26: Controlling Your Mommy-Rage and Responding to Your Kids Respectfully with Elizabeth Andreyevskiy

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Motherhood can be draining, no one expects you to have it all together. Through therapy, Elizabeth entered the world of gentle parenting with the goal of respect for your children. This is very different from the style of parenting her and I both grew up with – the spanking, the threatening of discipline, etc.

We don’t have to raise our voice to get our kids to listen. (no, really).

In this episode, I am joined by Elizabeth, a motherhood-stress and emotion coach, and host of Emotionally Healthy Legacy Podcast. Elizabeth is a wife from Minnesota, now in Florida, the mother of 4 (3 boys and new baby girl) and it is her mission to help moms support themselves and overcome the burnout and find themselves.

Getting your needs met is the first step to being patient with those around you. When you’re well rested, hydrated, and fed, it creates the environment you need to be in to remain calm. 

Controlling your anger towards your kids.

Seeing how our kids are behaving and paying attention to the way they are processing the world around them – building a connection and relationship with them will help you to better communicate with your child in a way they listen better. Kids don’t hear you when you yell, all they process is that they are being yelled at. I’ve recently started Play Therapy with my 5 year old so we can get to understand his brain and thoughts to better communicate with him in the way he needs it. It’s okay to get help where needed – I’m not a childhood development expert, and here I am in charge of my child’s development.

Learning to respond vs reacting: reacting is our first instinct, it’s the impulse to be frustrated and to yell when we don’t get our way. Responding is taking the time to consider where the other person is at.

How do we make the shift from reacting to responding?

1. Be aware. What situations are triggering for you and what’s the reaction you’re having?
2. Proactively meet your needs. Sleep deprivation and skipping meals make us more reactive.
3. Create a plan. Know ahead of time what you will do instead of yelling, etc. (example, when you want to yell, take a deep breath first). Rachel Bailey (child psychologist) – use a when/then statement. When THIS happens, then I will do THAT. When I want to yell, then I will walk away and visualize a calm place.

Self care is the key here.

When we aren’t caring for our basic needs, the part of our brain that makes decisions and processes our thoughts gets shut down. If we want to keep our brains working from a logical place rather than an emotional place, we have to be proactive in caring for our own basic needs first. It takes energy from your brain to emotionally regulate.

“Sometimes it’s not a spiritual problem, sometimes you just need some sleep and a meal to eat.”

How can we re-center throughout the day?

When the frustration and agitation build up – be aware of what’s happening. Communicate that you need a break – this teaches our kids to do the same. It’s important to step away and process your stress and emotions to remain calm – it’s better than bending till you break.

When you take a break, avoid distracting yourself. This won’t actually calm your nervous system down at all.

Have a plan for calming yourself

1. Remove yourself from the stress.
2. Choose what works for you: lay down and eliminate extra noises, visualize a calm place, splash water on your face, listen to meditation music, use mantra/affirmations.
3. Deep breathing. This sends oxygen back to your thinking brain.

Affirmations for stressed moms:

Links Mentioned in this episode 

• If you liked this episode with Elizabeth, go listen to The Emotionally Healthy Legacy:
• Follow Elizabeth on Instagram.
• Get the 5 Day Mini Course here.
• Schedule a free Stress Management Call with Elizabeth.

Other products mentioned in episode:

• **Unburdened Course by Allie Casazza.**
• **The Miracle Morning (book) by Hal Elrod.**

“If you’ve snapped at your kids, it’s not because you’re a bad mom… it’s just because you’re struggling and you need a little extra support.. at the end of the day, I want you to say to yourself ‘I’m a good mom, who had a bad day.'” – Elizabeth. 

Rather read this episode? Here’s the transcript.

Brittni: Hi, Elizabeth. It’s so good to have you here. Can I get you to introduce yourself? 

Elizabeth: Yes. Hello everybody. Usually moms probably listen to this episode, so hello to all the moms. So I am Elizabeth. I am a stress and emotion coach for moms, so I help stressed moms that are overwhelmed and they are just reacting all day long to their kids and just everything in life. And they just wanna get out of that. I help them learn ways to regulate their big and challenging emotions, like frustration and anger, irritation. So that’s what I help moms with. I am a mom of four. I have three boys, 10, seven, and four, and I have a baby girl who is seven months old. So we do have a busy household. 

