In last week’s episode, I talked about how to forgive yourself when you yell, shame, hurt, or otherwise show up in a way you don’t love as a parent. Today, we’re talking about what comes next - saying “I’m sorry” and having a repair conversation with your child. 

You’ll Learn:

• Why saying “I’m sorry” is so important (and why it’s only one piece of repair)
• 4-step formula for a repair conversation (with examples)
• What you need to do before you have this conversation with your kid
• How to repair after a longer period of time when you weren’t showing up as the parent you want to be

It’s normal to lose it with your kid. What’s important is how you choose to handle it afterward. 

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You know what this looks like…

Your kid keeps complaining about what you’re serving for dinner. 

Or they keep asking for something over and over, even though you already said no. 

Or they start hitting their sibling while you’re trying to make an appointment on your phone. 

You lose your compassion and patience and get angry, overwhelmed, irritated, or frustrated. You get dysregulated, short-tempered, and disrespectful toward your child. 

What It Feels Like For Your Kid

Children are very self centered. That's their natural way of viewing the world. They're pretty sure the world revolves around them. 

So when they notice that you’re mad, they will automatically think that they are the reason. And further, they’ll think that something is wrong with who they are. They don’t know how to separate their core self from their behavior yet. They internalize our anger, and it's very easy for them to go into shame. 

This means that when you yell or get upset, you have to go back and give your child some understanding of why you behaved the way you did. We call this repair. 

You explain to them that you were in a big feeling cycle, and you didn’t use your tools of taking a pause or deep breathing or moving your body or whatever you typically use to calm yourself. 

The conversation is about repairing your relationship with your child, as well as their self-esteem and internal self-talk (basically your kid’s relationship with themself). 

When To Repair

Here are some signs that your child might need a repair conversation with you. You might notice that they:

• Seem deflated
• Withdraw from you
• Look confused by your face or your behavior
• Cry
• Run away
• Get more aggressive

When you act out your big feelings on your kid, it activates their stress response. They go into fight, flight, freeze, faint, or fawn. 

Anytime you notice that you’ve created a rupture, go make a repair. 

If you’re at the beginning of your Calm Mama journey, you’ll probably have to do this a lot. You haven’t developed the skills yet, and that’s okay. You are still learning. 

Another thing to note is that the repair conversation should happen separately from parenting, limit setting, or correction. You might feel tempted to say something to your kid like, “I’m sorry I yelled, but I wouldn’t yell at you if you would just put your pajamas on.” Discussion about your child’s behavior is a whole different conversation. 

You are responsible for how you respond to misbehavior. Repair is the time for you to fix your mistake and reconnect.

How To Have a Repair Conversation: Saying “I’m Sorry”

Repair is the act of returning to a moment of disconnection, taking responsibility for your behavior, and acknowledging its impact on your child. You caused a problem with your behavior, and it is your responsibility to make it right. 

You’re essentially saying to your child, “Hey, I know that happened. I was wrong. I’m sorry, and I’m working on it.”

But it’s not enough just to say, “I’m sorry.” We also want our kids to have a chance to talk about how they felt in that moment and have their feelings acknowledged. We want them to understand that your behavior was not about them. 

Remember, it’s not your kid’s job to forgive you and make you feel better. You have to do that work for yourself first. Take the time to reflect, get calm, and forgive yourself for your mistake. 

When you’re ready, you are the one who should initiate the repair conversation. Don’t wait for your kid to come to you. Whether it’s the same day or a couple of days later, come back to the incident in a timely manner. 

Step 1: Narrate the moment of disconnection. Let your child know that you’ve been thinking about what happened. Talk about how you acted out.

Step 2: Take responsibility. This is the “I’m sorry.” Before you go into this conversation, make sure that you are truly ready to take responsibility for your behavior without blaming, criticizing, or trying to assuage your own guilt. You have to be neutral and compassionate toward yourself. Be ready to receive your child’s story and experience of your behavior (which can be really uncomfortable). 

