Do Your Kids Trigger You?

motherhood and health. I'm your host, Steph Pace, and I'm the woman behind Just Another Mummy blog and also the founder of Steph Pace Planners. But I can assure you this is not just another podcast online. I'm known for my organization tips and tricks and the occasional banter, but it definitely wasn't always this way. I used to be a hot mess and occasionally still am. And I'm here as your honest and real friend each week to show you how I turn my life of chaos into clarity.

Between the house, health, kids, work, and wanting to be the best version of yourself, it can be overwhelming, and I'm here to give you the tools and tips to stop you feeling like a slave to your daily tasks, home life, and especially the expectations you have on yourself. Join me as I share my journey and insights into the art of balancing at all and speak to guests

who can help us all live a better life. Whether you're looking to streamline your daily routines, boosh your wellbeing, achieve your fitness goals, dive into personal development, or find inspiration to steff up into the best version of yourself, We've got you. So are you ready to steff up your game? Let's go. Hello, guys, and welcome to stepping up. Today's episode is probably going to trigger you. Trigger is

the main word in today's episode. But I'm talking about this because this is something that I feel like there's a huge stigma around, and it's something that parents and mothers especially tend to feel really ashamed to talk about. And that thing is do your kids trigger you? Now you probably hear that and you're like, of course not,

of course, my kids don't trigger me. But how about those times where you know it's the afternoon and no one's listening to you, and you're just trying to get everyone ready for bed, and there's screaming and they're fighting, and there's a million questions being asked you're picking everything up off the floor, and then you start to get that real tight sensation in your chest, and then your heart starts to get really really fast, and then you

start to have to push down feelings of could be anger, sadness, and we don't even like the R word, but resentment, and that means you're being triggered. So literally, pretty much everyone on the planet gets triggered by things, and I think even the word trigger itself. I feel like when you're saying, oh, someone triggered me again, there's a stigma attached to that that whatever they're doing must be quite bad, but obviously it's not. Because anything can trigger people. It

can be for me. For example, I've talked about this before. I've got PTSD with having the blinds shut. If you guys don't remember that, when I grew up, like our house was just so dark, the blind's always really closed, and it was a very welcoming feeling. So when I wake up if my blinds aren't all open, I start to get that feeling and it's that anxiety and it triggers me. And that's okay. I'm very aware of it

and passed as soon as I open the blinds. I'm all good, and that's something obviously I should deal with. But that's just an example. It doesn't mean that your kids have to be doing something crazy to trigger you. And I'm going to give you some examples in today's episode. Because even our partners such as Ryan, like my husband Ryan, he had great upbringing. He's someone who literally has no health problems, no mental health problems. He's just caused a cucumber,

and even the kids trigger him. And it's just because we're humans and that's okay. And I think it's all about us just starting this dialogue about how kids can make us feel and like challenging our thoughts around that and changing how we think about it. So I'm really excited today's episode. And actually this morning I went to

the gym before I dive in. I went to the gym this morning and I met these two beautiful ladies from my community and the followers, and we got chatting and we started saying, how you know, come over, how it came about. But we're just saying, how you know, with our kids and they're getting older and it can be a lot like we're still trying to learn how to be adults and we still feel like kids ourselves, and it's hard to I guess, learn how to regulate ourselves.

And it can just feel like a lot. And we're saying how you know, especially as they get older. You know, little people, little problems, big people, big problems. And that's definitely happening now. I'm starting to see more with heart By now that she's eight going on bloody eighteen, Lord help me. And a lot of the things that are coming up, I guess I didn't expect it to come

up so soon. Like there's you know, there's dramas at school, and then there's like talks of you know, friendship groups and these are awesome things that I just guess I didn't expect to come up this soon. And yeah, it's just really interesting how even we're talking to these two beautiful ladies this morning, that everyone feels the same way in one space for another. If you've got boys, if you've got girls, God like, you could literally just have

a cat. And your cat's probably going to bloody trigger anyway. So that's what today's episode is about. And make sure you do stay till the end because I'll be giving your stephing stone, which is going to be one of the keys to help you really overcome these emotions and view how you think about all these things and like show up as a parent, as a friend, as a sister,

or whatever in your day to day life. Now, firstly, I want to talk about just some examples of how you know your kids triggering you can show up in day to day life. Again, this is going to look really different for everybody, but there is usually some pretty key situations or thought patterns that happen in most households

and with most parents. Now, when I first spoke about, you know, the whole topic of you know, kids triggering me and things like that, I remember I brought up with Ryan and I said to him, I'm going to do an episode about this. And I was originally going to have Ryan in this episode. But Ryan is building the house today and I'm like, I just refuse to wait, so it's just happening. So I apologize, mister Pace isn't on today. But anyways, I was saying to him, how

the kids trigger us? And he's like, oh, Like He's like, the kids like, don't trigger me. And then I started giving him examples because Ryan and I do better with different situations with the children. You see, I don't go well, which I'll go into later, with a lot of loud noises and screaming, and I guess like signs of anger. Whereas Ryan he's a very patient man. Look he's married to me. He has to be patient. But with Ryan I find, especially on days like God, we're all human beings.

