We were sitting in my kitchen. Mid-conversation, my friend said something that grabbed me. “You’re only as happy as your saddest child.” I nodded. The statement seemed like it must be true. What mother could be happy if her child wasn’t?

The conversation continued on to other things, but that statement stuck with me. I played it over and over in my head after she left.

Was I destined to always only be as happy as my saddest child? Would my happiness never again be in my control?

What she said had seemed logical at the time. What kind of mother would I be if I could find joy when my child was suffering?

But something about it gnawed at me. It didn’t sit right. At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

I’m the mom of 7. My kids all have different personalities. Some of them are optimistic and cheerful. Others are moody and see the glass as half empty even on the best of days.

Each of my kids have their own unique gifts and challenges. 5 of my precious kiddos have special needs, which give them additional obstacles to overcome.

Life can be hard enough without losing your hearing at 12 (one of our daughters), losing your first family and moving to a new country with strangers (2 of our kids), losing your hair as a 16 year old girl (another of our daughters) and on and on.

For days after that kitchen conversation, my friend’s words replayed over and over.

At the time, one of our children was especially struggling, so I wondered if I should be as unhappy as he was.

One evening, my husband and I were watching a comedy. I laughed out loud and then felt guilt creeping in. How could I be feeling carefree when one of my kids was in pain?

It took me weeks to sort through all of my thoughts and feelings. And I came to the conclusion that “you’re only as happy as your saddest child” is hogwash!

My happiness is my responsibility. It is not dependent on those around me or even on my circumstances. Of course, it’s easier to feel happy when life is going well.

If all my kids were themselves happy, if they were all making good choices, loving life, surrounded by good friends, not facing hardships that seem unfair and overwhelming, skipping merrily through valleys of unicorns and rainbows, I would feel less worried.

Being less worried would make it easier for me to be happy, but it wouldn’t necessarily guarantee it.

One thought I kept coming back to when I was contemplating this was that if my kids always see an unhappy mom, that will only make them less happy.

One of my jobs as  parent is to model positive traits for my children. If I want to teach them that they are responsible for their own happiness, that is something I have to show them.

If I want my kids to be able to find joy in the small blessings despite their circumstances, they are going to need to see a mom who was able to do just that. 

Choosing to be unhappy in solidarity with my “saddest child” won’t take their sadness away. In fact, it may compound it. And it places the burden of my happiness onto my child which is too heavy a burden for anyone to carry.

So mama, you are not destined to only be as happy as your saddest child. You are destined to be as happy as you choose to be.

I know that watching your child suffer is painful. It is gut-wrenching. Sometimes the unfairness of it can almost overtake you. But that does not have to rob you of your joy.

When your child sees you finding delight in just being with them, in counting the freckles on their nose, in watching the snow fall together, in snuggling on the couch, in playing a card game, even in the blessing of being able to cry together, they learn to find a bit more joy too.

Your smile is more powerful than your words.   

Some days, I get it right. I see the opportunities to infuse joy into my life. I take those and make the best of them.

Other days, I let my circumstances define my mood. I feel held hostage by things out of my control and pity takes up residence in my mind.

I haven’t got this thing all figured out, but I did some math. When considering the amount of kids I have and the challenges they currently face, I also thought about their personalities. Then I factored in future things such as spouses, careers, finances, in-laws, and their own children.

I pretty quickly came to the truth. If I were only as happy as my saddest child, I was never going to be happy again! And that’s not something to strive for.

So mamas, take that burden off. Unpack it, unbuckle it, unzip it, leave it at the door. From now on, choose to be “only as happy as you want to be”.

If you’re looking for strategies and encouragement on the parenting journey, join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents. 

Although kids aren’t the only ones to struggle with controlling their emotions (as was evident last week when I cried over not being able to find Velcro dots!), they do not have the coping skills and life experience to be able to navigate through big emotions without some guidance. Many parents aren’t sure where to start when it comes to helping their child control their emotions. This will give you a roadmap to help them.

How to Help a Child Control their Emotions:

Provide an emotional vocabulary.

The first step in helping your child learn to manage their own emotions is to teach them to identify their feelings. Give them the language to be able to name their feelings. This is a powerful tool to arm a child with.

The Teaching Emotions Toolkit has everything needed to give kids the vocabulary they need to be able to identify and name their own feelings.

Learning to recognize feelings in others.

Once a child is more fluent in the language of emotions, they can begin to recognize feelings not only in themselves, but in others as well.

If you’re watching a movie or TV show, discuss how the situations may make the characters feel. Do this especially with situations that kids may find themselves in someday such as bullying.

Model talking about your own feelings and your coping strategies.

