Pretty much every parent out there has their bad days when they feel like they’ve really messed up and failed their child, right?
We beat ourselves up for not doing enough, for the days we cook chicken nuggets or order pizza, for the times we forget it’s pajama day at school, and for all the other little oopses of parenting. There might be nothing, though, that we feel worse for than the times we lose our temper and scream and yell and go over the top.
One parenting coach has some suggestions for when we engage in what she describes as “catastrophic language.”
What Is “Catastrophic Language” Anyway?
Dr. Chelsey Hauge-Zavaleta gives us several examples of catastrophic language in a recent video she released on TikTok.
Essentially, you tell your child that a specific action or inaction will lead to massive catastrophic consequences. You suggest that they have an overwhelming amount of power and responsibility in the world and that things will go terribly if they don’t do as you say immediately.
Her examples include shouting that if your child keeps splashing water on the bathroom floor, the bathroom will fall through to the lower story, or that if they don’t brush their teeth (the “right now” seems implied), they can expect them all to turn black and fall out, or that if they don’t pick up the toys, Mom is coming with a big black trash bag to take them all away.
Why Do We Do It?
As you’ll see in the video below, this language rarely comes without a lot of emotion. When Dr. Chelsey gives us her examples, she’s showing us a parent who is heated up and boiling over.
She explains that this is the first problem that needs to be solved—if we yell and use catastrophic language, we’re emotionally dysregulated. Parents who use tactics like screaming or threatening that overwhelming consequences (whether natural ones or parentally enforced) are coming are parents who are struggling and overwhelmed themselves.
These aren’t parents who are just giant meanies out to ruin their kids’ fun; they’re parents who are at the end of their rope and grasping for a tactic that works—and as we know, flipping out and screaming often ‘works’ as long as by ‘works’ we only mean that it brings compliance in that specific moment.
The Long-Term Consequences
The bad news is that the compliance we get by screaming is short-term, and the long-term effects are even more harmful than flooding the bathroom or skipping toothbrushing.
This kind of reaction does break down our relationship with our kids over time, especially since they don’t know when it’s coming. (It’s not necessarily consistent at a certain point of behavior since it’s coming from our own overloaded nervous systems, which get overloaded from many sources, not just the kids’ behavior.)
If it’s consistent, we can end up with kids who are scared to get attached to personal belongings because they might go in the trash at any moment or kids who don’t want our approval because they don’t know what moment it will explode, or kids who don’t want to be around us because they don’t know when the explosion will come.
The good news is that, like forgetting to brush their teeth one evening or splashing a little water on the floor, as long as we’re doing regular maintenance, we can clean this up.
Tending To Your Own Needs First
Dr. Chelsey’s video is all about repairing after these incidents.
You probably don’t feel much like repair when you’re shouting and angry. That’s why the first step is tending to your own self-regulation and well-being. Dr. Chelsey explains:
“This is not about your child. This is about you. So begin by soothing yourself. You could do bilateral tapping, you could have a cup of tea, you could call a friend, you could jump and down, you could do some yoga.”
You can watch her video below.
Repairing The Relational Damage & Rebuilding Trust
The next step is to repair the relationship with your child.
This starts with focusing on the child’s feelings, such as saying things like, “It must have been scary for you when I yelled,” instead of, “I was so upset about the water on the floor.”
Then, correct the communications. For example, if you’ve said that your child will cause the bathtub to fall through the floor by splashing, you tell them you will get a towel to help them clean it up, and explain that mommy and daddy are responsible for the integrity of the house. Let your child know that this is not a new responsibility on his shoulders.
One of the most important things she shares is not to overexplain. She says overexplaining tends to be either about the parent’s feelings or about teaching, and repair is not the time for teaching.
Improving Your Future Responses
Then, Dr. Chelsey explains that you’ll improve your future responses with practice.
The next time you get overheated and start shouting and using catastrophic language, you can cut yourself off and tell your child you realize you are starting to shout and that’s not the way you want to interact.
You can step back and take actions to soothe yourself if necessary and then go forward with correcting the behavior or cleaning up the mess in whatever way you find more appropriate when your emotions are more regulated.
Over time, stopping yourself and regulating your responses can become a habit, even before you start yelling.
