How to Self Regulate as a Parent
Episode 64: How to Self Regulate as a Parent with Dr. Amber Thornton @dramberthornton
Ever totally lose your cool on your kids and feel SO guilty afterwards? You’re NOT alone! That’s why this week, Rachael speaks with Dr. Amber Thornton, a licensed clinical psychologist and strong advocate for parental mental health, all about self-regulation, overwhelm, and reparenting!
Inside this episode:
Find out a practical framework for breaking the cycle of dysregulation.
Learn how you can practice emotional regulation during the postpartum period- so hard!
Why mental health struggles can make regulation especially difficult.
Tools for managing overwhelm after working full time or being home with your kids full time.
How do you actually begin the process of “reparenting” yourself?
Ways to deal with mistakes and handle them as a parent especially after totally losing your cool.
All the positive effects reparenting has on our children
All about her new book, A Parent's Guide to Self-Regulation.
And so much more!
Mentioned in this episode:
Dr. Amber Thornton’s website: dramberthornton.com
Dr. Amber Thornton’s instagram: @dramberthornton
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate 5⭐️ and write us a review! ⬇️
✨For sleep support and resources, visit heysleepybaby.com and follow @heysleepybaby on Instagram! 😴☁️🤎✨
Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast.
Listen to the full episode
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Welcome to No One Told Us, the podcast that tells the truth about parenting and
talks about all the stuff you wish you knew before having kids. I'm your host,
Rachael Shepard-Ohta, and today I'm speaking with Dr. Amber Thornton. Dr. Amber is a
licensed clinical psychologist and a strong advocate for the mental health and well
-being of parents.
Dr. Amber loves writing and creating content online that will speak to the everyday struggles of parenthood, and she loves spending time with her husband and two children as well. Her new book, A Parents' Guide to Self -Regulation, a practical framework for breaking the cycle of dysregulation and mastering emotions for parents and children is available now. Dr. Amber, thank you so much for joining. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. I think so many parents right now are struggling with our own regulation and maybe doing things that we don't want to be doing, like yelling and things like that. And we are definitely going to dive into a lot of that and talk more about the book.
But before we get there, I kind of just want to hear a little bit about your background and how you kind of got into this work and what kind of led you here.
Of course. Well, thank you first for having me. I'm so excited to be here talking to you and talking to your audience as well. It's a pleasure to talk about regulation and parenting. You know, I just think a lot of the time when we're talking about emotional regulation or self -regulation, we're often thinking about children or, you know, how do we help toddlers through tantrums? How do we help teenagers with their emotions? But we just don't think about, you know, how much parents need that help with regulating their own emotions and regulating themselves.
So I just feel like conversations like this are important because it helps to normalize what actually does happen for parents and adults. But for me, you know, I've been a clinical psychologist for a little over 10 years now and most of my training has been with families and children. And honestly, I became a parent in 2019. And it really shifted things in terms of my work, You know, I have always worked with families and children, but it was just something about me becoming a parent and actually living that experience that really just I don't I can't even describe it just deepened the work for me and helped me to give my own clients so much more compassion and grace for what they're going through because I was now living it as well and You know Being a psychologist, but then also being a real parent and a real person who has struggled with you with how do I regulate my own emotions as a parent and as I raise my children has been very humbling, but also a very real thing.
And so I think that honestly my own experience of realizing, whoa, this is a lot harder than I realized. And I now have to practice a little bit of what I've preached and really figure this out for myself has really helped me to do this for other parents. And so I was just really grateful that the opportunity to write this book came about because it was something that I knew that I was working on for myself and now I get to talk to other parents about. So very grateful and very excited to chat about it.
Yeah, so you mentioned the book. The book is called A Parents' Guide to Self Regulation, a practical framework for breaking the cycle of dysregulation and mastering emotions for
parents and children. So what was kind of your inspiration behind writing a book like this with this particular lens and framework?
Well, you know, again, like I said, at the time, the publisher that I was working with, they wanted to write a book about self -regulation, but we went back and forth about should this be about children or should this be for parents? And, you know, I was really very vocal and say, Hey, I think that we need more resources for parents. You know, yes, there are a lot of things for parents out there, especially on social media. But how often do we actually get to talk to parents about what it means to regulate their own emotions?
