Mom Rage Followed by Mom Guilt?
Have you ever wondered why you can react so differently to your kids fighting, one of them having a temper tantrum, or spilling their milk? Sometimes you can be calm and respond well to these behaviors, while at other times you just lose it. In this article, we discuss what mom rage is, why it exists, the gender biases of the term ‘mom rage’, and what to do about it. Mom rage is simply a term created to describe the overwhelming and intense emotional build-up that has been suppressed for some time, until it reaches a threshold, and then comes out in the form of yelling, screaming, or snapping at your kid(s).
If we simply looked at the situation right in front of us, others may think your reaction is disproportionate to the situation. However, what they don’t see and know are the million little things you have done for your kids, from being woken up in the night or early in the morning, making breakfast, splitting up fights, taking care of laundry, naps, cleaning up spilt food, etc. You likely haven’t had any physical or emotional space to take care of your own needs.
Needs? Who has time for those?
What needs? The need to use the bathroom, eat a real meal, stay hydrated, or get ready in peace. What about your need for sleep, need to take time for self-care, space for nourishing your friendships, or time to connect with your partner? What if I said that your ‘mom rage’ is there for a reason and is a natural reaction to either (1) unmet needs, or (2) an unconscious emotional trigger? You aren’t some angry person just because your kids are arguing or someone spilled their drink. What if your anger and frustration is really just a symptom of something much deeper? You make sense.
Think about the last time you lost it with your kids. Have you noticed a pattern of what sets you off? Is there a common trigger or set of triggers? To help you figure it out, pay attention to the feelings it stirs up for you. Notice the feeling in your body. Have you felt this way before? Explore other times you have felt this exact way. What was happening? Were you triggered by something? if needed or wanted, mental health professional are trained to help you figure these things out too.
5 Steps to Change Mom Rage
How to Apologize to your Child
While this article focuses on what is mom rage and what to do about it, it is not about the relationship repair work that often needs to be done…especially with your child. For more on how to apologize or what a good apology looks like with your kid, check it out by clicking on the button below.
Angry Dad…Is Dad Rage a Thing?
Interestingly, the term ‘mom rage’ is a commonly searched term on Google. You can type in these two words and pages of articles will fill your screen. Now, try typing in ‘dad rage.’ It doesn’t exist. You will scroll and find some articles on being an angry dad or a mad dad. Why is this?
If dad’s yell or snap, isn’t that the same thing? Can this be called dad rage? Or, are mom’s actually more ‘rageful’ than dads? Isn’t there a stereotype that mom’s are suppose to be calm all the time and…perfect? If they aren’t, then is this feeling actually rage? Perhaps, this is an expected and normal reaction to ongoing unmet needs.
With this being said, I can get on board with the term “mom rage” if it helps educate mom’s that being angry, anxious, and overwhelmed is expected and a normal reaction, especially when we often carry the mental, emotional, and physical load of the household (a.k.a. Household CEO’s). Furthermore, just because women are entering the work force more and more, research shows that we are actually just taking on more work rather than delegating and dispersing the household and childrearing responsibilities between you and your partner. The fact that women are the ones to delegate tasks is a responsibility, which reinforces that we are often the CEO’s of the home.
My point is that there is a reason you are experiencing ‘mom rage,’ and it does not need to be ignored. You matter. Your feelings matter. Your unmet needs matter. You need help and support, which makes you perfectly human. You get the opportunity to teach your kids and partner that everyone has needs, we all need self-care, no one is perfect, and we all need to listen to our bodies in order to manage these feelings.
Self-Care Ideas for Women
Imagine your feelings are like a thermometer. Just like when you are sick, your body has an internal heating and cooling system to help you regulate your internal temp. When you have a fever, you become aware you need to do things to take care of yourself and regulate your fever. You might take medications, take hot and cold showers, put on or take off layers of clothing, sleep, use ice packs, throw on a heated blanket, and the list can go on. In the same way, your feelings are your internal heating and cooling system that is going on and off inside of you. You can’t control that it goes off, but you can do things that help regulate your feelings temperature.
How would you feel if you were able to feel in control of your emotional expressions? While you are not able to control what and when you feel something, you have the ability to regulate how and when they come out. In other words, you are in control of the pressure release valve. As Dr. Becky Kennedy mentions, “Feelings are your superpower.”