I’ve also recently learned about myself probably in the past year that I am highly sensitive and it just clicked and made sense why things were really overwhelming for me. Like if my schedules overbooked, a lot going on or whatever, like I can’t do chaos. We talked a little bit earlier before that you said you worked better when like there’s stuff going on behind you and like the noise I can’t do.

You know, I’m different. And so I learned that about myself and just like learning ways I can support myself, but I’ve been married for almost 13 years. We live in Minnesota and I grew up in a big family. I had five siblings, so yeah, that’s where I’m at right now. And I love to support and help moms that are struggling with overwhelm and burnout and just feel like they lost themselves.

B: Oh, that is so awesome. I love hearing about your heart for women and all that. Let’s go ahead and jump into what we’re here to talk about today. We’re talking about a lot of our mom anger and how to regulate ourselves around our kids. So let’s go ahead. I don’t know if there’s somewhere you prefer to start with this.

E: Yeah, I can share a little bit about my story and my background, how I even like got into this. So a few years back my youngest boy was – he’s always been like that since he was born – but he was just one of those like fireballs. He would always like to get into stuff. I always had to be like on guard watching him, like, where is he now?

What is he getting into? And it was like really draining me. And so one of my friends suggested for me to go through therapy to figure out like ways that I can parent him. And I’m thinking to myself, I mean, I got two older kids. I’m like, I should have this thing down. Right. And then I decided to still go to therapy and I was introduced to a whole new world of gentle parenting – and like meeting your kids emotional needs and empathizing with them, respectful parenting, kind of.

Maybe some moms that are listening to this, they are on that journey as well. And. When I started, I’m like, it was very new to me and I’m like, I was really open to it and it, it really felt right for me because I grew up in like traditional parenting where there was threatening and spanking and lots of control.

Like the deal was the more you can control your child, the better of a parent you are. So that’s kind of like the background. Even though it was a loving home. There was, that’s just the main parenting it was. And so I started to switch my approach and I really struggled a lot in the beginning. I felt like I was really failing.

I kept back going to like automatic ways that I’ve been doing for years, like raising my voice and threatening to get control back, trying to control my child and make them do what I, you know, asked them to do. And even like, like spanking, cuz that was the main way I was disciplined. And that’s the main way we were disciplining our kids before all this.

And so. I felt like I was failing more on this gentle parenting approach than I wanted to a few months into therapy. I bought the course Unburdened by Allie Casazza. And in there she talked about having like a morning routine that kind of supports you and centers you something that like she mentioned was the book the Morning Miracles.

And I read that book and it talked about like affirmations and visualization and like deep breathing and meditation. And I just kind of like, I’m like, okay, I wanna do this. This seems like it will help me with my day. 

B: Right.

E: And so I started to get up before my kids. Since all my kids slept through the night and I started implementing some of those strategies and I noticed a significant difference in how I felt internally and how I was able to respond my kids, like my tolerance level to the chaos and overwhelm and like the stressful situations was way higher. 

So that kinda brought me to the idea of like stress management for moms. Cuz I noticed that a lot of moms in my circle, we were taught like, oh, well be patient. If you’re a Christian, you need to be patient. And nobody was really taught how it’s like, well, how? like I’m having a hard day. How do I be patient?

I keep finding myself being snappy and agitating, frustrated. So I started to figure out ways that were helpful to me to calm my body when I’m frustrated, when I’m angry and ways that I could like snap less and be frustrated less. And that put me on a journey to help other moms.

B: Awesome. I find this so incredibly relatable yeah, I mean, yeah. Having three boys, you know they get crazy and they all need to be parented so differently. And then to be raised in a way where, like, you know, if you weren’t listening, you know, you were made to respect your parents because otherwise, you know, you had to…

E: Yeah, respect was demanded.It was not modeled. 

B: Yeah. Yeah. And then to like, be all like, okay, well, everyone now is talking about gentle parenting. We understand like children are humans. They need a lot of help figuring out how to be a human being. But like, we are grown adults. It’s like, no one taught me how to be a human being and I’m 30 and how am I supposed to teach this child?

E: Yeah. Yeah. And we find ourselves struggling with the same exact thing. 