And I say that every bloody episode I know. I find with Ryan if he's had a day when the kids, I guess with the girls when they ask the same question over and over again, and it's more like a dialogue thing with Ryan. So if they're asking the same question repeatedly and maybe like not listening to him, that's where he tends to get triggered. So that could shop as possibly even Ryan growing up at school, it could have been he was in a friendship group and he

didn't feel heard like it could have been anything. And it doesn't mean you have to I don't want you to have to like really think too deep about this, Like it is good to know where you think these things came from, but it's just having the awareness. We don't need to dissect everything. It is helpful. But something like Ryan, he again had a great childhood, all the things, but this is just something that tends to make him tick.

And it's good to know that because for me, when the kids get too loud or things just get a bit too chaotic, my anxiety really starts ramping up, like full panic. He knows I don't go well in that situation, so he will take over and vice versa. I'm better at negotiation skills with the girls and maybe answering their questions in the longer form that they want, and that doesn't bother me at all. But with Ryan, it kind of gets to him after a while, which is fair.

God drives me nuts to the mowing questions. But you know what I mean, We have different triggers and different responses to different situations with the kids, and that's really helpful to know. And I'm going to get into that later about how we're going to tackle all of this. Now, before I get into it, I just want to tell you I guess what a trigger is. It's basically something that happens around you that triggers an emotional reaction from you or a thought, and that also triggers an emotional

reaction from you. So again, anxiety, maybe anger, sadness, remorse, guilt. Like, there's so many things, and here is some examples of our kids triggering us and how that control up. I

found some really good examples online at the McDermott method website. Now, for example, if you are someone who really values like education and grades, and I guess it could be because you know, growing up, you know, maybe your parents didn't read to you, or you didn't get the education that you wanted, or maybe you didn't get help with homework, So that can show up later on as say your kid flunks a test, which again is not the end of the world whatsoever. We all flunk tests and we

all turned out fine. This can cause feelings of guilt with some people, and that is because they then think that they've failed being a parent because they have this big value of education because that's something they never got, so it's something they just really want their children to have. Now, that is something that will very like trigger you, especially if possibly to you, that's a representation of maybe, of of course you failed in the past. Like there's so

many different links. Another example is if you value respect, so maybe growing up you didn't get the respect that you were lot of liked as a child, or and again, this doesn't always have to stem from things. It could be from school, it could be just from like one thing that happened to you and you don't remember it. And there's a reason why we value certain things. Now, if you value respect, you can get really triggered, like such as being feeling really angry or frustrated when your

kids are disrespectful to you. And it's also because when you think about it, when we grew up, we were very much in the generation of I know, for me, it was very much so like, Omi, your mother, don't question me, basically, like you're a child, You're not a lot of question the adults. This is the authority. And I always kind of had this big anxiety surrounding authority for that reason too, and obviously a lot of other reasons, but it was very much like children are to be

seen and not heard kind of vibes. And I don't want my kids to feel that way. I want my kids to question me if I do something and they don't understand why I want them to ask, not just because I'm the mother, so the end of story, or I'm the parent, I'm the authority figure, end of story. And it's just really interesting on how different our generations are, even down to how gentle I guess like schooling is now.

I know, when we started every new year at school, we were just like thrown into a new classroom with a whole different bunch of kids from other classes day one. Whereas I'm now with the school that the kids go to, which is the exact same primary school I went to. They transition them over a week, and it's so much more gentle, and they can also request the kids that they want to have in their class, and I'm like, that's isn't that amazing? Like that is just so beautiful.

And someone who had such bad social anxiety as a kid, which was me, being able to request to have a certain friend in my class for the next year would have helped with that holiday and anxiety I had for weeks leading up for a new year. It would have diminished that for me knowing I could have someone in my class that I trust and felt safe around. It's just so different now. And the thing is, you know, we're all learning. We definitely don't have all the answers.

