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Pastiche Family Portal HomeKeep Your Cool Around Your Kids

For most parents, the standard advice from caregiving advisors is not to lose your cool around children. No matter how stressful or difficult the situation, they advise walking away or counting to 10 or taking a brief timeout when things spiral downward or start to get out of control.

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But while these tactics make sense and can work with older children, they aren't always practical or helpful with toddlers or younger kids. If mom or dad suddenly disappear from sight that can actually make things worse - or frighten the child.

To forestall blow up situations, try to use preventative measures to keep things on a more even keel. Here are a few tips for smoother sailing when under pressure, whether you're at home or on the road with the family.

Sensible Preparation Avoids Stress

The best time to work on keeping your cool is before you get hotheaded and out of control. Practice self-calming strategies and apply them if you feel yourself getting anxious or annoyed during the course of the day.

Never Lose Control Around Your Children

Don't allow yourself to ever lose emotional control. Make it a personal commitment to hold your temper and your tongue with the kids no matter what. Yyou've probably

had to do this many times with your partner,your parents or at work, so you know you can manage to keep it buttoned up when it's important.

Your kids emotional well-being is just as important, so make sure you stay in control when you're around them and establish a good model for them to follow as they grow up. When you feel strong reactions rising within you, find more constructive and positive ways to manage those feelings.

Confront a difficult situation with care, then use those tactics to manage your behavior when the kids are getting unruly or tempermental. Keep yourself calm and remember, you're a grownup.

Have a Preparedness Plan for Disaster or Emergencies

Review the FEMA guidelines and checklists for emergency preparedness and make your family a survival kit as well as a get away bag. Include things like diapers, medicines, personal cleaning wipes and hand sanitizer along with basic emergency supplies of food, water, clothing and first aid supplies.

Turn off the Television or Radio or Cell Phone

Constant exposure to images and sound from broadcast media can raise anyone's stress levels. Television news programs are particularly offensive to your brain. Stop watching or listening for hours on end; control when you get your news by using the Internet or reading newspapers at your convenience. Your cell phone is for your convenience.

If you're getting too many messages and calls, and the kids are with you so you don't need to be reached in case of a child-related emergency - turn it off.

Know Your Emotional Triggers and Learn to Deflect Them

Try to make notes - mental or in a journal - about when you feel like you're on the edge of losing it. See if you can find patterns in the triggers, then try to change or avoid situations that cause the stress. For example, so you have problems with stress reactions when you're tired, hungry, over-committed, late for an appointment or can't find something?

Over stimulation or media bombardment is a big stress inducer (see turn off the TV/radio/cell phone note above) that can trigger an emotional meltdown. Create peace and quiet for yourself; allow plenty of time in your schedule to do what you need to do at a relaxed pace.

Exercise and Have Some Fun

Getting enough physical exercise to break into a light sweat every day is the minimum you should strive for to help control anxiety and induce a general feeling of well-being. Take a brisk walk for at least 30 minutes a day if you can't get to the gym. Do some gardening, try zumba or dancercise in the living room, walk around the parking lot at work before you drive home or just go to the mall and power walk instead of browse for an hour or so.

Understand Your Childrens' Behavior

Children behave the way they do for a reason. The "terrible two's" are a genuine developmental stage that affect a toddler's behavior and can turn a gentle baby into a seemingly monstrous tyrant overnight. The same type of transitional development occurs at other stages of childhood - at around 6, 13, and 17 - as part of normal emotional development. Having a good understanding of your child and what's going on for him or her goes a long way toward managing your own behavior when things get out of whack.

Life experiences and situations impact your child's behavior and moods, and may also contribute to how they repond, process or react to various pressures or stressful incidents. Empathy, insight, encouragement and comfort are the most effective ways to manage a problem kid - not anger, harsh words or punishment.

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