What To Do When You Are Triggered By Your Child According To A Therapist

In mindbodygreen's parenting column, Parenthetical, mbg parenting contributor, psychotherapist, and writer Lia Avellino explores the dynamic, enriching, yet often complicated journey into parenthood. In today's installment, Avellino explains how to navigate triggers.

Coming off of winter break has left many parents feeling triggered by their children—with so much to show up for, it’s hard not to be bothered by demanding, persistent, unpredictable childlike behavior!

When we are triggered, it’s very easy to focus on the person’s behavior that is irritating us. Oftentimes, when clients are triggered by their kids, the line of thinking they pursue is: “if my kid could just stop this behavior, then life would be easier!”

A trigger is an external stimuli, event, or behavior that activates a negative reaction within us.

It is used very colloquially these days, but in a psychological context, often refers to something in the present igniting a response that relates to a past traumatic experience.

For example, someone might feel scared and freeze, when they see someone that looks like a person who caused them harm in the past. Or if you smell smoke, and at one point in your life experienced being trapped in a fire, you might have the urge to run and complete the action that you were unable to complete at the time of the fire. 

When we have not healed from certain experiences—or even if we have but we are experiencing stress in the moment (stress can bring past ineffective coping behaviors back on deck)—our reaction to something in the present may be outsized to the current situation.

Children are unpredictable, they are persistent, they are risk taking, and they are needy. This is how they should be.

However, if you were a kid who couldn’t be needy or you were punished for having big emotions, it may be very hard for you to tolerate the parts of your children that no one tolerated about you. 

I have one child who expresses her emotions in very big ways. She will lay down in traffic if she is having a tantrum, unbothered by the consequences or who she is impinging on. For a while, this really triggered me. But when I refocused on myself—rather than spending time ruminating on her irritating behaviors—I realized that she is the mouthpiece for anger and sadness that I never felt comfortable fully expressing. She is embodying what I have been, and in some ways still am, afraid of embodying. In this way, she is not at odds with me, but rather she is a teacher for me. Who knew!?

There have been difficult days parenting my 3 children, where I’ve had an emotionally immature thought: they could be doing better than they are doing, they could get on board and make the family ship run more smoothly today.

When I have these thoughts, I reconnect to the part of myself that had to reach high expectations as a kid, and remind myself that it’s not my kids’ job to make my life “easier.” It’s my job to tolerate the healthy chaos better. And where I can, create systems that enable nervous system regulation for all of us. 

My colleague and therapist friend, Aliza Shapiro, LCSW, stated it perfectly above. Even the behaviors that harm us are serving a function.

For example, if someone struggles with alcohol misuse, they will continue to rely on alcohol, if it soothes a pang and if they have no other reliable tools for tolerating emotional pain. In this instance, even if the alcohol has negative consequences, it is also helpful.

Sometimes if we are criticizing the triggering behavior, we are not focusing on what that behavior may be expressing. There may be one child in the family that expresses the negative emotions that the rest of the family system is unwilling to. I recently learned from a couple who struggled owning their own anger, that their child expressed a ton of it. Focusing on the child’s negative behavior, was another helpful way for the parents to distract from their own unexpressed anger. 

We are living in a historical moment when parents are really struggling. Recent data suggests that nearly 40% of parents say they are “so stressed they cannot function” most days. Many parents don’t have enough support, racism makes families of color unsafe in our country, the demands of modern life are intense, and paid leave is not a human right in the US. 

If you are triggered by your child, it may just be that this behavior is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” so to speak. It may be that at 7 p.m., after you’ve worked all day, and your toddler throws his plate on the floor, that you lose it because you’ve been holding your breath just to function.

My relationship with my children is best when I have enough support, with them and for myself. The emptier my tank is, the more bothered I am by their needs—not because their needs are too much, but because my needs are not getting enough attention.