And so really, it was just that push of realizing, you know, so often as parents, we are really thinking about how do I teach my child how to understand themselves, understand their emotions and their emotional health. But, you know, as a psychologist, I know that oftentimes our skill and ability to teach and model that for our children first comes with our own ability to do that for ourselves.
And so it's like, how can we, it's really hard to teach our children things that we have not yet grasped. So that was it, realizing, hey, we need more resources for parents around this topic specifically because parents are really looking for, you know, ways to improve the emotional health and well -being of their kids, but have we done it for ourselves first? And sometimes the answer is not enough.
Yeah, I think that's such an important point. There's so many different Instagram accounts and courses and parenting resources to tell you how to help your kid regulate. But what I have found as a parent is that it's way harder to regulate myself than to teach my kid or to show my kid how to do it. And like, if we're not walking the walk, if we're flipping out over small things, then how are we gonna expect a two or three or a four -year -old to be able to
keep it together and not lose it, right? It's kind of hypocritical.
Yep, absolutely. And you know, I have found, especially for moms, we misperceive what's
actually going on for us. We think, oh, I'm just, I'm not a good parent. I'm being a bad mom because I yelled or, oh, I just need to be more patient or I just need to try harder. When really it's, you know, I'm really anxious. I am sleep deprived. I have not been eating well. I haven't been able to move my body, I'm completely dysregulated. And so of course, when when we are dysregulated or in especially when our children are dysregulated, we will, you know, act out, we will yell, we will not be ourselves. And it's not this internal flaw. It's, you know, an indication of something else that we're needing.
Yeah, I think that's really important to just kind of give ourselves that self compassion piece too. Do you find, because I see this happen a lot on social media where everything is kind
of like childhood trauma now? Like the answer to anything that is going wrong is like, oh, you must have been traumatized as a child or oh, this is a trauma response. Can you talk a little bit about that? And is there any truth to that? Is there like a negative truth in there that how we were raised does impact how we show up as parents? And how can we kind of navigate that?
Right, yes. So I am always, I will always say, it depends and it's both, right? You know, I completely hear you. Actually, it's funny, I just created a piece of content the other day. It was like, you know, you don't have to have had a bad childhood to wanna talk about re -parenting or, you know, do something different in your parenthood journey, you know, childhood trauma is not required. And sometimes there are, you know, circumstances or situations that people go through where their experiences as a young child did not equip them or maybe paved the way for some.
Some inability to really cope with some big emotions. So, you know, both both are true, you know, they're you know I'll give you two scenarios There could be a mom or a parent who maybe they did have a lot of things happen in their childhood They may have experienced Some some abuse or maybe a simply that they were raised in a home where there was a lot of yelling wasn't a lot of emotional validation. So that person just may not have been able to learn the skills to cope with big emotions because when big emotions came about in their home, it was yelling, it was screaming, it was a lot of anger.
And so it's completely reasonable to expect that if that's an environment that a child grows up in, that will be their go -to as an adult when it comes to handling emotions, unless, you
know, they do some work in therapy or some of their own self work to learn new skills. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn't.
On the other hand, you know, we can have another parent who grew up with a really normal typical childhood, no abuse, no, not a lot of yelling, a lot of validation, a lot of support. But when they became a parent, the experience of parenthood itself was just very different. It was a very big adjustment for them, or maybe they had a traumatic birth, or maybe they just for whatever reason need more support when it comes to transitioning into that role of parenthood.
That, for them, has nothing to do with their childhood, nothing to do with what went on as a child, but rather this transition of moving from someone who is not a parent to someone who now is and what that all entails. And so it is so, it's completely different for everybody. But again, I guess I will say some people have experienced some childhood challenges that make this hard, but also childhood trauma is not required for you to be struggling with this emotional regulation as a parent.
Yeah, I mean, you talk a lot about dysregulation. And I think the sensory piece is also something that maybe parents don't really realize is a struggle for them before they become a parent, because they've always been kind of able to like, control their environment, right?
And now all of a sudden, there's, you know, so many sensory sensations happening all
the time, you're being constantly touched, you're there's constant screaming and crying
and lack of sleep, all of that stuff can really dysregulate us.