Step 3: Acknowledge the impact on your child. You can say things like, “I bet that was really hard for you,” or “I wonder if you felt hurt or scared by the way I acted?” Invite them to tell you how they felt and what it was like for them. Ask simple questions to help them name the emotions. Then, validate their feelings. 

Step 4: Now what? Make a commitment, and make amends. Let your kid know that you’re working on staying calm. Find out if there’s anything you can do to make things better. Let them make a request, and try to respect it. 

Here’s an example: 

Step 1: I’ve been thinking about what happened yesterday when we were rushing to get ready for school. I yelled at you. 

Step 2: That was my fault. I'm sorry. I should not have done that. 

Step 3: I would imagine you felt very scared when I was yelling at you. Did you feel scared? (Yes, I don’t like it when you yell). Yes, of course it’s scary when you see me yell. That must have been really difficult for you to feel like I didn’t love you or care about you. I am sorry. 

Step 4: I want you to know that I’m working on staying calm. Is there anything you want me to do to make things right?

What a beautiful thing in your relationship if you can be neutral and open enough to receive your child's pain - even if you're the one who caused it. What a gift to let them have a voice and the power to communicate the hard things that they've experienced - even if those things were done by you. 

The goal is to help your child not internalize the shame that makes them think, “I’m not good enough,” “There’s something wrong with me,” or “I’m worthless.” We want our kids to know that, at their core, they are good, worthy, loved, forgiven, accepted, and safe. 

We want them to know that our anger is not their fault and that they can make requests of us (and of others).

We are human. We make mistakes, and we can fix our mistakes. And that’s a powerful thing.

Free Resources:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Alright. Here we go. Welcome back to become a calm mama. I'm your

host. I'm Darlyn Childress. And on the podcast today,

I am continuing a series around

repair. So last week, I talked about how

if you show up in a way

that you don't like, if you yell at your kid, if you threaten

them, if you name call or you engage in any

sort of threatening behavior, any behavior for

you that isn't aligned with your goals, with your values of

becoming a calm mama, with your values of being a compassionate

parent, with your values of being respectful

and attuned. 2 weeks ago, I talked about what

attunement is. And it's this idea of

seeing the world from your child's eyes and validating

them and their experience. Even if

you're making a limit. Right? Even if you're setting

them, like, telling them no or doing some

kind of thing that they don't like, like, mom, can I have eggs?

And you say, no, I'm serving waffles or off you know,

anything like that, recognizing that it's hard

to be told no. It's hard to have your parent,

make something that you don't like. It's challenging for your kid to

have their, you know, not a lot of power in their life

or frustration. They wanna play with a toy, but it's off limits. They don't wanna

go to school because they're tired or overwhelmed or they just don't wanna go, and

you're bossing them telling them you wanna go, that they have to go.

It's just hard. It's hard to be a little kid. So attunement is really kind

of coming alongside, narrating, and naming their

emotional experience. And when we do that,

usually, our relationship with our kid stays pretty

calm, pretty regulated. They can move through their emotions quickly

because we're validating them and they feel loved and

seen and felt and all of those wonderful things. And

there are times when we don't show up like that, when we aren't able

to attune with our kid either because we're not

aware that their behavior is an attempt to

get some sort of connection. Like, if you

have a kid who complains about what you're serving and

you just think they're just being complaining and they just, like, they're just saying they