Some of you may think, what is the point to emotions? You are right, they can be pesky and make us uncomfortable at times. They can be overwhelming. They can cause us to have panic reactions. They can lead us to do some pretty unimaginable things. Depending on your personality and life experiences, our feelings thermometers are all unique. Some may malfunction and go off at the wrong times. Some may go off more frequently and the intensity can be really high, while others it does not go off or high too often.
Albeit, far from perfect, I try and hold that space between my emotional reactions and my instinctual desire to snap back with a more cutting tone and hurtful words. I have learned that being more intentional with my responses goes a long way for my relationship with my kid. I want to parent with connection and intention. I think there is sometimes this assumption that parenting differently in these types of ways causes some people, like older generations, to think we are soft. That we don’t want to discipline. This DOES NOT mean I want to be my child’s friend over being their parent. Both can exist. They are not mutually exclusive!
Actually, it applies to all relationships, really! While these are hard skills to learn and put in place, the good news is that they translate to ALL of our relationships. You will see drastic improvements. Remember, it does take time, lots of patience, and tons more practice. It is SO worth it, not just from a psychologist’s perspective, but as a person who sees the benefits in their relationship with their spouse, kids, siblings, parents, co-workers, friends, etc.
Step 1: What is my feelings thermometer like?
Even though this sounds cheesy, hang with me. Let’s start by observing and recognizing your feelings thermometer. What triggers your feelings thermometer to go off with your kids? How do you respond to your feeling’s thermometer? Do you ignore it and pretend it isn’t there? Do you intensify it and make it hotter? Do you allow it to be there? Does yours go off often? Is your feelings thermometer really high often? I highly encourage you to write it down on a piece of paper or create a note in your phone. Knowing your triggers or what sets you off often can be really help in creating awareness.
Step 2: Identify Your Feelings
Practice labeling what you are feeling. Maybe you feel frustrated, nervous, scared, angry, confused, disappointed, resentful, numb, dismissive, reluctant, overwhelmed, tired, hungry, or a combination of them all at once. These are just to name a few. Knowing what you are feeling can be difficult at times. Allow yourself some time to process how you are feeling. It is okay if it takes hours or a few days. It will come to you if you allow it. If I need to identify something quickly, I know I can simply say, “I am having BIG feelings” or “I am having a strong reaction.”
Step 3: Notice Your Body’s Reactions
Sometimes it can help to know how your body is reacting to a feeling, especially when it is more than one feeling. As I mentioned above, I notice how my breathing changes and how I hold tension in my jaw and shoulders. I really appreciate it when I pause to notice how my body responds, so I can correct it. This in turn helps me regulate my feelings instantaneously, which helps me make better decisions on how I manage those feelings.
Step 4: Name Your Feelings Out Loud
We are social creatures. We don’t like being alone. More importantly, we like to feel heard and seen…to be fully understood and accepted. This requires an extra step. We must communicate with others how we are feeling, as it can be incredibly cathartic. It can leave us feeling relieved, which in turn helps us regulate our feelings. It provides a release. We do this in all sorts of ways (e.g., yelling, screaming, snapping, shutting down, isolating, etc.) whether healthy or unhealthy.
So how do we do it in healthy ways?
How do you feel after you share your feelings with your friend, partner, or kid(s), if and when appropriate? It can be incredibly helpful when other moms get together to share how they are feeling, concerns they have about their kid(s), or difficulties they are facing.
Not convinced, yet? Being able to share how we are feeling helps us get our needs met because it allows others to know how to respond to us. We can’t expect or assume others to just know how we are feeling by our body language or nonverbals. While these other forms of communication are important, they are not everything. We don’t even need the other person to do something with it, just being heard can go a long way!
Lastly, when we are vulnerable with our feelings, you create an opportunity for a deeper connection with your child(ren). Otherwise, our relationships would remain on the surface. It also helps our kid(s) develop their own emotional vocabulary and how to regulate our feelings in healthy ways. We are their mirror!
It might look something like this:
“I am feeling really overwhelmed right now. I need to take a break and breathe. Maybe you can breathe with me.”
“I am am pretty frustrated, right now.”
“Yes honey, I am mad right now. Mommy needs some time to cool off.”
“I am feeling nervous about this, but I am going to chose to be nervous and brave.”