So what are kind of, I guess, the signs to look for when you're dysregulated? Like how do you know? How can you start to look for those signs and be aware? Okay, I'm not gonna die
right now. I'm just dysregulated.
Absolutely. Yeah. So you know, sometimes these signs can be hard to notice because if you are dysregulated often times you maybe are not as self -aware of what's going on right so I'll just say that first and foremost and sometimes the easiest thing to pay attention to is do I feel like myself right now right do I feel like I'm being myself you know granted as a new parent
sometimes or just a parent in general, it can take years to feel like yourself again. But in that moment, do my reactions feel typical to who I am in this moment? Does something feel different?
You know, I think many of us can easily answer that yes or no. Do I feel different is something off in my myself right now? If the answer is no, then there are some other things that we can pay attention to. So other things I like to ask people to pay attention to, your mood. How do you actually feel? Is there a lot of anxiety that you're feeling? Are you feeling tension? Do you feel irritable? Is there sadness there? Really, what is your mood state like? What are your feelings? Because that can give you a lot of information about what's going on, but then also if you're having some sensory overload or if you're feeling dysregulated.
Have you been having trouble with feeling motivated or energized and on the flip side have you been feeling too energized have you been feeling too wound up or has there been too much you know movement or or thinking rumination so cognitively where are you but then also just what is your body actually feel like and I think that sometimes can be easy for people to tap into if you take a moment to really sit and feel? What is my actual body feeling?
Is there tension? Do I feel calm? Am I noticing that my shoulders are up to my ears? You know, is there any pain anywhere? You know, I really like to help parents just kind of go in and really get a sense of mentally, emotionally, physically, cognitively. What am I actually feeling? What's going on? Does it feel typical for me? and /or does it feel uncomfortable? That can give you a lot of information.
That's so helpful. And I think even just like having those things in mind so that you can kind of like scan and just think about it in those moments where, 'cause sometimes it happens to me, still I've been a mom for six years and still sometimes my son will spill something or my daughter will start screaming at somebody. And I'm just like, is this, it feels like it's an emergency. Like it really puts you into fight or flight. And then I have to actually like, before I react, and this has taken such a long time for me to actually get good at this, but before I react, I just stop and I'm like, is this actually an emergency?
Like, do I need to flip out right now or is it okay? And I just kind of scan and notice how my body is feeling. And even just taking that small beat before I react has helped me so much. But what are some other strategies that parents can use? Because it's not always that easy to stop and center yourself before you react. So what do you recommend when you are feeling totally overwhelmed or your kid does do something to trigger you?
So there's something I've read about in my book that kind of reminds me of what you said. But the spin on it I'm going to say is that In the moment, it's so hard to catch these things. And actually, I just said something the other day about how oftentimes for parents, the learning never happens in the moment. It's always after the fact. You know, it's after you've yelled, after you've had this big reaction, after you've done the thing that you swore you would never do. And then you get to calls, look back on it, and then figure out okay well what is my plan for moving forward knowing that this incident probably will come up again but how will I react differently.
So in the book I have this framework for how to really shift some things if you notice that you are chronically dysregulated and one of the pillars is this practical approach that I like for people to take. And with this approach it really asks parents to take a moment to really reflect on their interactions with their children and really come up with a game plan of how will I
notice what's going on for me? What will I do when that's happening? And then also how will I plan for it in the future? This is something that you can do in therapy. So if you're working with a mental health professional, you can do this alongside them.
And I highly recommend it because again, sometimes these things we're talking about, like identifying how I'm feeling, identifying my triggers, really making a plan for how I'll respond differently next time, can take some time. And it also is helpful when we have some support. So if you're in therapy, awesome. Please take this to therapy and do this with your provider.
But if not, that's okay too. But in the book, I have this timeline for how you can actually do this with yourself. So it really recalls, like you said, pausing and reflecting, ideally not in the moment that something has happened, maybe after the fact or maybe later when you have some downtime, really just reflecting on how did I actually feel in that moment and what was going on for me, right?
