Tips for parents when the going gets tough #StopTalkListen

This week the SCCR are featuring on Mumsnet as one of their guest campaigns. Sometimes being a parent isn’t easy for Mums or Dads.

What have you find most helpful? Works best when you are stressed, arguing is taking over or have just stopped talking altogether? Let’s share some support and words of wisdom. We have been posting tips in our blog, social media and our campaign site. Now over to you…

if the tone is starting to rise, I think is this me? if it is change how I am talking try to be calmer and possibly apologise if I’m feeling capable of it. If its the other person raising the tone, I try not to join in with it one person being nippy is enough, in my house anyway. I either point it out and ask them to stop in as kind/civil a way as I can manage or if that doesn’t seem like a good idea suggest we talk about it another time. If its all gone beyond that and the screaming has started and who knows who started it, I try to listen to the little voice in my head which says its better to walk away just now. In my house we have had this discussion in advance so we let each other walk away

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A big one for me is self-care for parents. I am not a parent myself, but working professionally with parents I often find that mothers specially forget to look after themselves and give (what I think) is too much focus on others. There is a difference between genuinely caring for our children and being so completely engrossed in their welfare that we forget to look after ourselves. In fact practising self-care is very good modelling for children, I think it is actually one of the best kinds of genuine care because we are modelling an important life-skill. Not at at all suggesting that parents ignore problems and only look after their own interests, but that putting energy into looking after ourselves actually puts us in a much stronger position when negotiating conflict situations. So then we are not easily overwhelmed, can stand our ground, be more assertive while also being loving.

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