DBT Skills to Help Parents Stay Regulated - Back to School Edition
Heading back to school is a big transition and one that impacts everyone in a household. Parents may rejoice in no longer having to manage their kids at home all day, but returning to school comes with its own set of challenges.The shift from a more relaxed summer schedule to the structured demands of school can be jarring. Children may struggle with earlier bedtimes, waking up early, and having to manage time for homework, extracurricular activities, and socializing. Not to mention that parents often have to adjust their routines as well, including managing drop-offs and pick-ups, ensuring homework is completed, and balancing work or household responsibilities.
Depending on how your child feels about school, this can also be a time of increased fear, worry and even dread. Whether they are worried about the class they are in, being separated from parents, academic pressures or facing social challenges, these big emotions are best navigated with the help of a calm grown up who has their own emotional well to draw from.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills can be highly beneficial for parents in this transition. Not only will having some skills help you stay emotionally regulated, but they will also provide an example for your child to follow or co-regulate with.
Here are my top 5 DBT skills for parents to use this fall:
1. Mindfulness
This is such a buzzword right now. Let’s think of this way: Mindfulness is knowing what you are thinking and feeling, as you are thinking and feeling it. It’s also noticing what is happening around you. In DBT, mindfulness helps individuals develop greater self-awareness, emotional regulation, and the ability to respond to situations more effectively. It also involves being non-judgemental, but we’ll save that one for a separate blog.
For now, start by spending 1-2 minutes every day noticing. Just noticing. Notice what you see, hear, feel with your hands, smell, and taste. Notice sensations and urges you have in your body. Maybe you notice your heart rate increase or your jaw clench. Notice the thoughts you are having. Try your best not to judge or change them. We are just noticing.
An easy way to start practicing mindfulness is to try it while you are doing something you already do every day, such as brushing your teeth, taking a shower or eating. Or can you try it while you are doing something you enjoy like reading a book, drawing, or working out.
The more we practice mindfulness, the easier it is for us to simply be mindful. And the more mindful we are, the more likely we are to notice when we are beginning to have an emotional reaction. Mindfulness can be considered a super power when it allows us to pause and decide how we want to react. So when it’s the third day of school and your child has already declared it’s going to be the worst year ever, mindfulness just might be what allows you to pause and catch yourself before you blurt out how ridiculous that statement is and start an unwinnable argument.
That leads me to the next DBT skill you might want to brush up before September.
2. Validation
Validation is the skill of letting someone know that their thoughts, emotions and/or behaviors make sense and are legitimate, even if you do not necessarily agree with them. It’s about acknowledging the reality of their experience without judging it. When we are able to validate someone else’s experience, it not only improves our relationship, but it’s also a secret weapon in diffusing conflict.
When your child has prematurely declared the school year to be the worst one yet, instead of reacting with an unhelpful (but human) comment, or going into “fix it” mode, a validating statement like, “it sure sounds like you’re not having a great start to the year” can take some wind out of your kids negative and ready to fight sails.
Providing validation can be hard at the best of times and it’s even harder when you’re rushing to get everyone out the door or when you’re exhausted after a long day. So don’t judge yourself too harshly when you miss some validating opportunities. Remembering that validation does not equal agreement, can sometimes make the difference in being able to land a validating statement. Even though I don’t agree with my kid leaving their backpack and jacket in the middle of the living room, I can validate how tired they likely are as they get used to a new routine before I gently ask them to put their things away.
Challenge yourself to say something validating to your student before you attempt to redirect or fix the situation. And if you want to get bonus points, say at least 1 validating thing to yourself!
3. Radical Acceptance
“It is what it is” is a common radical acceptance phrase. It means that we fully acknowledge reality as it is, without trying to change it, deny it, or rage against it. The goal of radical acceptance is to reduce suffering that comes from resisting or refusing to accept the truth of a situation. For most of us, there are moments when this skill is so much easier said than done.
As much as we all know that September will be a month of transition, let’s be real, there will be times we still wonder “why can’t they just get to bed on time?” or “it shouldn't take this long to get into a routine!” Those are pretty human responses and in DBT, we call them “forks”. It’s a fork in the road and you must choose whether you will continue to fight and reject reality (and subsequently continue to suffer) or if you will choose radical acceptance. It is only once we accept our reality for what it is, that we can begin to make changes.
Let’s say I’m cruising into the 2nd week of school and become frustrated that my kids are still having a hard time getting up in the morning, I have a choice to become angry, bitter, even resentful about it, wondering why the universe has given me children who struggle in the morning when I clearly don’t deserve that. Or I can embrace the reality that my kids are tired in the morning and not the happiest when they are woken up. Once I move to the path of radical acceptance, I can use my freed up energy and thoughts to problem solve how we can wake up differently.
4. Check the Facts
Sometimes we react to the story we tell ourselves about a situation and not the situation itself. This skill examines whether our emotional responses are aligned with the reality of a situation or if we are adding fuel to our emotional fire with our judgements, opinions and assumptions.This skill is particularly useful when emotions feel overwhelming or when someone is unsure if their feelings are justified.
Imagine your child forgets to take the lunch you lovingly made for them. Before you even notice it, your kid sends a text telling you to drop it off. You’ve got a big meeting that morning and your immediate thought is “of course, because I live to serve you and my life doesn’t matter”. A thought like that could certainly cause a big emotional reaction. I’d likely be quite hurt and even angry, if I believed that’s how my children saw me. Thankfully, our mindfulness practice will help us to notice this thought and corresponding emotion and think, “we should check the facts on this one”.
When you ask yourself what evidence you have that your child actually believes this, you likely will deduce you have none. Unless of course they have said this to you or written it down on paper and slipped it under your door. Next, you ask yourself what other possible interpretations there could be for them leaving their lunch at home and wanting you to bring it. Hmmm, maybe they are so tired from still not being able to get to sleep at a reasonable time that they legitimately forgot it. And maybe they find you reliable so they are hoping you can bring it. And maybe they also aren’t supposed to be texting at school so they weren’t able to form it in a question and put the “please” and “thank you” in there. Or maybe your child has been abducted by aliens and it was a shapeshifting alien you actually took to school this morning. Point is, you don’t have evidence for any of it. You simply don’t know, yet you are telling yourself a story and choosing to believe something that is causing you to suffer.
Checking the Facts allows us to change our thinking, so we can change our emotions. As Leslie from Ted Lasso says, “you need to find out, before you freak out”.
5. Self-Soothing with the 6 Senses
There are other times of the year that are hard (I’m looking at you December and Juncember), but getting back into the swing of school structure and extracurricular schedules, with less daylight and warmth outside takes time, patience and skill. Since you’ve been working hard to notice your thoughts and urges, validate your child, radically accept the situation and ensure you aren’t making things worse, you need to take care of yourself. Perhaps this should’ve been #1 on the list. The “put your own oxygen mask on first” metaphor applies here too.
Self-soothing is all about being kind, comforting and nurturing to yourself. It’s extra important that we do this when we are going through hard times. Not only do we deserve it, but it helps relax and reset us. In DBT we do this using our senses, to help us stay grounded in the moment and our bodies. This might look like having a hot cup of tea, eating a piece of a favorite comfort food, listening to music you enjoy, putting on comfy sweats and snuggling up to a pet. It could be combining all of the above. The most important part of this is that you are intentionally choosing to take care of yourself. It’s the opposite of running yourself into the ground for the sake of everyone else in the family and easing their transition.
The back to school (grind) transition impacts everyone in the house.
Be kind to yourself and take care of yourself. You matter too.