When you've had all your buttons pushed

[Howdydodat]

What do you do to stop you from boiling over, erupting, yelling, passively aggressively taking it out on cupboard doors in a different room, basically whatever would be your personal go to angry chimp reaction...

It takes a lot to push all my buttons to that point but when it does happen I walk away, take a deep breath and make a cup of tea all the while imagining stabbing the button pusher with my knitting needles.

I belong to a WhatsApp group of mum friends we all have kids aged 1 -6. We vent there, it's a safe space ie we can slag our kids behaviour off usually using swear words and noone judges. Someone usually replies with something humorous or empathises and is feeling the same and it helps.

I think letting it out on the cupboard doors/a pillow etc. is fine and probably quite healthy.

The most important thing is to get away from the button pusher, scream into a pillow and then deep breath and count to ten, in the case of a child remind yourself that it's not their fault/they don't mean it and this too shall pass.

When things are calm and you have the headspace think over what happened and how the button pushing could have been avoided. If we're talking about kids, they can't change it, only you can, so to avoid it happening again you need to change the situation/routine somehow. This can be as simple as realising you were being over ambitious and it would have been better to stick Cbeebies on and have a cup of tea than trying to play a board game/do a craft activity etc. Or maybe realising that it didn't actually matter that they wanted to wear PJ's all day/not eat their lunch/not get in the bath etc.

I go to bed.

I hide away in my car for 5 minutes and have some chocolate. I think the key is to put a little space between you and the button pusher so you can have a moment to calm down and get a little perspective.

@NuffSaidSam isn't the noise from slamming less than ideal though? It doesn't happen often, once/twice a month when I'm vulnerable to being overwhelmed due to illness, stress, hormones (I have no support, only DH on shifts). I am seeking to change.

Not unless anyone in the household is particularly sensitive to noise. Punch a pillow instead of you want, it's quieter. The point is, letting your frustration out physically in a way that causes no harm or damage is fine. Obviously, don't do it in front of the kids, don't break anything, don't hurt yourself, but if you need to slam a door, punch a pillow, scream into a duvet then carry on.

@NuffSaidSam thank you, I've been metaphorically beating myself up 💝

Walk away for a few minutes(making sure dc are safe if small).

I tend to do one of the following put the offending child in time out/ put them in the garden/ hid in the bathroom.

When my kids were young and I'd had enough of them in situations like this, I'd shut myself in the under stairs cupboard for 5 minutes. Ridiculous but effective.