Name your feelings honestly. Then provide your child some insight into your coping strategies. This will help them to learn how to manage their own emotions.

• “I feel disappointed that it’s snowing today so I can’t go for a run like I planned. I guess I’ll have to walk on the treadmill instead.”
• “I am frustrated that my computer isn’t working. I want to throw it across the room which would not be wise, so I’d better get up and walk away. I’ll take a little break and come back to try again when I’m feeling calmer.”
• “I’m excited that tomorrow is the big birthday party. I think I’ll go to bed a bit early tonight in case it takes me longer to fall asleep.”
• “I’m worried about my interview on Friday. I know that worry doesn’t do any good. It helps to talk about my feelings and practise what I’ll say in the interview. Would you help me with that?”
• “I’m feeling angry. I’m going to sit here and do some calm down breathing for a few minutes.”

Listen.

By actively listening to your child express their feelings, you are showing them that their feelings matter to you, that your child matters to you. You can repeat the emotion words back to them.

“I hear you say that you felt angry when he took away your toy. Do you want to tell me more about that?” By listening to your child’s feelings, they will learn that you are a safe place for them.

Help them identify their triggers.

Triggers are very dependant on the child. For some, it may be sensory triggers or a trauma trigger, while for others, it may be a particular feeling such as frustration that serves as a trigger for a meltdown or an aggressive response. Once you help your child to identify what their most common triggers are, you can help them to recognize them in the early stages and put in place some coping strategies.

Gauge the intensity of the emotion.

Using a feelings thermometer or chart, help your child determine how intense their feeling is.

Prevent emotional outbursts or meltdowns as much as possible.

Adequate sleep, good nutrition, water, regular exercise, and sensory breaks can go a long way towards preventing meltdowns before they start.

I know that I’m certainly more able to handle life’s curveballs when I’ve had a good night’s sleep. I’m also way more reasonable when I’m not hangry!

Teach that it’s okay to make mistakes.

Mistakes are how we learn. Kids who fear making mistakes or strive for perfection tend to have a harder time coping with emotions.

The Growth Mindset Challenge Kit and the Big Life Journal are two of my favourite tools for this. I also really like the book Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain for this reason. It is so good at explaining the concept of mistakes being necessary in a way that kids can understand.

Teach coping strategies.

Calm down strategies are a big part of teaching coping strategies, but they are not the only part. If a child takes a break or walks away when they see a trigger arise, that is also a coping strategy.

If there is a particular situation that comes up repeatedly that causes big emotions in your child, help him think of a strategy for managing that particular situation.

Come up with a plan together. Role play and practise often. Once he has practised managing that situation with his new strategies, he will be better equipped to deal with it in real life.

Teaching your child to better manage their emotions will empower them. They will feel more in control. This will equip them with the skills needed to face their day.

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

You may find these articles helpful as well:

5 Critical Steps to Take When Your Child Has a Meltdown Activities to Teach Kids About Emotions 

When our older two boys were young, I had basically no idea what I was doing as a parent. I had gone to a Barbara Coloroso seminar while I was pregnant with my oldest and that gave me a few new tools to use as well as some new philosophies to think about. This statement she made impacted me immediately:

“Encouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, you are listened to, you are cared for, you are very important to me.” ~Barbara Coloroso

I wanted to raise my children in such a way that they would feel that they were important and valued, that they were capable and loved. I just wasn’t sure how to go about doing that.

Over the next years, I struggled to find a parenting style. I’ve swung from overly permissive to overly rigid and back again. I tried different discipline methods, read so many parenting books, attended parenting seminars, only to feel like I was failing as a mom.

It was actually after we became foster parents and were taking mandatory training for that when I began to stumble upon some truths that sat well with me.

The idea of positive parenting or connected parenting brought me back to what had struck home for me about that Barbara Coloroso quote from so many years before. I wanted to raise my kids in such a way that they would feel like that.

Since changing my parenting to follow the models of positive parenting or connected parenting set for me by such incredible experts as Dr. Karyn Purvis, I have been able to feel more confident about my responses as a parent.

That’s not to say that I have it all together. Most days I still struggle and there are still plenty of moments when I need a “do-over” for my own reactions, but the trajectory is at least going in the right direction.

I know that my kids have more positive interactions with me than negative ones. My kids are learning how to effectively express their emotions. I’m learning to stay calm even in the heated moments. Our home is becoming more peaceful. It’s still loud, as you can imagine with so many kids under one roof, but I’m becoming more skilled at handling the conflicts that arise.

I know that when people hear the term “positive parenting”, they can sometimes assume that means a parenting style that has the kids walking all over the parents, but that isn’t what positive parenting is about.

What is positive parenting?