B: Yeah. Actually I just put my oldest, he just started like play therapy. So like he’s going in and we’re kind of getting, trying to figure out how his brain works kind of, because I can’t like relate to him, like in a lot of ways I relate to him, but in a lot of ways, I’m like, I can’t get through to you and I don’t understand how to make you.

Understand what I’m asking you to do and the importance of you doing it. And I came to the conclusion. I was like, I am not a child development professional, like, and here I am in charge of a child’s development . So to talk to someone who went to school, instead of just Googling things over and over again.

So it’s really neat to like, he loves going cuz he gets to just play the whole time.  And I like going, cause I get to talk to an adult who’s like, you know, let’s help figure out what’s going on with your kid. And I will give you some practical. This is psychologically the right way to handle this.

E: Yeah, it’s so nice. Like, I think in the time that we live in, there’s so much more support available and help available, cuz I think one of my, so I have one of my boys who’s super, highly sensitive and I also. Feel like he might have ADHD, with some of the things that I’ve been learning, cuz I’ve listened to several podcasts about it and I’m like 90% of what they’re talking about is this child and like learning ways, instead of making him feel worse about what’s going on, but like finding strategies and tools to like support him, giving him tools.

This is like, yeah, you’re struggling. You’re overwhelmed. So let’s figure out ways that I can help you and come alongside you versus just like spank it out of them. Cuz that’s how I was raised it. Like you’re being defiant. So let’s just force it and spank it out of you. So like, yeah. I feel like now it’s such a better time in that like there’s so much more support available. There’s so much helpful. I think.

B: Absolutely. 

E: All right, so let’s get into the nitty gritty. 

B: Yeah. 

E: Yep. Let’s get into how to do this. 

B: So maybe we can start talking the difference between responding and reacting, and how to self regulate with that. 

E: Okay. So I would say like reacting is just, it’s an automatic reaction. Like you don’t even think about it. Like, for example, if somebody like comes up to you and just smacks you in the, you know, back of the head and you just like smack them back. You don’t even think about it. It’s just an automatic reaction. It just happens. 

You’re just like literally protecting yourself. That would be kind of reacting. Or if let’s say we’re raised in a family, where yelling was normal. That’s all we know. That’s how we feel like we can get control back. If our child is not listening and not doing what we want, we like yell automatically.

That’s kind of like an automatic reaction and those are kind of ingrained patterns in our brain that happen over the years. And you don’t even have to think about it. It just happens. 

Responding is something more intentional. It’s like you choose to pretty much go against your automatic reactions to respond more in a positive way.

So for example, if your automatic reaction is raising your voice and yelling to get control back, Like that’s my tendency, responding would be coming up with a plan ahead of time. What am I gonna do? Instead, when I feel out of control, then I will blink. I will handle the situation differently. Like I will remind myself I got this.

I can handle this. I’ll take a few deep breaths. And I will tell myself, like I have a good kid, who’s having a hard time and like, I’ll come alongside that way versus just raising my voice. Or if my kid is not doing something I want them to do, and they’re just resisting, let’s say reacting would be like, threatening them, responding would be like, do you wanna do this on your own, or do you want mom to help you?

Like, you’re still guiding them in the right direction, but like you’re handling it more from feeling grounded versus like agitation, frustration and just like, blah.

B: Okay. Yeah. So going more against your natural instinct. 

E: Yeah, it really is like a lot of, at least for me, I have found that reacting is typically like stuff you don’t think about – It just comes out and typically it’s negative and responding is like something that you, it’s a positive way of handling a similar situation. I’m mature, more like a wise and respectful way of handling the same circumstance.

B: All right. So how do we shift from reacting into responding?

E: So for me, the biggest thing is recognizing being – first of all – being aware, like what situations are triggering for you and that you find yourself reacting in ways you wish you didn’t.

Is it raising your voice? Right. That you, like when you’re running late, you just get all frustrated, you start raising your voice. You know, it could be that like, it could be that threatening, could be like reacting. So it’s like being aware of like, what is triggering for me? What’s making me more agitated and frustrated.

Like if I like, sometimes it’s like unmet needs. If you have, if you’re running on empty, if you haven’t had. Sleep. If you are hungry, your brain is gonna shift to the emotional part of the brain and it’s gonna be more reactive. That’s just natural. It’s gonna be hard for it to respond because your logical problem solving part of the brain shuts off when you are triggered.

