How to stop your head from exploding

If you’re a parent, and you’re actually present for any part of the day, then you will have strayed into that most dangerous of places: The point where you become so frustrated, angry, and generally exasperated that you actually feel like your head will explode. Not metaphorically explode, but actually explode in a shower of gore, teeth and bone. They never tell you about that place when you go to antenatal classes, or if they did you didn’t listen, because it’s always a surprise when you actually get there...

I remember about a month ago I became so angry, so enraged at the ridiculousness of the latest dispute between my two boys that I actually had to go lie down. My head was pounding as I could feel the blood rushing about looking for somewhere to go. I could actually feel the arteries supplying vital parts of my brain creaking under the strain.

And what was it that caused all this? From memory it was a completely insane dispute over an empty cardboard box that had been lying around largely ignored for the last month. On that particular day though, it was the most valued, the most prized possession in the entire world, and they both wanted it with the self same passion that Gollum wanted the Ring. There was shrieking, and demanding, and pleading, and shoving, and the repeated blows thrown from one to the other. The utter rediculousness of it, combined with the both the length of time the whole thing went on, almost killed me.

We all end up in that place sooner or later, and sadly most of us will make large numbers of return trips over the years. We all get angry at our kids, and sometimes the anger is so much we become slightly dizzy, and you hear a high pitched ringing in our ears. If you don’t go there from time to time then you’re probably not spending enough time with the kids.

Having said all that, it’s a dangerous place to be though, because if you stay there too long it will literally take years off your life. So here are my top three tips for trying to go there less, and get out quicker when you do:

Get a plan.

The big reason most parents feel enraged is because they feel powerless, because they’re at the end of their proverbial tether, because nothing they’ve done has made any kind of difference up until that point. Most of us don’t actually want to be angry, we just end up feeling that way because it’s the last refuge of a sane mind. The utter helplessness of being ignored by tiny little people is just inherently enraging.

So you need to get a plan.

The plan doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact the best plans are the simplest ones. Just figure out where things start going pear shaped, figure out what the little person is getting out of behaving that way, and then figure out how you can make them think again. You might distract them, you might remind them that if they do what you want they get a sticker on their chart, you might tell them if they keep doing what they’re doing they will end up in time out, or any one of a number of things. Read back over your old issues of Littlies and you’ll find dozens and dozens of ideas for managing little people’s behaviour. It doesn’t necessarily matter what you do, as long as you do something. If you have a plan you’ll feel like you’re in charge, and that will have magical calming qualities. If you don’t have a plan you’ll just react, and generally when we just react to stuff we react emotionally, and generally that emotion is anger.

Keep it all in context

Sometimes it’s very easy to begin to believe that your children actually want to kill you. It can be deceptively easy to give in to those dark thoughts and start believing they spend their days and nights scheming ways to drive you insane, and thereby kill you from sheer exasperation, but this is hardly ever the case. In fact, in all the years I’ve been doing this stuff I’ve never come across a toddler who wanted to kill his or her mum or dad. The problem is that children have an exasperating tendency to act like… well… children. You have to keep reminding yourself that they’ve been on the planet for less years than you have fingers on one hand, and they have an enormous amount to learn. Just getting their heads around walking, talking and bowel control is quite a lot to do before you’re five, let alone sort out the pros and cons of good behaviour, and learning how to be responsible members of the household. Some adults are still struggling with that stuff.

So always keep in mind that they haven’t been here very long, and that their little brains are only just beginning to wrap themselves around the world. You can’t really expect them to show a huge amount of maturity and wisdom. If you expect pettiness and silliness you’ll be far less disappointed. To remind myself of this very important point I have a conversation I often revisit with my boys when I feel in danger of forgetting it:

‘Why do you always act like a six year old?’ I say to my youngest.

‘Because I am six,’ he replies, slightly indignant.

‘Ohhhh, yeah.’

Remember that life is suffering

This is a wee Buddhist thing. Essentially Buddha said, some 2500 years ago now, that we often make ourselves unhappy because we expect that life should be comfortable, and easy, and generally better than it usually is. The problem is of course, that life is imperfect, and it often contains long stretches of unpleasantness. This is doubly true of parenting. It’s fantastic, and amazing, and the greatest adventure you will ever have, but it also sometimes really sucks. It’s sometimes boring, and frustrating, and generally stressful.

And those are just the good days.

The problem is that if you expect the process of raising kids to be this grand sparkling adventure all the time then you’ll feel a bit let down, and that will lead to feeling bitter, and then getting grumpy, and then getting angry, and then your head will explode and you’ll die.

If you understand that we all experience these patches of grinding boredom, stress, frustration, and general misgivings, then it makes the whole thing somehow easier to bear. If you stop struggling against the current all the time trying to make your family life something it can never be (or at least something it can only be for brief, fleeting, wonderful moments) then you can relax a little and deal with life as it is. Live where you are is my advice, not in some Brady-bunch-like fantasy. None of us have it easy, and that’s simply part of the price you have to pay if you want to go on the ride. Once you get your head around that then the journey becomes considerably easier.

Just to be on the safe side though, it does pay to make sure the life insurance is all paid up. It’s always important to have a Plan B.