don't want eggs for breakfast. But here you are kind of

being like, well, you do like eggs and sometimes you like eggs and you said

you wanted eggs and you told me that you we already had eggs well,

waffles yesterday, so we're having eggs today. And you're trying to, like, logic

them or explain to them or give them information. And then they

just really lose their little emotional

regulation. And in many ways,

our kids try to connect with us through

complaining, through whining, through

aggressive behavior, they have very

limited ability to communicate their emotional

world. And so then they show it to us with

their behavior. And when we're attuned, when we're paying attention,

when we're tuned in, we can kinda see that their

behavior is an attempt for connection. Or if

they're behaving in a way, we help them connect that their

behavior is coming from their feelings and giving them alternative

ways to express their feelings, like, hey, it's okay

for you to not want eggs. You could just say, mommy,

I don't like eggs. Can we have waffles

tomorrow? You know, you can give them strategies of

better ways to communicate. That's kinda what a lot of

these podcast episodes are all about. And this

one is really about when you can't, When you

don't show up that way, when you get frustrated, you're like

you should be grateful that I serve you dinner anyway or breakfast

anyway. Like, when we get angry about their complaint,

when we say no and their big feeling goes on longer than we're

comfortable with and we lose our, our compassion

and we're like, enough. That's enough. You need to stop crying. Right? We

get angry. Or if they we tell our child no and we're kind

and we're like, please don't do that. That's enough. And then they

keep doing it, like, you know, escalating their behavior and

we're not using our connection. We're not using our limit set. We're

not using correction, we're not calm when we dysregulate

and we show up in this, like, short-tempered, you

know, sort of a disrespectful way towards

our kids. This can also happen if your child

asks for something that you told them no, and then they keep asking, they keep

asking, they keep asking. You will lose your patience.

You will get overwhelmed. You will get frustrated. You

will be irritated. You're there's gonna be times when you're trying to get

something done, trying to change the baby's diaper or get dinner on the

table or just finish up something on the computer. You're,

like, trying to sign up for your health care doctor's appointment on your

phone and your kid is, like, hitting you or grabbing your phone or

hitting their sibling or all of a sudden, you know, climbing on the

table or whatever it is. And you're like, get down. Stop it. I told you

to have to you know, we we lose it. So you're going to

lose it with your kids. That's normal. It's part of being in a relationship

with anybody is that we get upset.

And when we create a

disconnection, we in the parent

education world, we call that a rupture. So we're in

connection and then the connection gets ruptured or disrupted.

And the disconnect now and we're in disconnection.

So when that happens, what goes on for

your child is because because children are very

self centered, that's their natural way

of viewing the world. They're pretty sure the world revolves around them.

And so they think that they are the reason

that you're mad. They being their

core self, like inside of them, their

actual person, they don't really know how to separate

their core self from their behavior. That's really hard. It's

something that you're learning how to do. Right? That last

week when we talked about getting over guilt, that it's not about

you having, like, you're not your behavior.

You have feelings, you have overwhelm, you have whatever it is

that drive drives your behavior. Just like your kids, they have

things that go on inside of them, shows up as behavior, shows up

as complaining, shows up as, you know, dysregulation,

shows up as aggression, shows up as saying inappropriate

things. Right? Name calling, all these behaviors that drive us crazy

that they are not their behavior. But when we get mad,

they internalize our anger and it's

very easy for them to go into shame.

It's very easy for a kid to identify

their behavior with their core self. So when you

yell or get upset, which is normal,

and you don't go back and repair, you don't go back

and give your child some understanding

that the reason you behaved that way was because you

were in a big feeling cycle that you didn't

use your tools of pause break

of, you know, you know, deep breathing or moving your

body or whatever, slowing down, saying

what your requests are, all the things you want them to do when they're upset,

you wanna show your child, you wanna let them know that you didn't you

didn't use your tools, that in a repair,

going back and letting our kids know, hey, the thing that happened

earlier, that was my fault because I'm a

I'm a grown up and I wanna show up in a way I wanna use

my calm tools. I'm working on being calm and I wasn't.

And that is because I did not take care of

myself. I did not calm my body.

And we want to repair

the relationship, but we also want to repair

their concept of themselves. We wanna repair their

self esteem. We wanna repair their

internal self talk. So repair is great. It

it's repairing your relationship. Yes. But, really,

we wanna help your kid repair their relationship with themselves

by separating your behavior from

their core self. So how

do you know that your child might need a repair?