Positive parenting is a school of thought that allows children to be treated with respect. It emphasizes relationship and communication and its goal is to teach children, not to punish. Positive parenting is about nurturing the relationship between parent and child.

Positive parenting solutions:

• emphasis on attachment and relationship
• connection before correction
• clearly defined rules so that children know what to expect
• validating child’s feelings
• getting down on the child’s level and making eye contact
• offering choices which allows the child to feel that they have a voice and allows them to have a sense of control
• saying “yes” when you can
• not using any physical punishment
• focusing on connection
• using discipline methods such as natural consequences, time-ins, redirection, and the art of the compromise
• offering meaningful, thoughtful praise
• seeing negative behaviour as a method of communication

Is positive parenting effective for children with special needs?

Traditional parenting methods are not effective with most children with special needs. Traditional parenting methods may include things such as long lectures, time outs, grounding, and corporal punishment (spanking).

While positive parenting is wonderful for all children, it is particularly effective with children who have special needs.

In particular, children with attachment issues or Reactive Attachment Disorder, sensory processing disorder, early childhood trauma, autism, and chromosomal disorders respond best to positive parenting.

Is positive parenting easy to do?

I’m not going to lie to you. It can be very challenging to use positive parenting methods if you were raised with other parenting methods yourself. Your default will usually be to react in a similar way to how your own parents reacted.

It takes time, a lot of intentionality and learning, and practise, practise, practise before these things start to feel more natural. Even then, during times of extreme stress or when you are overtired or overwhelmed, it can be easy to slip back into your default parenting style.

When that happens, give yourself grace. Apologize to your child (which provides a great opportunity to model taking accountability for our actions!) and try again.

Give yourself credit for the efforts you’re making and the baby steps you’re taking towards being the kind of parent you ultimately want to be.

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

Check out some other parenting help: 

Connection Activities for Parents and Their Kids Books for Connected Parenting 

Within days of school starting last Fall, I saw a pattern emerging. Each day in the first half hour after arriving home from school (often in the first few minutes even), our daughter would have an outburst or emotional breakdown. I was beginning to dread the arrival of the school bus. It was perplexing because she loved going to school. She was making friends. She liked her teacher and her aide. That made these after school meltdowns confusing.

I played detective. I talked to the school. They confirmed that she was adjusting well there. I listened to her feelings. I tracked any other possible triggers for these behaviours. I was able to come to the conclusion that she was having a hard time transitioning between school and home.

She needed help making that transition. She needed a way to reset after all the feelings (good and bad) and sensory input of the day. My daughter needed me to put a strategy in place to help her.

I was able to come up with a plan that I thought would work and thankfully, it did. Almost every day since, we have used this strategy and it has eliminated the daily after school meltdown.

There have been a few times when I got caught up in being busy with the other kids and haven’t implemented it and almost every time, she has had a breakdown. This shows me how important it is for us to do it every single day.

Why does an After School Meltdown Happen:

Once I began to research my daughter’s reactions, I discovered that the phenomenon of a daily or weekly after school meltdown is something many kids and their parents struggle with. There has even been a term coined by Psychotherapist Andrea Nair to describe this type of occurrence, “after school restraint collapse”.

Essentially, this occurs when kids get to their safe place and can express what they may have been holding in all day. Even if the emotions of the day were positive, there may just be a build-up of them and without the coping strategies to know how to deal with them, kids meltdown or explode.

Think of it this way: your child’s after school meltdown is actually a sign that they trust you! All the emotions of the day get bottled up and release when they feel safe.

What an after school meltdown may look like:

• defiance
• screaming
• tantrum
• overly emotional
• easily upset
• picking fights with siblings or parents
• refusing to do homework or chores
• excessive whining

The After School Meltdown Strategy:

1. Connection. The second my daughter walks in the door, I greet her with eye contact, a smile, a hug or a kiss on the cheek. I say something affirming like “It’s good to see you.”, “I’m happy you’re home”, or on the days where she is already mid-meltdown by the time she gets to the door, “It’s going to be alright”.
2. Meeting basic needs. Immediately after a moment of connection, it’s time for a glass of water and a snack. It is so important for kids, especially kids who’ve had early childhood trauma, to have those basic survival needs met. Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests, children need to have their physiological needs met before they can feel safe.
3. Time to reset. After our daughter has had that connection moment with me and water and a quick snack, she then goes into either her room or the sensory room for half an hour. This time allows her brain to decompress and transition back to home.

When I came up with this strategy, I talked with my daughter the day before we started. We talked about how she was having a hard time transitioning back home after her school days. I told her that it was normal and okay after all the excitement and change at school to feel a lot of different emotions afterwards.