So one of the things that is super helpful for me, I have found is that having like proactively meeting my needs that I know if they’re not met, I get more triggered. For example, like if I go to sleep late at night, cuz I scroll through my phone and I go to sleep at midnight and I am sleep deprived the next morning I find myself more reactive, right?

Like when I don’t get enough sleep, I’m more reactive. And if I skip meals, like when my body is hungry, like my brain is focused on the fact that I’m hungry. It’s not focused on how to respond positively in the situation. So that’s like another proactive thing that you can do ahead of time to support yourself.

And then, like, for me, another thing is being highly sensitive. I have to have daily time alone to recharge and center myself. When I do that, my brain is more calm and grounded and I’m able to. More positively.

 And the last thing is, I would say coming up with a plan, what are you gonna do instead? So we’re like, oh, I don’t wanna yell. Well, okay, great. What are you gonna do differently?

Like in the heat of the moment you feel out of control, what are you gonna do differently? Like, for example, let’s say if your children, a child disrespects you and your automatic reaction would be like, what did you just say that, like, who are you to talk to me like that? Or like, kind of like a negative reaction. 

Okay, well, you don’t wanna do that. So what are you gonna do differently? You have to have a plan ahead of time. That’s gonna, you know, what you’re gonna do differently, for example, I learned this from a parenting psychologist, Rachel Bailey, but she calls it a when then statement.

So like next time when I feel disrespected by my child, then I will blank. Like, what are you exactly gonna do differently? Like next time when I feel disrespected by my child, then I will take a deep breath and tell my child. I don’t let people talk to me like that. If you need to talk to me, it needs to be respectful and I’ll be in the next room.

Like ready whenever you’re ready. So like you’re setting a boundary and it’s not that like you’re being rude or anything. You just don’t tolerate that. Or like next time I feel the frustration build up and I want to yell. Then I will take some deep breaths. And remind myself: I am safe, I got this, I can handle this, or I will walk away.

Like maybe it could be walking away and I will visualize a calm place, whatever it is to kind of calm your brain, your mind, your nervous system. So I think having an action plan is super, super important versus just saying, oh, I’m not gonna yell anymore. Well, what are you gonna do instead? And the next time something happens that is super triggering for you, right?

B: Absolutely. Gosh, I’m just thinking of the whole pink elephant thing right now. You know, you forget to apply it to a lot of things where someone says, don’t think of a pink elephant. All you can do is think of a pink elephant. When you’re telling yourself don’t yell, don’t yell, don’t yell. You’re just bringing on that energy of yell.

E: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So like, I think focusing on what you’re gonna do instead is super, super helpful. Like at least I have found that being super transformative for me. And the biggest thing is doing things proactively to reduce your triggers, to begin with. Because it’s really hard in the heat of the moment when things start getting really overwhelming and just chaotic and, uh, stressful.

It’s really hard if you are just like in burnout mode all the time, like you have to do things proactively that will support you because what happens is when your brain is under stress, when you are overwhelmed, when you are trigger, Your thinking brain that helps you make positive, logical choices in the moment that helps you respond, it literally shuts off.

And you’re shifted to the emotional part of the brain. And that’s why you find yourself reacting in ways that you regret later. And you’re like, oh my gosh, I feel like I couldn’t even stop myself in that moment. It felt so hard. That’s because literally your thinking brain that helps you make positive choices is shut off.

So if you do things proactively that support you and ground you and meet your needs. Your brain is a lot more likely to stay in that thinking brain and get triggered less often. Does that make sense? 

B: Yes, absolutely. Yes. We have to be proactive about taking care of ourselves. And I think a lot of times we forget how simple and like it is, it’s just absolutely simple.

That can be because we get in our heads about all of the like self care needs to be super like specific to you. Whereas sometimes you need to step back and not go into this. Like, I need to do something for myself as in, you know, you know, something special for you. It can be your basic human needs of, you know, getting enough sleep, eating, nutritious meals, drinking your water – just the basic – How to be human staples that keep you alive. And we’re depriving ourselves with these and wondering like why we can’t emotionally hold it together. 

E: Yeah. And so like, one of the things is I remember I hearing this years ago and like I use this phrase is like, sometimes it’s not a spiritual problem.