It is important to know how and when to share our feelings with our kids. Sharing our feelings should feel safe! We don’t want to share our feelings with our kid(s) in a way that makes them feel responsible for our feelings. We need to teach them that we alone are responsible for how we feel, how we share our feelings, and show our emotions. If we implicitly or explicitly teach kids they are responsible for how mom feels, this can easily be considered emotional manipulation. It can look something like this:
“See what you did. You made me mad.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because of you, I feel upset.”
“Mom is angry because you hit your brother.”
“I am so mad right now. You did this.”
“Look what you did. Now your sister is upset.”
“I am starting to get pretty frustrated with you. Cut it out now!”
If your child frequently says things like, “Mommy are you mad at me,” or “Mom do you still love me,” these are pretty good indicators your child feels responsible for your feelings. Your child might go through a phase of this as they learn about feelings and this concept, but teaching healthy emotional boundaries and reassurance will likely correct this.
Step 3: Rate the Intensity
We established that our feelings are often a symptom of how we are doing or how things are going. Now, think back to the feeling’s thermometer. The thermometer is the intensity of our feelings. Your thermometer ranges from 0 to 10 and can represent any feeling you might experience, including happiness, excitement, sadness, anger, scared, or even just energy levels. A 0 means you feel calm and chill, while 10 signals the extreme range of that feeling. Therefore, the higher the temp, the more intense the feeling.
When our temp is too high, then it becomes increasingly difficult to regulate it down. So, when our feelings start to hit a 7+, this is a sign we are getting too heated or amped up. When we get past this, we might say or do things we regret. We don’t want to start intervening at a 9 or 10 if we can help it earlier. I encourage you to try rating the intensity of your feelings with your kids. It can go something like:
“I am pretty frustrated, right now. Mommy is at a level 5 right now.”
“I am pretty mad. I am at an 8 and need to cool down.”
When we start rating the intensity of our feelings and communicating them to others, we are improving our own emotion regulation skills, but also modeling them to our children. It helps create a common language and can quickly and efficiently communicate what you and your child might need in the moment. I even use this with my partner. When I am in a fight or argument, I often communicate what I am feeling and the intensity. He knows that when I say I am at a 7 or higher, that I need to take a break and return, because I will say things that I can’t take back. It is not healthy for me or our relationship.
We must tread carefully when we use the thermometer because we don’t want to use it as a means to get our kid(s) to behave. I can see how someone might say, “I am frustrated and at an 8, right now, cut it out.” This would implicitly teach our kids they are responsible for how we are feeling.
Step 4: Use coping skills and techniques.
Once we have our emotions down, we know how to rate the intensity of our feelings, and communicate all this good information to others, what now. Sometimes this is all we need to do to help us regulate our emotions. We might feel better by the time we reach this point. However, there are other times that we need to cope in other ways.
It is better to take a break during these intense moments. We often say or do things we regret when the feeling is too much. Therefore, if you are at a 7 or higher, consider the following steps:
(1) Tell your kid(s), “I am too heated right now to think clearly and have this conversation.”
(2) Share with them, “I plan to return to the conversation when I feel like I am in a better mental space. I might say things I don’t really mean or not hear you clearly if I stay here right now.”
(3) Give a timeframe to revisit the conversation. It might be a few minutes or a couple of hours. However, explain that you agree to have this conversation when you can be more effective.
(4) Make sure this timeframe also works for your kid(s), too.
(5) Provide love and reassurance = safety!
Please keep in mind that you will need to change the language a little bit when talking with your younger kid(s). Below is something I say with my 4-year-old.
“Mommy is really upset, right now. I am at a 7. I need to take some deep breaths and step away for a minute, but I will be right back. Mommy loves you. I just need to cool down.”
a) I am naming my feeling, “Mommy is really upset, right now.”
b) I am rating the intensity, “I am at a 7.”
c) I am using coping skills, “I need to take some deep breaths.”
d)I am providing reassurance and safety, “I will be right back. Mommy loves you.”
There are times we can’t step away though. Below are some coping skills that you can do alone or when you are with your kid(s):
Listen to music
Wash dishes
Deep breathing exercises
Stretching and breathing
With practice, you can master the art of mindfulness. Check out https://capitaloneshopping.com/s/mindfulness.com/coupon to start practicing. Soon you’ll be able to take a five minute mindfulness break with ease.
Put the TV on for your kids while you cool down
Give your child any task or activity (e.g., tablet, puzzles, books to read, coloring, games, video game) so you can have a calm down and have a break
Phone a friend/partner
Ask for help from a neighbor, friend, partner, or family member
Use humor