We're technically the I'm getting real deep now. Sorry, We're like the first generation to be raising children who has access to the Internet, and we're probably fucking it up pretty bad. Let's be honest, and it's not our fault. Again, we are giant children ourselves. We're trying to figure it out. So I guess what I'm trying to say is when you start to recognize these triggers and things going on that give you an emotional reaction that your babies are

giving you, it's okay. Like it's okay. And that's what I want to say. So many women and parents they feel guilt for saying, my kid makes me feel frustrated. My child makes me feel angry because we love them with everything. They are everything to us. But if we keep bottling this shit up, it's going to make it sick. Not necessarily like a cold, but it bottles up until it turns into a mental health issue. You know. I remember having post anal depression after both girls, and after

I had Harper, who was my first baby. I had the worst personal depression and I wanted Harper. Ryan and I tried for Harper, and we were just wanted to be parents so badly. So when I actually became a mother and then I had post antal depression, I was such an asshole to myself. I would literally say to myself, my head, you ungrateful human, because I'm like, you wanted this child and now you're depressed and anxious and crying all the time. And that was not fair on myself

to think that of me. And now I know it much better because you don't get to choose these things. You know, we're all born with different chemical imbalances, vitamin imbalances, Like God, there's so many things going on in our body and there's different reasons why we have certain triggers

and mental health disorders. We are all brought up differently, like different things have happened to every single one of us to warrant a reaction, and I think that's just so important to say, so before I continue, I just please be kind to yourself and just know literally every single mother I've spoken to has the exact same feeling everyone, So it's not just you, and that's why, you know, Send this episode to your mum, friends, send this episode

to your parent, friend's caregivers, anyone, because your feelings are all valid. They're so valid, and don't feel guilty for it. The biggest thing is having this awareness of why is this making me have this reaction and we can figure out how to deal with it together instead of possibly getting that reaction of us yelling at our children, or we say things we don't want to say, like this is the amazing thing about having access to podcasts and

information and the internet. This is a positive thing because I bet you a million dollars, I bet you everything. Our parents' generation would have all felt alone. Why do you think they all drank and smoke so much because they probably thought there were only ones dealing with it and they never talked about it anyways, going back into it, another example is if you value independence, you'll probably be triggered if your kids are leaving their things all over

the floor, not picking up after themselves. They're forgetting their sports gear, cleaning their homework, all those types of things unless you're hovering over them, and that can trigger you to feel really resentful and frustrated. And again it says coming back to our values. And maybe for you independence is because you had to be independent as a child you were kind of forced to grow up really quick. Or maybe it's because of the opposite and you want

to be independent. Maybe you were, you know, bubble wrapped as a child, and well you weren't allowed to do anything, so now you want to be independent. There's just so many different reasons. So that's why I say, like it's good to look into it and really think, but don't go too deep and yet again feel that guilt towards it. Now for examp, as you guys know, I have health anxiety. So my brother Adam, as we know, has autism and

Down syndrome. So growing up as a sibling of someone with a disability, you know, you see firsthand what it's like. Adam is basically a two Like he's basically a two year old in a thirty three year old, thirty five now thirty five year old man's body, and it's rough and there's a lot of you know, doctor's appointments. And my own mother had had very bad health anxiety as well, and you can't blame her. And that's kind of really come through me. So every time I'm sick or something

like that, I think worst case scenario. Not for me, especially with sickness, but more so just like anything, if there's like a pain or like a lump or anything, I get really really worried. I get worried about a lot of things, and obviously that goes through to Ryan

and my children. I'm worried about them. So with Harper, she gets a lot of tummy issues, the Paul darling, and she's a very picky eater, and her tummy issues have been flaring up more recently, and that causes me to feel a little lot of guilt and like I failed as a parent because I try to get her to eat good food and she doesn't. And then this triggers me because I worry because of X, Y and Z.

So you kind of see where we're going here. And all of these situations trigger us because they act as evidence that we are possibly failing towards our own values, to live up to our own values. And is that true? Absolutely not, but that is what we think we are doing. And again going back to our parents' generation, us not

being able to question them. Another trigger for many of us is when our child disagrees with us and they like argue because we were always taught and don't argue with your parents, so when they do it to us, we kind of adda we're kind of lost, like what to do, and because it's a whole new generation, and again I'm trying to learn this because halfer very much argues with me all the time, and instead I'm trying to make myself be more curious about it, like Okay,

why is she arguing? And then like just trying to take that conversation differently. Instead of saying, you know, don't argue with me, I'll say, Okay, well why do you feel like this is right or wrong? And I open up that dialogue with her, which is really bloody helpful and I want to get into that later. For me, I really came to realize that I want my kids

to not be afraid to speak up. I want my kids to feel like they have a voice, and you can challenge your own you know ingrained beliefs that you don't even realize you have about that. And I'm not saying or let your kids disrespect you or talk to you like shit, Absolutely not. But I think we just got to remember to you that they're still developing and they don't see the world the way we see it. It's just like when we were younger, and we will

probably arguing with our parents. We just thought we're probably asking questions. So I'm not saying let them talk to you like shit, but I'm saying, really, just kind of be curious about it. And they say that when you're doing meditation, instead of judging your thoughts that are going past you, be curious about it, like I wonder why I'm thinking that, And that's what you need to do. Now I've already touched on this, but basically you can already guess where all our jugas came from. They came

