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Daddy Has Tantrums Too · Evolutionary Men

0:00
Jason Lange: Daddy has tantrums, too.
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That's the whole episode.
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I could actually stop there.
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But let me tell you what it took for me to be able to say that sentence about
0:12
myself, because it changed how I parent more than anything else.
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All right, and welcome back.
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I've been meaning to record this one for a while.
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I actually said it out loud on somebody else's podcast a few months ago, that I was
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going to make this episode, and then I didn't.
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But here it is.
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And I'll be honest with you, I'm making this one for me
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as much as for you.
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I've got a kid who's a little volatile.
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She's got huge feelings, Huge feelings.
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And it has been a process for me to learn how to honor those feelings
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and give her limits at the same time,
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because those two things don't naturally sit together.
1:03
When she's got a big feeling, everything in me wants to either make it stop
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or make it okay.
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And neither one of those is actually good parenting.
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So
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here's a moment.
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We do these things called lovapaloozas, right?
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Which is basically where either my wife or I take our eldest daughter and we take
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her out for three hours.
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So it's just one on one time with one of her parents.
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And this is since our
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second child was born.
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And she and I go out, I think we go and see a movie.
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We have a great time.
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And there's a little restaurant we like to go to right near there.
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And I take her there, and they have this wall where kids can, like, draw and color
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and put art up.
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And the waitress comes over and she's like, hey, if you want to color this and if
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you put it up on the wall, you can get a free treat.
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And we're like, yeah, cool, great.
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And so we get the paper, we get the coloring markers, and she brings us the
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treat.
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Now here's where things started to go wrong.
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I can be a bit of a stickler and a hard ass.
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So we eat.
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My daughter starts coloring it, and then the thing she colors she likes so much
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much, she doesn't want to put it on the wall.
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And my body starts to go tight.
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I start to feel frustrated, I start to feel annoyed because there's this kind of
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agreement and deal, and she's just kind of melting down that she doesn't want to
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have to put it up there.
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And so I
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basically kind of start getting agitated, a little frustrated, sharp with her, and
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I'm kind of just like, fine, then let's go.
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And,
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you know, we Only got that dessert for free because you were supposed to put that up
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there.
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And her whole body just starts to kind of collapse in,
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and she gets really sad, and we're walking out to the car,
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and I can feel it, right?
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I can feel she's just kind of devastated by how I shamed her.
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Now, here's the key.
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I had been doing enough of this work.
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I saw what was happening.
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I got down on
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my knees, essentially, or not my knees, but I leaned down, got to eye level with her
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in the parking lot,
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and I looked her in the eye, and I said, hey, I'm sorry,
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Daddy just got a little frustrated, and I had a little tantrum there.
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It's totally okay
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that you want to keep the drawing,
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and I know you really like it, and you're really proud of it.
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You didn't do anything wrong.
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That's on Daddy.
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I had an expectation.
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It didn't go the way I wanted, and I had a little tantrum about it.
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And that's the thing.
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So,
4:00
one to talk about
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this one,
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right?
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Not the kid, not my daughter.
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Because in that moment, like I said, what actually happened was I got
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triggered.
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I had all this heat in my chest.
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My shoulders and jaw were tight.
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My voice was kind of getting up and getting sharp.
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And I want to be really precise about what that is.
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We hear that word all the time now, you know, for years, I would have called it.
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You know, I was just tired, or I was being firm with her, trying to teach her a
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lesson, or maybe I was just having a hard day.
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But it wasn't any of those, right?
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I said it.
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I had a tantrum.
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The same thing my kid was having in her own way and has had many other times.
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My prefrontal cortex went offline,
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and I was just reacting.
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That's it.
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That's what it was until that moment I caught myself.
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And most of us, as parents,
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we have tantrums, too,
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but we don't label it.
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We label it as parenting.
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That's where a lot of this breaks down.
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So quick thing here.
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This is from Dan Siegel, an amazing teacher.
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Best picture of the brain I've gotten.
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Hold your hand up right if you're driving, just listen.
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You'll get it.
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Hands up, fingers straight.
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Your palm right here, is your brain stem.
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It's survival, fight or flight.
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Constantly scanning.
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Fold your thumb into your palm.
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That thumb, that's your emotional center.
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It's where your emotions are housed.
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Now fold your fingers down over it.
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That's your thinking brain sitting right on top.
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And it actually touches both Touches the fingers and the palm, and that's the part
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that regulates you.
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Okay?
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Now lift your finger straight up.
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Bing.
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Guess what that is.
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Siegel calls that flipping your lid.
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That's a tantrum.
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That's the thinking brain offline.
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Nothing is regulating anything anymore, and there's nobody home to reason
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with, which is the piece I wish somebody had shown me 10 years ago.
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You can say anything you want to a kid whose lid is up.
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It does not matter.
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There is no one there.
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Just like there was no one there for me when I got all tight and mad about the
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drawing.
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Now fold your fingers back down.
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That's it coming back online.
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Same hand, same flip.
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That's your kid, and that's also you.
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Us, as parents, right?
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And as humans, even if you don't have kids,
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kids brains keep building until about 25.
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So their lid flips a lot easier.
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That's supposed to happen.
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Ours, it's supposed to be finished, so we don't get that excuse, right?
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So now here's what I found.
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When I'm in that triggered tantrum state, when my lid is up, I'm
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basically just regressing.
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I'm becoming a kid, and in a lot of ways, I default back to how I was parented.
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That's it.
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That's all that's happening.
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Suddenly I'm my mom or my dad.
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It's about the tone, the volume, the exact words.
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And I often hear it come out of my mouth, and I know precisely where I learned it.
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And it's not been how I want to raise my kids, you know, because I lived through
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that, and it didn't work very well.