It can it's kind of obvious. Right? Like you

yell, you are speak harshly, you're too

physical, you're dismissive, and you can kind

of read because you are an attuned person. You can

tell that they are deflated,

withdrawn, they maybe they act a little bit confused, they look

confused by your face, by your behavior, they stop making eye

contact, they may start crying, They may run

away or they could get more aggressive.

So some kids, when they get yelled out, they go hypo

aroused. They go, like, check out from

their their body and themselves. Some kids go hyper

aroused and they get even more activated.

So when you are having a big feeling

cycle and you act out your big feelings

on your kid, your kid is

activated their stress response is activated. So

they go into fight, flight, freeze, faint, fawn.

So you wanna be looking for the times

where you see you've created a rupture.

Anytime that you do, go and make a

repair. Now if you're just coming to this work of becoming

a calm mama and you recognize I don't wanna yell anymore and I'm

overwhelmed and I don't like the way I've been showing up, you will

probably still have a lot of times where you

create ruptures because your skill you don't have a

strong skill set yet. Right? You have a big skill gap, and so

you are probably going to have times when you don't show

up the way you wanna show up. And they'll be really frequent in the beginning

and you'll be making a lot of repair, and I don't want you to feel

bad about that. It's fine. You

are continuously showing your child

my I am responsible for my behavior and I

am learning how to be more responsible. I am learning how to be calm

and how I acted, that is my

responsibility. I was wrong. I

should have done it different. I'm a grown up, and I'm learning.

And so repair, what is it

exactly? It's this act of returning to a moment of

disconnection, taking responsibility for your

behavior, and acknowledging its impact on your child.

So you go back in the repair conversation, you go back to the

moment that you acted out, the moment that you had your

big feelings cycle, the moment that you showed up in a way that was

disrespectful or disconnected, And

you let your child know, hey. I know that that happened,

and I was wrong. I'm sorry,

and I'm working on it. That's one part. So

we acknowledge the moment of disconnection. And we take

responsibility. We also wanna acknowledge the impact

on our child. And so it's not enough to

just say to your child, hey. I

messed up. Do you forgive me? And then them say

yes. And then you say, okay. Thank you.

We want our children to have a chance to

have their feelings acknowledged of

how they experienced you. I yelled at

you. That was my fault.

I'm sorry. I should not have done that.

I would imagine you felt very scared when I was yelling

at you. Did you feel scared?

And you give your kid a chance to actually

feel that their their experience was acknowledged.

This isn't a chance for them to say, I'm it's okay, mommy.

I love you. And then just that's it.

This isn't for you to assuage your own guilt. It's not

a chance for your child to say, you're okay, mommy.

It's all okay. You do that work when you

do your own self forgiveness. Right? When

you do the work before you have this conversation with your

kids. So the goal of this repair conversation

is for you to help your child

dis like, understand that your behavior

was not about them.

Now this is tricky. Right? Because

we often will want to say to our kids,

hey, I'm sorry, but I

like, I'm sorry I yelled, but I don't I wouldn't yell at you

if you would have just got your pajamas on. I'm

sorry I yelled, but at the same time, you should be more grateful

for the fact that I made dinner at all. I'm sorry I

yelled, but you should not be climbing on the table.

Do not do the parenting and the limit

setting and correcting at the same time you're doing the repair

conversation. This is a chance for you to

just make it clear to your child

that you did not practice your

calm tools and you were wrong. Now with repair,

I want you to feel confident that this

is an important thing to do and that it needs to be done

and it needs to be done by you. So I don't want

you to be thinking that you're you have to wait for your child

to, like, initiate it and come to you and say, like, mommy,

are you mad at me? Or, you know, mommy scared me when you

yelled at me. It this is your job to make the

repair. You did the behavior. You caused the problem.

I know your children's behavior was wrong, and that is

more about limit setting and maybe you missing a

chance for connection. So you might have not used your parenting

skills, then you're or you're working on some behavior

changes. And when your child behaved in that way, you

didn't act calmly. That's really important that you

recognize you are responsible for your behavior.