I explained that we were going to start a new after school routine. I told her what to expect and made sure she understood that the time in her room or sensory room was not a consequence or punishment. I talked about how we all need time to ourselves sometimes. I asked her for ideas of what she could do in that time. She wasn’t thrilled about this part of the plan, so it didn’t all go smoothly. We talked about her feelings and I reassured her again that this was not a consequence or rejection. She soon began to talk about how she could use that time to read Archie comics or draw or play with her sensory toys.

This after school meltdown strategy has worked wonders. I no longer dread the time of day when the bus drops my daughter off. The other kids are more calm knowing that these outbursts don’t happen as often. It’s made such a difference to the tone of our home. I hope it can do the same for your home too.

If you’re looking for other parenting strategies, you may want to join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents. 

You may also want to read:

5 Critical Steps to Take When Your Child has a Meltdown Sensory Meltdowns: What They Are and What To Do 

When I wrote a list of connection activities for parents to do with their kids, a lot of my readers were fascinated by the idea of choosing a special song to dedicate to your child. They asked questions about it and were especially looking for song suggestions. Choosing a song for each of my kids is something that I’ve done for as long as I can remember. I don’t recall how it started, but once I did it for one, I felt that I had to do it for the others.

“Mommy, can you please sing me my baby song?” My kids call their special songs their “baby song”. For some of them, it is a song that I would sing them when I rocked them to sleep when they were babies. For our kids that we adopted at older ages, there wasn’t an opportunity to rock them to sleep with their song, but that hasn’t stopped me from rocking them and singing their special song to them.

Most of my kids are too big to be rocked now (all but one are taller than I am!), but they still love their “baby songs”. They still sometimes ask me to sing their songs to them when they are sick or upset. They melt when they hear them. Even my teens get all mushy when their “baby song” comes on in the vehicle or when I sing their song to them.

Choosing a special song to dedicate to your child is something I would really encourage you to do. It helps them to feel cherished and loved. It increases your bond. This parenting tool gives you another thing that is shared just between the two of you, which increases emotional intimacy. It creates an anchor for your child also even once they are grown and have moved out of your home.

As an added bonus, when you have a special song for your child, you can also use it to make a memorable video montage using photos of your child growing up as a gift for their graduation, wedding day or milestone birthday.

The key to choosing a song to dedicate to your child is that it is personal. It can be based on who they are now or on what you hope they become or even as an encouragement or life motto that you wish to impart them with. If you can’t find a song with lyrics that you feel fit your child, write them a song. For our youngest daughter, I couldn’t find just the right song, so I invented one. It’s not very beautiful and I’m tone deaf, so I don’t sing it well, but she absolutely loves it and that’s all that counts. So if you can’t find a song to dedicate to your child, write one yourself.

Suggestions for Special Songs to Dedicate to Your Child:

• A New Day has Come by Celine Dion
• Amazing by Janelle
• Anyway by Martina McBride
• Baby Mine by Alison Krauss
• Beautiful Boy by John Lennon (there is also a Celine Dion version)
• The Best Part of Me by Lee Price
• Blessed by Elton John
• Blue by Beyonce
• Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle
• Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman
• The Climb by Miley Cyrus
• Dance with my Daughter by Jason Blaine
• Find Your Wings by Brent Miller
• Gracie by Ben Folds
• How You Live (Turn Up the Music) by Point of Grace
• Humble and Kind by Tim McGraw
• I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack
• I See the Light by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi
• I Will Love You by Fisher
• I Won’t Let Go by Rascal Flatts
• In My Daughter’s Eyes by Martina McBride
• Lullaby by The Dixie Chicks
• Lullabye (Goodnight my Angel) by Billy Joel
• A Mother’s Prayer (Hannah’s Song) by Rachel Aldous
• Mother to Child by Rosita Stone
• My Little Girl by Tim McGraw
• My Wish by Rascal Flatts
• Naleigh Moon by Josh Kelley (international adoption)
• The One Thing by Shakira
• The One Who Knows by Dar Williams
• Priceless by King & Country
• Red Robin by Clark Richard
• Slow Down by Nichole Nordeman
• So Far to Find You by Casting Crowns (international adoption)
• Speechless by Alicia Keys
• Stand by Rascal Flatts
• This Angel by Jennifer Nettles
• Try Everything (from Zootopia) by Shakira
• What I Never Knew I Always Wanted by Carrie Underwood
• When I Pray for You by Dan + Shay
• When Love Takes You In by Steven Curtis Chapman (older child adoption specific)
• Who I Am by Jessica Andrews
• You Are My Baby by Kimya Dawson
• You’re Gonna Be by Reba McEntire

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

You might also be interested in reading these articles about parenting:

Connection Activities for Parents and Kids

Easy Traditions to Build Family Connection