Break Free from Reactive Parenting: Gentle-Parenting Tips, Self-Regulation Strategies, and Kid-Friendly Activities for Creating a Calm and Happy Home

Break Free from Reactive Parenting

Gentle-Parenting Tips, Self-Regulation Strategies, and Kid-Friendly Activities for Creating a Calm and Happy Home

Laura Linn Knight

Praise for Break Free from Reactive Parenting

At last, a parenting book with practical, pragmatic, and proactive strategies that we can actually use and that actually work! Thank you, Laura Linn Knight for creating this beautiful guide that allows us to be the parents we always wanted to be.

—Christopher Willard, author of Growing Up Mindful and Alphabreaths

Dear frustrated parents, this book is really good medicine. It has wisdom and humor and honesty that will help, calming your heart and inspiring your best parenting.

—Jack Kornfield, PhD, author of A Path with Heart

"As a leader in the mental health industry, I am aware of how important mindfulness and self-regulation are for mental wellness. Break Free from Reactive Parenting offers all parents invaluable tools and practical information that is easy to implement and promotes well-being in the home. Laura Linn Knight teaches parents to stop parenting through emotions, which can often escalate a problem and cause more stress for both the child and the parent. Laura has a wealth of knowledge about parent/child relationships of all ages, and the information in this book is instrumental towards creating a more peaceful and loving environment in the home."

—Laura DeCook, founder of LDC Wellbeing and mental health leader

Laura Linn Knight’s book offers all the practical mindfulness tools that stressed-out parents need right now. Practical, nonjudgmental, warm, and compassionate. It’s an accessible guide for navigating this wild, beautiful thing we call parenting.

—Sean Fargo, founder of Mindfulness Exercises

This book is a great resource for parents who want to break the unhealthy cycle of reactive parenting that can be so easy to fall into, especially during difficult seasons. Laura takes a whole-family approach in her teaching and offers up tools that are practical and evidence based.

—Kaitlin Soule, LMFT, author of A Little Less of a Hot Mess

"This book is a gem of a resource for any parent who would like to take a big step toward creating a calmer, happier home. So many of us parents find ourselves putting out fires, rather than creating the conditions for our children and us to strengthen our relationships and thrive. Break Free from Reactive Parenting offers practical ideas for parents and children to manage tricky emotions and grow the good."

—Jamie Lynn Tatera, creator of the Self-Compassion for Children and Caregivers program and mindfulness trainer of caregivers, children, teens, and families

"As a licensed therapist and mother of three, I cannot recommend Break Free from Reactive Parenting enough. The tools that Laura shares are essential for any parent and will change your daily parenting experience in a life-altering way! I love that the book is interactive and gives opportunities to reflect and practice. This is not your average parenting book and is a must-read!"

—Jessica Shank, LMFT

To my family, whose love is a gift beyond words. Thank you for all the laughter, kindness, and compassion you have brought into my life. And to my sweet grandmother, Judy, whose eyes sparkle each time we talk about writing. Thank you, Grandma, for your unwavering encouragement.

INTRODUCTION

Is your household calm?

If you’re a parent, the answer is probably a big fat NO. Maybe you’re in the throes of chasing after a toddler. Maybe you have angelic children who never get upset and you think you have this parenting thing all figured out. (Ha!) Maybe you count down the hours until bedtime so you can have a glass of wine and cuddle up on the couch in front of Netflix. Maybe you are dealing with teenage drama and dream of your children turning eighteen, moving out, and allowing you to live your best life.

Chances are you’ve become reactive to your children’s behavior. In 2020 especially, we all heard reports of stress, anxiety, and reactive behavior from parents worldwide. Parents felt out of their depth, too wrapped up in juggling home and work life and making ends meet to understand how to deal with their children’s pain and fear, much less their own.

Nearly 50 percent of parents reported significant stress increases due to the lockdown that have negatively impacted their mental and physical health.¹

Researchers found that since March 2020, 27 percent of parents reported worsening mental health for themselves, and 14 percent reported worsening behavioral health for their children.²

In 2020, the proportion of children’s mental health–related emergency department (ED) visits among all pediatric ED visits for ages 5 to 11 and 12 to 17 years increased approximately 24 percent and 31 percent, respectively.³

71 percent of parents believe the pandemic took a toll on their child’s mental health, and 67 percent of parents wish they’d been more vigilant about their child’s mental health from the beginning.⁴

Even before COVID-19, youth suicide was already at a record high. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 24 and has been increasing every year since 2007. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that suicide was the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34.⁵

The effects of what we’ve all been through these last few years are real and dire. Instead of just wading through and hoping things get better, it’s time for a different approach.

