056: Beyond “You’re OK!”: Modeling Emotion Regulation

I hear a huge crash. It’s my favorite glass vase.  I hear “I didn’t mean to hurt it, Mommy!  It just fell!” as I run full-pelt from the other end of the house. It was a family heirloom passed down by my grandmother.  I’ve asked her not to touch it a hundred times.  I am beyond furious.  “Please don’t be mad, Mommy.  It was an accident.” I clench my teeth.  “I’m not mad.” _______________________________________________________   What does my daughter learn from this exchange?  How does my own emotional regulation affect what she learns about how to regulate her own emotions?  We’ll learn about this in today’s episode. Note that this episode is the second in the ill-fated experimental short episodes – we’ll be back to the regular length hereafter!  In case you missed it, the first episode in this series was Three Reasons Not To Say You’re OK.   Taming Your Triggers If you need help with your own big feelings about your child’s behavior, Taming Your Triggers workshop is now open. We’ll help you to: Understand the real causes of your triggered feelings, and begin to heal the hurts that cause them Use new tools like the ones Katie describes to find ways to meet both her and her children’s needs Effectively repair with your children on the fewer instances when you are still triggered It’s a 10-week workshop with one module delivered every week, an amazing community of like-minded parents, a match with an AccountaBuddy to help you complete the workshop, and mini-mindfulness practices to re-ground yourself repeatedly during your days, so you’re less reactive and more able to collaborate with your children. Sign up for the waitlist and we'll let you know once enrollment re-opens. Click the image below to learn more.   Other episodes mentioned in this show How parenting affects child development The impact of divorce on a child’s development How to scaffold children’s learning to help them succeed   References Bariola, E., Hughes, E.K., & Gullone, E. (2012). Relationships between parent and child emotion regulation strategy use: A brief report. Journal of Child and Family Studies 21(3), 443-448. Butler, E.A., Egloff, B., ,Wilhelm, F.H., Smith, N.C., Erickson, E.A., & Gross, J.J. (2003). The social consequences of expressive suppression. Emotion 3(1), 48-67. Christenfeld, B., Gerin, W., Linden, W., Sanders, M., Mathur, J., Deich, J.D., & Pickering, T.G. (1997). Social support effects on cardiovascular reactivity: Is a stranger as effective as a friend? Psychosomatic Medicine 59, 388-398. Cohen, S., & Wills, T.A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin 98(2), 310-357. Gershoff, E.T., & Grogan-Kaylor, A. (2016). Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. Journal of Family Psychology 30(4), 453-469. Gottman, J.M., & Levenson, R.W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolation: Behavior, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63(2), 221-233. Gross, J.J., & John, O.P. (2003). Individual...