There's this other part of the process where you really identify, well, what are some of my parenting triggers? And I think we all have them. It might be when my child yells or when they refuse to put their shoes on, or when they are upset with me, or when they spill their milk, whatever it is. Identifying what those things are and separating the, you know, the issue is not my child.
And we know that, but sometimes in the moment, it can feel that the issue is not the child, the issue is how I'm responding to it. So, hey, let's just expect these things will happen. These are the triggers. Now we're going to make a plan for, what do I do when these things come up. And so that part is fun because you get to decide, okay, what's something that's going to really help me or support me through this moment when it comes up again. My child will spill their milk again.
There will be more screaming that my child will not put their shoes on again. How will I react and respond? But more importantly, how will I notice in the moment that this is happening and be able to pull out this other plan that I've developed for myself. So, you know, again, I experience give themselves some grace and some compassion, because this is not something that we were really taught to do. Rather, it's something that we realized, hey, I really need a lot of support around this. And now I'm going to take the time to really do some things differently, but it will take some time.
I love that. That's really good advice. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back I would love to talk about repair and what do we do when we actually do lose it we'll be right back.
Okay so we are back with Dr. Amber and we were talking before the break and you
said something that's so helpful to remember which is that like your kid will do this again. This is not gonna just magically go away. There is absolutely no parenting tip or trick on the planet that will make certain behaviors stop because they just are kids being kids, right? So knowing that and knowing that we are also only human and that we probably will lose it from time to time and do things that we might not really want to do like yelling, what do we do after that?
I think this idea of repairing a rupture is something that is so new to most of us because we grew up having parents that yelled at us and never said anything else about it and never apologized for things like that and that was just kind of unheard of. So I would love for you to talk about, A, why that's important and B, how to actually do it.
Absolutely, absolutely. I love the topic of repair after ruptures. It's usually how I say it. And I think it's something, it's such a sweet concept for me. Like I like talking about it because it really just reminds you how precious this relationship of parenthood and childhood is, right? And I think you also have a really good point. I work a lot with millennial parents or parents in
that generation. And for most of us, our experience was that, you know, our parents yelled all the time.
Many of us, you know, receive certain punishments or discipline that may have been harsh. And it was just, this is just what it is. Many of us never have heard apologies from our parents. And so now this concept of, wow, we can actually repair when we've made a mistake, we get to apologize. Like, what is that? That's completely different from what we're used to. and we're curious about it.
But I also like this for this parenting generation because I think many of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do things the right way or to do things differently, do things correctly. And so that brings a lot of anxiety and worry when we make a mistake. And so I think it's important for us to realize that we will make mistakes because for all of us, this is our first time parenting. Even if it's your third or fourth child, you are parenting this child for the very first time, you will not get everything right. You will be imperfect, you will make
mistakes, you will get things wrong.
And so we really have to accept that because it means that we will have to repair, right? Many of us right now, our priority is that, you know, we don't want to make mistakes and never mention it again. We don't want to not apologize to our kids. And so the beauty in this idea of repair after rupture is that our relationship with our children can withstand mistakes. It can withstand our imperfections. We don't have to be a perfect parent in order to maintain and cultivate a healthy relationship with our children.
And in fact, a healthy relationship with our children need mistakes because they also need to learn how to cope and deal with disappointment or rejection or when things don't go their way. And so it's twofold. It teaches us that we don't have to be perfect and we still get to cultivate this beautiful loving relationship with our children, but it also helps our children to understand that people are not perfect, including our parents. We You're not perfect. And we actually get to talk about disappointment. We get to talk about anger. We get to talk about sadness.
We get to talk about all those big emotions within the context of this relationship, which ideally should be the safest place to do it. So there's so much learning that happens for the parent and the child, but then also every time we make a mistake or there's a small rupture in the relationship with our children, that apology or addressing it, it's like this little glue that actually makes the relationship stronger.
So, you know, hopefully that kind of helps anybody who has been worried, you know, about making mistakes or not being perfect. It's actually okay and it's better if you're not because you get to teach your children that process of apologies and acceptance and coping with challenges and doing that together is amazing.
Yeah, that's so true and so powerful. Is there a particular framework or I don't wanna
use the term script, but is there a right way to repair? It doesn't matter how old your kid is. What are some things that we should be kind of just keeping in mind for when we do have a rupture that we really wanna repair? Is there a right way or a wrong way?