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But nobody really teaches this part.
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You think you're going to make a decision to parent differently, and you do make
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that decision, and you mean it.
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But then your lid flips and the decision is gone.
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Because the decision lives up here in your fingers, in your prefrontal cortex.
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And guess what?
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Your fingers are up in the air.
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They're not touching the rest of you.
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What's left is the oldest recording and habits your nervous system got.
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Here's the other thing.
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If I'm in that agitated state, actually annoyed, and I'm trying to teach
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and guide my kid, while that's happening, guess what?
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They're not going to hear it.
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They're going to feel my nervous system, and their nervous system is going to
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get reactive to that,
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and the whole thing flushes down the toilet fast.
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You're not delivering a lesson so much.
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You're delivering a state in these moments.
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That's what's transmitting, which means the most important parenting move is often
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not a technique at all.
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It's whether you can get your own fingers back down before you open your mouth.
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So I also want to name something I see a lot, and I've done it myself.
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When we have a tantrum and don't call it that, don't call it one, we take it to the
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kid.
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We process it at them, we explain, add volume, why they made us feel that way.
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And what that does is it reverses the direction of parenting in that moment, the kid
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is kind of now being asked to manage the adult.
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They can feel that your regulation has become their job.
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Kids are extremely good at picking that up, particularly you little
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nice guys, myself included.
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And they will take that job because they love you.
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You get to have the tantrum.
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You just don't get to have it at them.
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Take it to your partner with consent.
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Take it to your friends, definitely take it to your men.
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Take it anywhere.
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That is not the person who depends on you for their sense of safety.
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So
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what do you do with all this?
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Three things.
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One, just say it out loud in the room.
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Not the story, the state.
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Daddy's angry and frustrated right now.
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Feeling a lot of heat in my chest.
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I'm going to step outside and do some jumping jacks, and I'm going to come back.
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That's it.
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Right.
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I want to be clear about why that works, because it's not about being nice.
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A man who can look at his kid and name what's happening in his body is dramatically
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safer than.
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Than a man who has no idea and just starts escalating.
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Naming it is what starts to give you the choice.
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And your kid is watching you do the exact skill you want them to be able to do.
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Second thing, move it out of your body.
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I give guys this practice all the time.
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You've got a lot of anger in your body.
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Right?
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Go have a tantrum right now.
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Three minutes, no words.
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Just use your body.
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Stomp, shake, whine, push a wall.
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No talking.
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Because often talking is how we avoid it.
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We do this for three minutes and come back and go, holy crap, I feel so much better.
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That was insane.
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Yeah, because you have tantrums, too.
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There's still a little kid in there.
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And that energy is real, and it's in your tissues, and it's gonna come out
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somewhere.
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You get to pick where.
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So maybe do that one today.
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It's free and it takes three minutes.
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Number three, like we said, like I said earlier, have a place to bring it that isn't
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Just your family.
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This is the one that actually changed things for me the most.
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I have a place where I can come to my men and say, I'm really challenged right now.
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Here's what happens.
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My kid starts to do this and I start to do this, and I get a huge swell of anger or
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frustration because I want things to be different.
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And then I lose it.
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Flip my lid.
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Boom, tantrum.
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Flip the lid.
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And then they help me work that my men do right.
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And I get to learn the skills to discharge some of that tension.
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I get to have my own freak out somewhere
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so I'm not having to hold it all together for the family.
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I can rant, I can rave, I can be completely unskillful.
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I can stomp around, I can have the tantrum.
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And then next time I'm in that moment with my kid, it's not that I'm magically
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fixed.
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That's not what happens.
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What happens is I have a little more space, half a second, and I go, okay, this
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is what I was training for last week.
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Here we go.
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Get the lid back on.
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And then I get to go back and report on that with my men.
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That's the whole mechanism.
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My parenting improves over time.
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Not necessarily just because I read something, but because I have somewhere to put
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the charge.
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So look, we're all going to flip our lids.
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I still do.
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That is not
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a problem.
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Definitely not a character problem.
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And I'm not going to pretend I've solved it.
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Like I said, I've got now two kids with huge feelings and I'm in it right now, same
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as you.
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What I can tell you is that the sentence that made the difference
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is, daddy has tantrums too.
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It's not a technique.
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Because the second I could say that about myself, I stopped needing to be right so
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much in the moment and I could just go, oh, that was mine.
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Let me go put it somewhere it belongs and then come back and actually be with my
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kid.
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Your kids are going to learn how to handle their feelings by watching how you handle
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yours,
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not by hearing what you tell them about it.
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That's the deal.
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And you know, nobody really signed off on that deal,
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but that is the deal.
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So go have a tantrum somewhere they can't see it, then go back
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in there and be with them.
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If you want a place to take that stuff, a room of men where you can bring the ugly
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version of what you're feeling and work it.
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That is what a men's group is for.
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That's so much of what we can do.
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You can go to Evolutionary
14:46
Men and find your way in.
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I got lots of different offerings and I can even point you to some that aren't mine
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if it's a good fit for you.
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So here's the other key.
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When you learn this distinction about tantrums and what they really are, is the lid
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coming off in that what we all need in that moment is something to co
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regulate to bring us down into ourselves.
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It changes how we experience people's emotions because instead of trying to get rid
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of them,
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instead we become present for people in them.
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And this isn't just important
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for your kids,
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this can profoundly shift
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your intimate relationship.
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When you realize all of us, no matter how wise and intelligent and adult we think we
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are,
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build up emotional charge that we simply need to discharge
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and that in the process of that
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we can put the lid back on our adult wise thinking self.
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Our prefrontal cortex can assemble itself back together with when we realize what's
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really happening down here and give it the proper container.
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All right, well, thanks for listening and until next time.