You are responsible for how you respond to misbehavior.

Misbehavior is not an emergency. Misbehavior isn't

something that needs to be fixed. Misbehavior is a

form of communication of your child's emotional life,

and we wanna help them understand how to

communicate better and what is appropriate in our family

and in schools and in society. So we do need to be

teaching our kids what's appropriate and what's not. But when we

respond to their behavior with anger and harshness,

that's a missed opportunity for teaching. So

we wanna start this repair conversation. We wanna

initiate it. There these are important conversations.

Doing it when we're calm, doing it once we've done

some reflection. One thing I teach in the Calm Mama course

is to actually think about, okay, what did I

do? What did I say? And then asking yourself,

how what was the impact of of my behavior on my child?

How might they have been thinking? How might they have been feeling when

I acted that way? Usually, it's scared,

confused, hurt, angry,

misunderstood. Right? Pretty basic emotions that

they feel when we are, not able to connect with

them properly, when we don't, you know, show we're

not calm when we're not calm.

So how do you do it? Right? You do it when you're both when

you're calm. You come back in a timely manner. It could be that day.

It could be a couple of days later. Even if your kid is little, if

they had a big if you had a big temper tantrum, if you had a

big feeling cycle and it was like on a

Monday and it's Thursday, you can still say, you know, I've been thinking about the

other morning or I've been thinking about what happened

yesterday or I was thinking about what happened a few

minutes ago. I was thinking about what happened last

week. Now as if you

recognize that there might have been a long period of time in your

parenting that you didn't show up the way you wanted to show

up, you can make repair now. You can

go to your kid and like a teenager and say, you know what? There was

a period of your life where I was really overwhelmed and

stressed and I acted out my feelings on

you And I showed up angry and I yelled a lot

and I didn't I wasn't the parent I wanted to be,

and I'm sorry. And then asking or

saying, I bet that was really hard for you. I wonder if

that was really, you know, hurt you.

I wonder if you felt hurt by my behavior. I wonder if you felt, you

know, sad. I'm happy to listen to you tell

me, what it was like for you.

So it could be years later or it can be

an hour later. The timing

has a lot to do with whether you're ready to

share your what happened and take

responsibility for your behavior without blaming

or criticizing or, trying to

assuage your own guilt. Just being so

neutral about what you did, like, have a lot of

self compassion, but not needing anything from your

child and actually being ready to receive their

story and their experience of your behavior.

And it can be really uncomfortable for you

to have a kid say, mommy, I really don't like it when you yell at

me. It makes me really scared and I want you to stop.

That can be a hard sentence or, you know, an 8 year old saying

why do you have to be like that? Why do you have to be so

cruel? Why are you yelling at me? Why are you

being mean to me? Please don't do that anymore. I don't like it.

But what a beautiful thing in your relationship if you can be

neutral and open enough to be able to receive your

child's pain even if you're the one who caused it.

And let them have a voice and let them have some

power to communicate the things that are

hard that that they've experienced even if they've been done

by you. So giving some room for

them to talk about their experience of your behavior

just by asking a question. Did it feel scary? Were you angry

with me? Was that hard for you?

And it I really do believe that it needs to be a question.

You can ask like I wonder if you were feeling overwhelmed or I wonder if

that was scary for you. Do you wanna talk about that?

But there is an invitation in a repair conversation

that you can that your kid can actually express

their feelings about it and then you validate their feelings.

Yes. Of course, it is scary when you see me yell. Yes. That must have

been really difficult for you to feel like I didn't love you or that I

didn't care about you. I am sorry.

I am working on it. And then we go to now what.

So we narrate what happened, we take responsibility, we name

the emotions. And then now what is

now what? So we make a commitment.

I want you to know I'm working on staying calm. I might still

yell sometimes, but I'm working on it.

