I Lost My Temper With My Child; Can I Make It Better?
You know that sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize, “I did it again. I lost my temper with my child.”? We do too. The truth is, we’ve all had those moments. Parenting is all in and all-consuming. Whether you’ve got littles clambering all over you until you snap or teens who talk back and argue, you’re guaranteed to have your patience tested. And truthfully, you’re not perfect. You’re working through your own stuff, too. So, then, in a hard moment, you lose your temper, and you feel awful.
You yell when you want to be calm. You say things you wish you hadn’t. You set consequences that don’t really fit the situation. Sound familiar?
And then, you might linger in bad thoughts about yourself, like, “I just can’t do this!” or, “I’m so stuck!” or even, “I need to try harder next time!” These thoughts can leave you feeling ashamed of your parenting. That tends to lead to more discouraged parenting (and possibly even losing your temper more easily out of frustration next time).
Lose the shame of losing your temper with your child
You are not alone. Mistakes reveal our humanity. You’re bound to make them, and you will sometimes lose your temper with your child. What you do after making a mistake may be just as important as getting it right in the first place. Maybe even more.
Here is an important truth: Your humility when you lose your temper and blow it is valuable currency for influence in your kids’ lives.
In our early days of parenting we discovered a recipe for turning the “lemons” of our parenting mistakes into a “lemonade” of wisdom. The recipe is flavored with a generous dose of God’s grace and humility, mixed with repentance, forgiveness, and a second chance, achieved by humbly doing a “do-over!”
3 tips to giving yourself a do-over after you lose your temper
1) Stand firm in God’s mercy and compassion.
Research shows that when people stay stuck in shame-filled self-criticism about a hurtful behavior, they are more likely to repeat the same behavior! In short, it’s shame that keeps us stuck.
So how do you release yourself from the tenacious grip of shame? Self-compassion is the current answer offered by psychology since the turn of the millennium. There have been dozens of books published with those words in the title,even Self-Compassion for Dummies (ummm… does that seem like a bit of an oxymoron?) 😉
The drawback to mustering your own self-compassion, however, is that your capacity for that can ebb and flow with your moods or even whether you got a good night’s sleep last night!
God’s compassion and mercy for you—as evidenced powerfully in the historical event of Christ’s death—is an unwavering source of compassion for you to stand firm in . . . no matter how you feel.
But beware that there is an enemy that wants to keep you stuck in shame. “Satan’s stance toward us is lying accusation—he makes global negative assessments drawn from our shortcomings and perceived inadequacies… we need to counter this with a stance of godly self-compassion.”
When God’s mercy breaks through in the midst of heated emotions and harsh responses, it can be transforming. Lynne shares the story of her “aha moment” about God’s mercy in the midst of a messy conflict in this post.
Like Lynne, you might even come up with and practice a compassionate, grace-filled truth statement that you remind yourself after you snap at a child. It could be something like, “I lost my temper with my child in a really challenging moment, but that’s not the end of the story. God is here in this room, ready to help and empower me to go and model repentance and reconciliation to my child.”
2) Walk out your repentance with a do-over.
It’s important to reject shame about who we are as a parent. However, what leads us to healthy repentance after we’ve messed up as parents is Godly guilt, combined with God’s kindness, regarding what we’ve done. Repentance is a gift—it is the change of mind and change in direction when we’ve blown it that restores relationships.
(For an article about the difference between shame and guilt, click here.)
When we sense God’s love and compassion for us in those tough times, it empowers us to repent, change our behavior during that messy moment, and try again. And the more we do, the more it actually changes our habits. This practical discipline tool can have such a powerful impact on brain pathways over time that we sometimes refer to it as the “Brain Magic of Do-overs!”
Think of your old, harsh, default responses (actually brain pathways) like ruts in a road. The more you travel the road, the more familiar it gets and the deeper and wider the ruts become. Soon it becomes normal to travel down that well-worn road quickly, and it’s challenging to get out of those deep ruts.
Helpful Tip: Don’t relive the bad moment. Back up and do it right.
Those harsh words are at the top of your brain and the tip of your tongue. But next time you will actually be more likely to do the same thing again if your default is to say something like this:
- “I need to be more patient,”
- “Shoot, I blew it again. I’ll try harder next time.”