That's a really good question and I'm always like it depends right like you have to know your child it depends but I what I will say is some important characteristics that need to be a part of that process is one acknowledging what has happened right you know again many of us are used to our parents you know something wrong happened and we just never talk about it or it was never addressed so a really big part of this is acknowledgement of what has happened.
And so that could be a discussion, or it could be, you know, the parents saying, Hey, I messed up, or Oh, I noticed that this went on, right? So acknowledging that something has happened. I think another key characteristic is addressing the emotion behind it. And so really helping your child giving them some language for this might have made you feel sad or this made you feel angry or this made mommy upset or you can even ask your child depending on what age or developmentally where they are how did that make you feel when this thing happened right so acknowledging what happened but then also pulling in some language for the feeling around it right and then I think it's always best practice to end it with an apology.
Right. Like the thing that, again, most of us are not used to hearing from other adults,
you know, the actual, I am sorry, or I, I, I'm sorry, I apologize, right? And then, you know, to add on there to make it even better, maybe indicating what should have done, what should have happened, right?
So, you know, Oftentimes what I'll do with my children is mommy yelled and I know that that made you really sad and Mommy is so sorry I should not have yelled and what I should have done was stopped to take a deep breath and next time I'm really gonna work to do that. So some formula of that, you know acknowledging what happened addressing the emotions that have come with it the actual apology, but then also a plan around what will happen next time. How will you do better?
What are some other ways that we can kind of model for our kids? 'Cause really that's just, it's
creating this beautiful model for them of how to repair after they've done something wrong, right? So that they can eventually use that same language to repair with other people in their life and have healthy relationships. But what are some other ways that we might model like emotional regulation and show them this is how you deal with stress or with challenges or with problems.
Yep. So this is one of my favorite things to help parents with because often I'll get this question of well, how do I help my child do it? And I'm like, okay, well, do you know how to do it? And they're like, And I'm like, well, the best way right now for you to teach your child is for you to learn it for yourself. So modeling is the thing, right? So with modeling, our focus is, it shouldn't really be like, okay, I'm doing this to help teach, really it's, I'm doing this to get good at this for myself, right?
And so that's the perspective that I really want parents to take, right? When we're talking about modeling, you know, healthy emotional regulation, or healthy emotional coping, let's focus on, okay, I need to get this right so that they can see that this is how you do it. But rather, I need to get this right because I myself am trying to cultivate a healthy relationship with my emotion, with my own coping skills. I'm trying to develop ways of handling big emotions. So I wanna get good at this, right?
When you focus on you getting good at developing these skills, you will naturally model them. So one thing I like to help parents with too is because again, many of us had this experience where we had no idea that our parents maybe were struggling with things, you know, because our parents never talked about these things. You know, we assumed that our parents just got everything right, and they were fine, and they were perfect.
And then 30 years later, we, we understand, "Oh, mom was really, really stressed out." So this is not me saying we have to share everything with our children, of course not, but when it is reasonable to do so, you can actually be honest and authentic with your child about something that's going on for you. And so my children often will ask me, "Mommy, what's wrong?" Or, "Are you feeling upset?"
And I'll just be honest, you know, I ran out of my favorite food and so I'm feeling really frustrated. I'm feeling really irritated by it, but I'm going to go do this thing to make myself feel better. That's a really good example of helping to model, you know, hey, sometimes things don't go my way. This is how I feel about it, but this is what I'm going to do to cope with it. And it can be that way with a lot of things. You know, I know a bigger example, for instance, my father passed away three years ago. My children are aware of that
and we talk about him often.
And so even just through those conversations, you know, I can express sadness. I can express grief and that is also modeling emotional coping. You know, it's not me pretending like I'm unaffected or that, you know, this is not something that didn't happen. But through those conversations about grief and loss, I get to be honest, that made mommy feel sad or mommy does still think about, you know, paw paw, that's what we call them. And this is what I do to feel better. So again, things like that, conversation in your everyday life about your emotions or about challenges or emotional experiences are really good ways to model for your and healthy emotional coping.
