Little Zephyr is uncannily adorable. His smile melts hearts. His little voice softens you. I wish I could capture all of his facial expressions in a little jar so I could look at them when I’m feeling down. His blue eyes are so bright and clear you can almost see into the spirit world.

But he also has the ability to to rile me up and make me want to yell or scream. Being two, he learns by testing boundaries. He has very little capacity to self-regulate. He’s not developmentally capable of being reasoned with.

And he’s just plain stubborn.

When I’m centered I can see through his behavior. I can listen for the message he’s trying to communicate through his difficult behaviors. The message he doesn’t have the words or self awareness for. I can attune to his frustration, anger, or sadness, comfort him, and still hold a firm loving boundary in a calm way.

And yet when things are off for me I can just as easily lose it.

Whether it’s because of something stressful that came up at work or with my partner, or because I’m hungry or sleep-deprived, I’m not always able to hold it all together. Of course this human. And yet, because of the impact it has on him and the rest of my family, I’ve spent a lot of time working to better understand what exactly is happening and how I can change it.

To deepen my understanding, I’ve paid attention to a few different parts of my experience.

I try to notice my physical experience - what’s happening in my body? Where do I get tight? In what ways am I contracting? What’s going on in my shoulders, arms, gut?

I also attempt to feel the emotional tone of the experience. Is it anger? Frustration? Overwhelm? Is there a feeling underneath that feeling?

Finally, I track my thoughts. Do I want to run away? Smush or slap him? Am I thinking more about him or myself or what’s next?

In my process, I’ve been surprised by what I’ve learned. Namely, that sometimes I feel powerless or helpless when facing my two year old.

Isn’t that something?

I want more than anything to control him, for him to do what I ask of him, but he won’t, and I collapse out of my creativity and ability to connect and into a rageful human willing to use physical force to get my desired results. It’s kinda scary to watch to be honest.

But apparently because toddlers can’t communicate with words super well, they find ways to get you to feel what they’re feeling. If they feel like they have no control, they’ll do what they can to make you feel like you don’t.

Toddlers are also at a unique stage of development where their ego, the most primitive form of ego, is establishing itself. This is amazing!

They are growing a sense of self which starts as empowered. Of course they’re still oblivious to social rules. The tricky role of a parent is to help the child learn the boundaries of appropriate behavior, without squishing their sense of agency.

The best way to do this is to set firm boundaries but without emotional charge. Even if and when physical restraint is required, as in the case with hitting, the less emotional charge, the more matter of fact we can be, the easier it is for the child to learn without having any “baggage.”

That brings me back around to trying to figure out how to better manage my emotions while engaged in boundary setting with my children. I came to see this as a multi-tiered process.

First, I needed short-term immediate strategies to stay regulated or get regulated quickly.

I also needed ways of catching myself earlier and earlier on the path towards losing my temper.

And finally, I needed to stay cognizant of the importance of repair when I did lose my temper.

But in addition to that I was seeking a way to get to the deeper issues at hand. Why, as a grown man, was I being rattled so easily by my two year old. Yes, it happens to most parents at some point or another, but why is that and what could I do about that?

As far as staying and getting regulated goes I use a number of different strategies. Taking deep breaths, tensing my body and releasing, shaking around in a goofy dance (which sometimes gets the kids to laugh). If it’s safe to step away, I’d give myself a 10 second or 1 minute “cool-down,” or if there’s an option to tag-out with another adult, I’ll often do that.

I also learned that as I practiced tracking what was going on for me as a way to better understand it, I began to notice when I was headed down a negative path sooner and sooner. Noticing allowed me to correct course and avoid the mess to begin with..

And of course, I’ve become good at acknowledging when I’ve lost my temper and apologizing for it, while also maintaining the importance that Zephyr (or Hazel) change their behaviors. Repairing after rupture is also essential to growth without baggage.

When it came to getting to root causes working with my therapist was vital.

First, the psychoeducational piece. We like to think of ourselves as a unified individual, and most of the time we almost actually behave that way. But the reality is that our Self consists of multiple sub-selves some of which are more cooperative and mature others which are not. Some of these selves are much younger. Under certain circumstances, we can crash out of our stable “main self” or “central ego” and into a split-ego state, or shadow.

This is often what happens when engaging with toddlers. One minute we’re a mature adult, the next minute we find ourselves acting like a toddler, stomping our feet and yelling at our kids if they don’t do what we want. Something in our child’s defiant behavior, triggers our own inner toddler.

What can be done about this? Well, fortunately a lot. There’s actually a whole “shadow resolution” process, that addresses these ego states and helps to resolve them.

It may sound “too good to be true.” Could we ever reach a state where I kids don’t push our buttons? I’m not saying that any of us will reach enlightenment before our kids grow up, but there are ways to become less triggered and triggered less often and I’m experiential proof of that.

What is this “shadow resolution process” of which I speak? Well, that’ll have to talk about that another time...