But in our time-crunched society, most of us just don’t have the bandwidth to do what it takes, right? We’re too busy, too tired, too distracted to figure out what our kids need. And so, we REACT. Despite our best intentions, we are living in a culture where reactive parenting has become the new norm.

We struggle with figuring out how to create a calm household when we live in an unpredictable world. We can’t possibly understand how to share the same space with our tiny beloved terrors when we live in a constant state of distraction and reaction. We just aren’t sure how to make any of this work.

If your kid’s not listening, has seemed to turn into some unrecognizable alien, seems anxious, upset, unruly, or highly reactive, there is something you can do. There is hope!

Wherever you are in your parenting journey, there are always ways to improve, connect, and find calm in the chaos. Instead of repeating the same patterns, feeling overwhelmed or uncertain of what to do next, today is the day you give yourself permission to let go of the guilt and shame around feeling like a bad parent or labeling your child in the same way. You and your child are not bad, defective, or wrong. Raising kids is hard, and we all need some good, practical, and effective tools to help us navigate the way.

Reactive parenting comprises the negative behaviors displayed when a parent is frustrated with their child. This often looks like yelling, threatening, screaming, or even hitting. Reactive parenting can also look like over-rewarding or overbribing when the parent is fed up with their child’s behavior.

In this book, we will start from a neutral place that addresses both the parent and child. Just like in marriage, issues rarely stem from just one party. This book is your toolbox, and the tools inside will help you cultivate a better and calmer home environment for everyone. The first section focuses on the difficulties parents face and tools to address those issues. The second section goes deeper into how to continuously access those tools and help create meaningful change within yourself and your home.

While so many of us reach for parenting books when there’s something wrong, this book provides tools that you and your child can tap into together throughout the ebb and flow of the child-raising years. It is your family’s toolbox for the good days and the not-so-good days. The process all starts with learning first for yourself and then teaching your kids.

As a former elementary school teacher, child educator, mental health first aid responder, mindfulness and meditation teacher, and mother of two, I’ve seen and experienced it all. I’ve worked with parents at the end of their rope who just wanted to give up on having a good relationship with their children. I’ve helped parents navigate rocky terrain and implement useful strategies and have seen their households shift seemingly overnight. I’ve helped a child build confidence when he was overtaken by negative thinking, walked my own daughter through a medical condition that created unbearable anxiety for her, and supported mothers and fathers as they stopped engaging in power struggles and started enjoying their time with their children more.

In this book, I will focus on the most common issues between the parent and child, which range from My kid’s not listening! to what to do when they hit you; from meltdowns to power struggles; from decreasing screen time to knowing how to navigate parenthood without completely losing your mind in the process. Because none of us are given a manual on how to parent, many of us just get swept up in reactive parenting instead of taking a proactive approach.

These proactive tools help both parent and child explore how to go from practice to action to traction. It’s not just about asking how you regulate your kid, but how you regulate yourself. Have you dealt with your own past conditioning and your own shadows? Have you dealt with your own parenting baggage? Have you really taken a look at your own reactions and figured out how you relate to your children and, ultimately, yourself?

I ask because you’re not just working on getting your kids to listen; you’re also stopping the age-old generational conditioning that’s been passed down from your parents, grandparents, and society at large.

At the end of the day, if we continue to normalize our abnormal behavior and keep ourselves in an unregulated state without real tools, then all we’re really doing is bouncing between chaotic moments. All we’re really doing is reacting to our children instead of interacting. It’s time to create a new baseline—both for ourselves and our children.

It’s time to take a collective, mindful approach to this journey we call parenthood.

At the end of the day, you don’t have to parent in a vacuum or meet every stage with resistance and dread. When you show up for yourself, you show up for your family in a more actualized, human state. Let’s peel back the layers and show our children what it means to be fully human.

It starts with you.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Each chapter in this book will begin with a universal parenting problem. The first part of every chapter will focus on common self-regulation issues all parents face. I will then guide you through finding solutions to the problem with strategies, tips, and tools from experts, teachers, parental educators, and moms to deal, heal, and cultivate a calmer environment. These will empower you to decrease your reactivity.

I will then give you and your child tools to solve the same problem. Think of this as a two-for-one book that focuses on parent and child to address the entire family. The second part of every chapter will take the same approach for children through unique stories, fun worksheets, and even journaling exercises that offer a collaborative approach to self-regulation within the paradigm of family.