Sometimes you just need some, some sleep. Sometimes we were like, oh my gosh, I’m a bad mom. I’m a bad Christian. I keep not being patient. Well, guess what? If you are seriously sleep deprived, cuz you have a newborn. Sometimes it’s not a spiritual problem at all. Sometimes you fricking just need some sleep and a meal to eat and you’ll be like a person.

So one of the things that a friend of mine who is an energy coach for moms, she said that like, and it totally makes sense. “It takes energy out of your brain to emotionally regulate.” So if you’re physically exhausted and sleep deprived, your brain literally does not have the energy to emotionally regulate. 

It takes a lot to stay calm when your toddler’s throwing a tantrum. And that gets sucked into that, like energy. It takes a lot. So, um, just kind of keep that in mind when your basic needs are not met, it’s gonna be really like you’re going against everything and it’s gonna be so much harder to stay more calm and grounded.

B: Yeah, absolutely. So you talked a lot about like how you recenter,  what are some of the practical ways that. You would recommend that you like to go to for your recentering? 

E: Yeah. So let’s let, yeah, like for example, let’s say I’m doing homework with my son and he’s just not cooperating. He’s having a hard time. He’s getting really frustrated and I’m getting frustrated and I just feel like that frustration and agitation build up. And I feel like I just wanna yell and scream. 

So first is being aware of what’s happening. Like I’ve noticed a tension and that frustration build up. And so my plan is like, I’m gonna take a break.

I’m gonna take a moment instead of having a moment. So my plan is to, um, communicate that I need a break. And I need to remove myself from the stressful situations. Here’s the thing. If you continue to stay in the stressful situation, your thinking brain that helps you make positive choices, shuts off.

Okay. You’re gonna continue to stay in your emotional part of the brain. And you’re gonna end up saying hurtful things or doing hurtful things. And so physically removing yourself from a stressful situation. Obviously not always possible, but as much as you can, if your kids are physically safe, communicate like, Hey mom needs a five, 10 minute break. I’m gonna go to the bathroom. I’m gonna go to my room. So I need to calm my body down because I feel upset or I feel angry, whatever it might be. And so when I go to my room.

 My natural tendency is to wanna grab my phone and scroll through my phone through like either Instagram or some sort of social media. That’s my natural tendency though. If I do that, I do not feel better. It just kind of helps me, I guess – what’s that word? 

B: Distraction

E: Yeah. Distract me from reality. It doesn’t actually calm my nervous system down. 

So my tendency is to grab my phone and just like scroll through stuff to just kinda escape the reality of the uncomfortable feeling of frustration or anger even with my kids. And so I have been teaching myself to handle those situations differently. And I have a plan again, kind of like, what am I gonna do when I feel frustration?

And that is one of them is deep breathing. So deep breathing is really helpful because it actually calms your body down. So just taking a deep breath through your nose and I’ll throw your mouth. So deep breathing is super helpful, that’s my number one.

It’s deep breathing cuz you can do it anywhere. You don’t have to isolate, not necessarily, you don’t have to remove yourself from a situation. Deep breathing is really helpful to just slow the reaction time, it just sends oxygen back to your thinking brain, which is your logical problem solving positive choice-making part of the brain.

So deep breathing. The other thing is that I’ll close my eyes. I’ll lay down on my bed or I’ll try to close my ears to just remove some of that stimulation or any sort of noise, like being highly sensitive. That’s what I need. And I will take some deep breaths. And for me, I visualize myself in a calm place.

That is what helps me calm my nervous system down. Some people need to take a shower or like to wash their face with cold water or something sensory. But for me, it is visualizing a calm and peaceful place. I think of myself being on the beach. Like I will describe it in my head. The sand is super soft and like white and the water is clear.

It turns into turquoise and I feel the breeze. And like, I literally imagine myself being in a very calm and peaceful place that really calms my body down. And I will say things like “breathe in, calm, breathe out stress.” And as I’m doing that, I will relax my whole body. I’ll try to get all that tension out by like, “breathe in peace, breathe out tension.”

And sometimes it takes me like five minutes. Sometimes a little bit more, depending on the situation. Sometimes it’s like a minute or two and I’m able to really calm my body down to like, feel much better and go back into the situation with my kids and not be as triggered. Sometimes if my husband is home and I will tell him, I need 15 minutes.