I'm sorry, and I'm working on getting to be a calmer

person. And then you ask, is there anything you

want me to do to make things right?

So in that making amends, you are

actually inviting your child to find out if there's anything you can

do. Yes, mom. I would appreciate it if you could just if you

want to, like, if you're getting mad, if you could just take a break. Or

if I ask you to be quiet and not talk to me anymore, if you

could just respect that. Little kids might say something

like, Can you just give me a hug? Or

Can you just stop yelling at me? They

they have simpler language and simpler desires,

but we wanna give them the opportunity to ask us to make a request

of us. And then we get to say, yes, of course, I will

try. I am working on it.

I've heard a few parent coaches say, you know, this can be a

15 second conversation. And I I

agree on some level that you can just quickly

be like, oh, I'm so sorry. That was on me.

I was overwhelmed and I overreacted and I took that out on

you and I'm sorry. I'm trying to

not be like that. That's great.

I also do like having it be a little bit

longer of a conversation that is where

your child can express their feelings and their requests

of you. So that's why I like being able

to slow it down, narrate what happened, take

responsibility for action. I yelled at you. I was wrong. It wasn't your

fault, and I'm sorry. Then naming

their feelings, naming their feelings. I wonder if you

were feeling scared when I did that. I wonder if you were feeling anger with

me. Or I wonder if you're currently feeling angry with me.

And then now what is kind of the future? Do you have

any requests of me? Is there anything I can make this right? Or I'm

gonna make some commitments to you. The point of all of

this is really to help your child not internalize

that shame, that toxic shame that eats them alive,

that makes them think I've gotta do better, be better.

I'm not good enough. They're a worthlessness and,

you know, something's wrong with me. I'm not I'm not good. We want our

kids to be able to know that

at their core, they are good, they are worthy, they are loved,

they are forgiven, they are accepted, they

are safe, they are secure,

that we are human, we make mistakes, and we

refix our mistakes, and that our mistakes are our

responsibility as the parent. It's not their fault.

And thinking about a generation of kids who grows up

not thinking my parents' anger is my fault,

and I can make requests of people, and I can

make repair if I make a mistake.

Just how unshamed that will make all

of our reactions moving forward. So this is really

repair is a very important parenting skill,

and it really comes in,

like, where does it fit in the Calm Mama process.

It's kind of that calm connect piece. Right? I've gotta do

my work to calm myself, do my reflection, figure out why I

acted this way. And then in repair, I'm going into

connection and I'm saying, hey, this thing happened. I wonder

how you felt about it. And helping them

externalize some of that internal emotional upset

and giving them words and language and a story in a way to communicate

it. So repair is kind of this two parts, it's part

of calm and it's part of connect. I calm myself

by doing self forgiveness, moving through my own guilt,

and understanding why I behave the way I behave so that I can

make that change. And then I go back and I connect back with my

kids in repair in an honest

conversation where I acknowledge what I did, I take

responsibility, and I I acknowledge the impact

on them. So that is repair. If

you feel like you're not quite sure how to do it or you're

just can't get over that guilt, I highly encourage you

to sign up for a complimentary consultation with me.

Come talk to me about it. I'll, you know, talk to you about either either

working with me privately. I use I usually work with someone for

6 sessions privately so that they can kind of move through. If you have

some really big guilt, really big shame, you can't overcome it, we can work

on that in the private sessions or you can join the CommMama Club

and listen to the course and get into the workbook

and do some of the exercises, come to the club session

meetings, and ask me some questions, and I will help guide

you into repair and give you some language and some scripts and

things like that. So that's available to you working with me

privately or joining the club for $30 a month.

And the way you do either of those is by going to the

website, calmmama coaching.com, and just

connecting with me, through the programs page.

And I would love to talk to you about either of those programs.

Well, okay. Heavy stuff, but I do know that it's

normal. We all have big feelings. We all show up in ways we don't

love and we all have the strength, the inner strength

to say sorry and to make things right.

Alright. I will talk to you next week.