In this book, we will explore:

Poor listening skills

Morning and nighttime routines

Tantrums

Behavioral challenges

Anger (yours and your child’s)

Meltdowns

Power struggles

Fear and the worrying mind

Sibling rivalry

Navigating parenthood without completely losing your mind

The impact of negative thinking on the parent-child relationship

Mindfulness

Too much screen time

Self-care

When it comes to the sections for adults, the chapters build upon each other, so I suggest reading them from beginning to end. However, the kids’ sections can be read in chunks, and activities can be used as needed over time (or all at once), depending on the age and needs of the child.

If you are raising a child with a partner and find that just one of you is reading the book, don’t fret. Specific activities and tools can be copied and done together as you parent, during family meetings, or whenever it fits your needs.

This book is a guide, and I encourage you to keep coming back to it, tweaking the tools as needed to meet your child’s age and temperament. You will be amazed at how these teachings can be used for years within your home to create a more harmonious space.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

I left my teaching career for this? I asked, fuming as my three-year-old son whacked me again on the back of my leg. Blood boiling and eyes as sharp as daggers, I bent down to his level and yelled, No hitting! Pulling him upstairs for a time-out, it dawned on me that there had to be a better way. In fact, I had recently read an article about sitting with your child when they were angry. Still boiling over with my own rage, I attempted to sit.

I got this, I said to myself. If I could teach 25 six-year-olds, then I can handle a single three-year-…WHACK! Another smack interrupted my thoughts.

I could no longer sit. I couldn’t stand any of this one minute longer.

So I yelled. I yelled in that awful mama yell that makes your throat hurt after and your soul ache with guilt and shame once the words have left your mouth and you can’t stuff them back in again.

My blue-eyed boy stared back at me with wide, sad eyes.

At that moment, I made a vow to myself and my son: I would never yell again.

I wish I could tell you that was my last yell. (It wasn’t.) I have yelled again since that day…but not with that same soul-crushing intensity.

How? you may ask.

I’ll tell you my secret: I created a calm home.

No, I am not an interior designer, professional organizer, or feng shui specialist. I am a parenting educator and I help other moms, dads, and caregivers learn tools to regulate themselves and support their children.

I came about my career in an internally humbling sort of way. You see, ever since I was old enough to be a mother’s helper, I looked after kids in my neighborhood, volunteered at the local preschool, worked with special needs children, and ultimately, became an elementary school teacher.

I love working with children, and taking my first babysitting class at the local rec center was one of my happiest moments, along with a trip to Disneyland and my wedding day.

I felt I was destined to be a teacher and, even more so, I was destined to become a mother.

Prior to having my own children, I couldn’t understand the hardships and struggles parents faced with their own children. I had such well-behaved students and never once encountered a babysitting meltdown. To be perfectly honest, I felt that my parenting journey would be easier than most others’ because I was more skilled than most. (Ha!)

I laugh now at that misguided thinking. I am now convinced that having two of my own children is harder than teaching twenty-five students, skydiving in flip-flops, or navigating through old Egyptian tombs in 120 degrees Fahrenheit (all of which I have done).

Being a parent is hard for so many reasons—sleepless nights (and not just when they are babies); sibling fights; tantrums in the most embarrassing places, like grocery stores and crowded pools; children refusing to listen; regrets from wishing you had done things differently; peer difficulties; and the list goes on.

Parents are fed up, tuckered out, and, after the crazy year of the pandemic, just about ready to pull their hair out.

Over a short period of time, I changed the entire trajectory of my home life. I changed my home life by reading through as many parenting books as I could find (ones rooted in science and empathy), becoming a certified parenting educator, learning to apply my tools from teaching elementary school to my own home, and creating a larger support network around me of parents who shared the same goals of nurturing their children in a nonreactive environment. In discovering and developing effective parenting tools, my family life went from chaos to calm (not angelic like a photoshopped Instagram pic, but real calm).

In 2021 alone, I was a guest on more than 850 radio stations, as well as appearing on national TV shows and in various parenting publications. These accolades are not just a tribute to the work that I am doing, but more importantly, an indication of the need parents have right now for tools that will bring more peace into their homes.

Now I help parents get what they really, truly want more than anything in the whole world: happy relationships with their children and a home life that reflects that bond.

Just like when I felt called to be a babysitter when I was just old enough to ride my bike to the store alone, my passion today and for the future is to support