I just need to reset. Like, please take over with the kids. I feel really overwhelmed and I just need to kind of center myself and ground myself. Like I have to leave the phone in a different place just because I’m so tempted to just scroll sometimes if my phone is nearby, I’ll turn on some meditation music or something that is really, really calm.

And that also can be really, really helpful, but deep breathing, visualizing, like breath in peace, breathe out tension and saying a mantra. I know that is something like saying an affirmation. You talk about that.

B: mmhmm

E: I talk about that a lot. If you tell yourself I’m not patient, I’m just not a patient mom.

Oh my gosh. Like I’m always so frustrated. You’re gonna live that out. Like, I’m just gonna lose it. Ugh. I can’t handle this. Like you are gonna live that out. You’re like, it’s like a self fulfilling prophecy, right? You’re gonna act on it versus like, this is hard. This is overwhelming. And I can handle this.

One of my favorites is “this is what it is right now. I don’t like it and I’ll get through it.”

Like you’re acknowledging the reality. You’re not denying that this is hard. Like parenting is hard and I can handle this and I can do it. If you are Christian, sometimes you can say a prayer to God and ask him for help and support.

That is also really helpful to kind of like recenter yourself. I know I’m just kind of throwing out a lot of ideas, cause everybody’s a little bit different, but you guys can like, like choose what you think, you know, will be helpful and just try it out. See if it helps. 

Though I do say it does take practice. It does take practice to implement these things. It doesn’t happen overnight. You’re literally going years and years against like ingrained patterns of automatic reactions. So in the beginning you will find yourself going back to your old patterns more. I just think having a plan, like next time I get overwhelmed and I wanna yell, then I will remove myself from the situation.

If possible, take some deep. And like to visualize a calm place, whatever it might be for you to just calm your body down.

B: Well, that is a lot of really great information and a lot of really great tips and all of this. So maybe you can tell my listeners where to find more of you and what you have specially to offer for them. 

E: Yeah. So I do hang out mostly on Instagram. I show up during almost every single day. I am  @emotionallyhealthylegacy.

I also do have a podcast as well. Same thing, same name, Emotionally Healthy Legacy. You can find it on Google podcast, Spotify and iTunes. 

And my gift for you, I have two things. I have a five day minicourse where you can sign up for and you get like five days worth of tips and tricks on how to calm your nervous system down and be more calm and grounded and centered.

So you’re less reactive. And then the other thing is I offer free stress management. So, if you feel like this spoke to you, if you find yourself like, oh my gosh, I feel like I’m reacting to my day all the time. I feel so burned out. I feel so overwhelmed and stressed, and I just need someone to help me figure it out, to shift things a little bit – I offer free stress management calls. So we’re gonna link that below and you can just click on there and book a time. And if that time doesn’t work, you can contact me and we will figure out a time that does. 

B: That is so awesome. I think every mom needs some stress management in their lives. Right. I can’t think of one that doesn’t.

E: Yeah. And I think that’s the last thing I want you to walk away with to remember like, if you snapped at your kids, if you yelled, if you lost your cool, it’s not because you’re a bad mom. It’s because you were struggling. You were internally struggling. Things were either too overwhelming or too triggering too much stimulation.

There was so much going through your mind, whatever it was. It’s not because you’re a bad mom. It’s just because you’re struggling and you need a little bit of extra support. So when that mom guilt creeps in at the end of the day, here’s a phrase I want you to remember. “I’m a good mom who had a hard day. I’m a good mom who had a hard day.” So that’s gonna help some of that guilt – push it out. It helps me a lot.

B: I love that. I’m a good mom who had a bad day.

E: Oh, Yeah.

B: Thank you so much for being here. This is all, some really great stuff to think on. And I look forward to listening to everything you just said to me over again. 

E: Yeah.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

• If you liked this episode with Elizabeth, go listen to The Emotionally Healthy Legacy:
• Follow Elizabeth on Instagram.
• Get the 5 Day Mini Course here.
• Schedule a free Stress Management Call with Elizabeth.

Other products mentioned in episode:

• **Unburdened Course by Allie Casazza.**
• **The Miracle Morning (book) by Hal Elrod.**