- “I can’t do this anymore. I’ll never get it right!”
You’ve now re-lived your mistake in your mind and felt ashamed about it. This will actually broaden and deepen the ruts!
The key to making new ruts in the road that can lead to the “exit ramp” of calm, wise responses is to STOP and BACK UP immediately. Then, slowly drive onto the exit ramp by doing a DO-OVER.
Practically speaking it might go like this: “Hey, I didn’t like how I acted. I’m sorry. Can I try again?” Take a deep breath and say a short prayer as you calmly sit down, or even physically back up and start over. Then redo your response with an awareness of God’s grace and love for all of you.
3) Celebrate how much better that felt!
An important principle about the brain and behavior is that you get more of whatever you focus on. It’s why God has blessed us with the wonderful command in Philippians 4:8 to focus on “whatever is true, noble, or right… anything excellent or praiseworthy.” Celebrating a do-over is the “secret sauce” that makes this concept so powerful and transforming.
Instead of dwelling on what went wrong in the conflict and how you messed up as a parent, give your biggest and best energy to describing the benefit of your new response. You might even try some high-fives, fist bumps, or big smiles.
Celebrating a do-over is the “secret sauce” that makes this concept so powerful and transforming.
Celebrating a do-over might look like:
- “Now that’s more like how I want to respond!”
- “That felt better to me when I did it that way. Did that feel better to you?”
- “I’m so thankful that God has so much grace for us when we blow it!”
It’s not always easy to celebrate a do-over when you’ve just blown it big time. But even in your worst parenting moments, your repentance is guaranteed in Scripture to bring full forgiveness from God through Jesus! Then any guilt or shame will likely be gone, done, vanquished, conquered. If you find those feelings lingering, you might even try to get angry at the lie (or the Liar) with some righteous anger if you need to!
Why is doing and celebrating a do-over after we mess up so important?
Am I not “being the parent” if I do a do-over? Is this really that important? Here are some reasons why doing and celebrating do-overs are vitally important as a parent:
- Do-overs are a guilt reliever and a shame buster for you.
- They demonstrate your sincere repentance to your child.
- They model humility as you lead your family with grace.
- Physically experiencing a better response to your child (not just hoping for it) is the most effective way to carve new “ruts in the road” of your brain. It will likely be the catalyst to change those habits you really want to change.
- If you don’t model do-overs, and just try to make kids do them, for example: “That was not ok! You need to do a do-over right now!” (visualize furrowed brow), your child will perceive them as a shame-filled punishment, instead of a grace-filled invitation to restore a relationship and learn a better way.
- If it’s clear that we feel better after doing our do-overs, it’s natural that kids will want in on the joy of doing their own at some point. Then you’ll know their do-overs are heartfelt and sincere instead of imposed.
- Your kids will blow it a lot in life. Seeing do-overs modeled and celebrated is the first step in kids eventually learning to do them. This helps them protect their most important relationships.
- Most important of all: Celebrating your do-overs is a powerful demonstration of your faith in the fullness of God’s forgiveness and mercy. (Even the best Sunday School lesson doesn’t touch it.)
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
FREE PDF Download
Download and print “The Brain-Magic of Do-Overs” for a helpful reminder of this valuable tool!
How one mom changed her habits, starting with do-overs
Making a new habit of modeling and celebrating grace-filled do-overs has been at the heart of many families’ journey of transformation. God’s grace in our messy, sinful conflicts gives us the power to change.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2
Michelle, mom of five, shared her experience with this principle.
“In the beginning, my do-overs were numerous times a day. As I continued to practice self-awareness, repentance, apologizing, and trying again, I started to notice that sometimes I would stop myself right in the middle of an immature interaction and try again. Then, one day, I realized my do-overs were becoming fewer, and my wisdom-filled responses were starting to become more of who I was… God has been using my continually trusting Him in the midst of my own misbehavior to change my heart over time.”
We’ve made a PDF download for you to print up with practical tips to get you started. Seeing it on your refrigerator or bulletin board will serve as a helpful reminder to practice this valuable tool.
Raising kids is probably the biggest challenge of your life, and you will mess up as a parent — a lot! You will lose your temper, snap in impatience, and make many other mistakes. But do-overs help forge new roads of grace, forgiveness, and practical skills.
© 2021, 2025 Connected Families
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