflict because it stimulates the activity in their brain. Even being yelled at can be a stimulating activity. Of course, this isn’t conscious on their part, but you may find yourself yelling more and more often to get them to do whatever it is you requested of them and find that it works less and less.

I think of the ways I handle anger, anxiety and stress as a literal toolbox. It’s helpful, in a toolbox, to have multiple different kinds of tools for handling different situations. But what if the only tool in my toolbox is a hammer? Sure, a hammer is great for pounding in and pulling out nails, and that works really well when you need something for strength or to get someone’s attention, but it’s really not going to help you in more delicate situations. It could end up actually destroying the situation entirely. I may even own other tools, but if they are not in my toolbox, what use are they to me if I need them? What I mean is– when you start to get out of control of your anger, those portions of your brain that contained things you have learned about how to stay in control of your anger begin to shut down.

The problem is that I sometimes don’t even realize something has set me off until I am already yelling. If you are like me, you probably have read many other blogs about ways to stop yelling, but can you remember them while you are yelling? Because I can’t. Not once I’ve lost control of my anger. We can’t really prevent a problem once we’re in the middle of it. We can’t say “what was that thing I learned to do instead of yelling?” Once we’ve gotten to the point in which we usually start yelling. However, no matter where you are in your journey to becoming the best parent you can be, you can regain composure once again through these simple steps. It doesn’t matter if you’re about to start yelling, if you’ve already started yelling, or even if you’ve been yelling at your kids, husband, wife, mom, group of monkeys at the zoo, whoever for quite some time. It doesn’t matter. These steps will work for anyone at any point.

At some place in your tirade, you are going to realize that you are yelling, or about to start yelling. These first steps require a lot of self control, so don’t beat yourself up if you can’t break away from your anger for long enough to follow the steps right away. Be as patient with yourself as you want to be with your children. It is a process and you are growing and learning together.

The best place to start is by immediately removing yourself from the situation. This gets a little difficult if you are the only parent home at the time, but put the kids somewhere where they will be safe, and get yourself to your bedroom… bathroom… closet… pantry cupboard… anywhere that is separate of where they are, if possible. If not, it is okay to skip this step, but it will be a little more difficult. Separating yourself from the situation is an important step because it gets you immediately out of the cycle and away from a place where you or anyone else can do more damage. Take a few minutes to just allow yourself to get back into control.

The next step is the most important. It is simply to breathe. In through the nose and out through the mouth. When I taught my son to do this, I had him hold his hands up underneath his mouth as if he was “holding a mug of hot cocoa.” He would breathe in the scent of the cocoa through his nose, and blow out through the mouth, as if to gently cool it off. It takes a while to learn, and we are still practicing, but it gets easier and feels less weird the more you try. Breathing in this way allows the oxygen to quickly enter our minds and open all of those doors to the other anger handling techniques we have learned.

What you should NOT be focusing on at this moment is the situation you just walked away from. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it will be more difficult to get to a calm place of control if you are doing what psychologists call perseverating, or rehashing the situation over and over in your mind. Especially if you are a naturally anxious person, like myself. Think about the things that are in your sensory perception. What can you see? What can you touch? If you are sitting on the bed, feel the texture of the blankets, the sheets. The softness of the pillow. If you are in the closet, count how many jackets you own. How many tiles are there on your bathroom floor? Once you start focusing more on this than whatever was happening in the minutes before, your cycle will be broken and you will regain the access to those areas of the brain that know how to handle anger in some other fashion than yelling.

At this point, you can re-enter the situation with a different frame of mind. I like to start off with an apology if I have already yelled, and an explanation to my kids that that is not the best way to handle anger, but Mommy is still learning just like they are, and then talk about not only the situation that resulted in anger, but also what we should have done, and what we can do in the future. Eventually, after much repetition, you will be able to make the realization that you are losing control of your anger before you have already lost control, and become more efficient at practicing these steps until at some point in the future you may not need to make as much use of them anymore.

Meanwhile, be kind to yourself. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect people, and you just happen to be one of them. We are all at different places on our parental journey and there is no shame in being at the place where you are.