Yeah, such a good point, especially, and I'm so sorry about the loss of your dad. And I think so often parents are afraid to show those types of emotions in front of their kids. I'll get messages sometimes from parents who are just like completely overwhelmed or something happened. And they're like, I cried in front of my kid. Like, are they gonna, especially with everything happening in the world right now, I think a lot of people are just very tenderhearted and, you know, they're really worried about it. So I guess how do you know when it's appropriate or maybe it's too much like you're putting too many of your emotions onto your child? How do you walk that line and find that balance?
That's a great question, right? And, you know, I think it, it again, it goes back to it takes a lot of reflection personally to be able to know that balance. And it's not always perfect, you know, but what I will say is that if you are in a place where you are able to really articulate what's going on for you, you know, articulate the support and the means of coping you'll utilize, that can be helpful for your child. There's some learning there that they can receive. And it won't feel too overwhelming or scary for your child.
On the other hand though, if you're in a place where you can't really articulate what's going on for you, it just feels like there's a lot more emotion versus being able to access a container for it. Or if you don't yet have means of coping that you can actually demonstrate to your child, that might be a moment where you may have to pull back and utilize other means of coping and or kind of you know hold back a bit because that could be overwhelming for your child. So really thinking about can this be a teachable moment for my child to help them understand feelings and how to cope versus might this be overwhelming and scary for my child because they they cannot see how I'm coping they cannot see how I'm gonna help myself and I can't even articulate what's going on for me.
Okay, that makes perfect sense. Thank you for kind of breaking that down. I think that will be really helpful for people. We're going to take one more quick break and we'll be right back.
We're back with Dr. Amber and you mentioned at the beginning of the episode how, you know, becoming a mom yourself really kind of transformed your practice and helped you just have such a deeper empathy for clients. And it's really just so true. And it's kind of the point of this podcast that like, you really just don't know until you know, and you there's nothing people can really say or do to totally prepare you for what it's actually like to live it. But what is something that you wish someone had told you before you became a parent that you wish you had just been a little bit more prepared for.
Ooh, ooh, great question, so many things. 'Cause you're so right, you just don't know. You have no idea until it's happened and being a parent really did transform everything about how I work and my practice and how I think about the field that I'm in. But I think, I wish someone would really just have had a talk with me about all the ways that I will change, but then also all the ways and the reasons for why I need so much more grace and compassion for the changes that I'm going through.
You know, I think that we assume, you know, oh, she's become a mother and now go, you know, you do the thing, But there's so much growth and so much grief and loss that comes in that process of transitioning into becoming a mother, you know, the process of becoming a mother is a whole thing. And I think I wish I had more guidance and conversation around that process and how to give myself grace, how to understand, you know, what might be hard for me, how to understand the challenges that I might face even emotionally as I try to navigate all of this.
I wish that someone would have broken that down for me and I think it would have helped me to be more compassionate with myself, give myself more grace and just really trust this process of knowing, "Hey, I'm not perfect. I never will be perfect, but that's actually not the goal at all."
Yeah, that's not the goal at all. I love that. Where can people find your book? I'm so excited to read it. And where can people find you and your other resources?
Yes, oh my gosh, I'm I cannot wait for everyone to read this book. I, you know, I keep saying this book, writing the book changed my life. You know, I, I definitely have been someone who has really struggled with emotionally regulating myself over stimulation, feeling overwhelmed by my children and by parenthood, and writing this book transformed me into feeling like I have the tools and the skills to handle myself, so I can show up and be more present and be the mom I know I really want to be.
And so I'm excited for more people to have that experience, especially if you feel like you have really been struggling with that as a mom and even feeling shame around around that. I wanna help support you through that process, but you can find the book really anywhere you like to buy books, Amazon, Bars and Noble, Target, really at any major retail, but you also can go to my website, www .doctoramberthornton.com to learn more about the book and order your copy as well. And I'm always on Instagram primarily @dramberthornton. so connect with me there and also YouTube as well.
Perfect, I will link all of that in the show notes so that people can grab it easily. And again, thank you so much for writing a book like this. I think it's so needed and it really just means a lot that it comes from someone who has been through it too and who really understands it and has walked the walk, so I love that.
Of course, thank you so much for having me.