from our childhood, our values. They can also come from unresolved issues and trauma and things like stress and overwhelm. So again, if you're having a really stressful time in your life, we're going to have a shorter fuse. So things that usually don't tick us off, they're going to tick us off. It also can come down to our

attachment style. And if you guys don't know too much about this, your attachment style describes people's comfort and confidence in close relationships, fear of rejection and yearning for intimacy, and also preference for self sufficiency or interpersonal distance. So obviously you know you've got your people who are very independent and then people who are really closed off. So

there's usually four attachment styles. So one is secure, so you're warm and caring trusting and forgiving, good boundaries, manage emotions really well. You're responsive and you're honest and open, so that's where you want to be. But then there's the other one. So we've got anxious, which is you have relationship in securities, fear of abandonment, You lack boundaries, and your mood fluctuates. You're highly sensitive and overly accommodating,

ding ding ding steph pace. That is me. But I'm also a bit of an avoidant attachment style, which is fear of closeness, distant and withdrawn, you avoid conflict, extreme independence, emotionally distant, unresponsive to partner, and you're logical, so I can fall into that quite quickly. I kind of call

it this putting my walls up. And again, this is something I kind of just taught myself from childhood when I wasn't like nurtured when I was needed, like when I needed it, and it was just something I just did to like protect my emotions because I didn't like, Yeah, I won't go into it in this episode, but you get my gist. And then the last one is disorganized, so unable to self regulate, you find intimacy and trust

difficult tendency to dissociate. Oh god, this is me as well, lack of empathy, which is not me wants closeness but fearful of So there are different types of attachment styles and this a lot of these things obviously can cause different triggers. And then of course cultural and society expectations. So again, as a mother, we feel like we have to be nurturing all the time and we can't get angry or resentful towards our kids, and this can cause us to feel guilt, and then it goes obviously down

to our values, which I already spoke about. So right now you're aware of something of how this shows up in your everyday life. Now, what can you actually do to get through these moments and to actually kind of have an action plan? Now, Ryan and I have a really okay, I won't say a really good way, because last night was a bloody shit show. It was a mess. I was crying after the kids went to sleep because it was just it was a time we were all

very much heightened. We all had really hard days. So I'm not saying we're perfect whatsoever, but some things what you can do, like I mentioned at the start of this episode is Ryan and I am very aware of each other's I guess triggers with the kids. He knows loud noises and anger scares the shit out of me. And that's because my house growing up was filled with loud noises and anger. So every time my kids act collected that I feel unsafe, my body just does it

like I can't control it. In my mind, I know it's fine, but my body is like, we're not safe. Let's lock this shit down. So my body freaks out. And with Ryan, as I said, he gets a bit, He gets triggered when the kids are asking you a million questions an hour literally, all right, So before you can get to that point with your partner or whoever you're with, obviously that this is going to be extremely hard for you know, single parents, and I definitely acknowledge that.

So this is where I really really do urge you to turn to any other form of support, whether that's friends or family. And I know that's so much easier said than done. Like even for me, I've got Ryan, He's incredible, but then it's like when it actually comes to actually asking for help, we don't do it. We just don't do it. And this is me telling you you're not doing that shit anymore. You're asking for help

and everybody as well. But I'm just wanting to acknowledge, you know, the single parents out there because and cares. It's bloody tough. I couldn't even imagine it. So so the first step is having awareness from what triggers you. So over the next few days, I want you to be really just really aware of what's going on and what your kids are doing when you start to get that emotional reaction like what happened, and this is your

stepping stone. I want you to actually be keeping a journal and you're going to be writing that down at the end of the day, So just seeing at the end of each day what's happened and why has this caused this reaction for me? And I've actually created a free download for you guys, so the links below in the show notes, So print it out or fill it out on the computer or whatever it suits your best. And I want you to fill this in every night because this is really going to help you work through

this process. So first STEP's awareness. Second step is why does it give me this reaction? So reflecting on what I've talked about, did something happen growing up. Is there certain values that you hold and why and then you can actually see, okay, this is why it's making me feel this way. Now. Step three is I want you to change how you view your thoughts around this. So instead of thinking to yourself, I'm failing as a parent or I don't feel safe, I want you to actually

say in your mind, which I do. I am safe and I am a good parent. I'm just learning and trying as we go. Now, the next step is sitting down with your partner and sharing or a support person and sharing what triggers you in the household, and then they can open up. This is like the open place where they can then open up and reflect on themselves and tell you what makes them feel the same. So

step four is developing the coping strategies. So decide what you're going to do when this happens, whether it's a tactic or something that you say. So, like I mentioned earlier, when Harpa tends to argue with me, instead of me kind of arguing back or just saying like don't speak to me like that, I say why do you feel that way? What do you think? And then kind of opening up in a less reactive way. So that's one

tactic I do with that. So really just write down your coping strategies so you can go to them when you need them. And also step five is set realistic expectations. You know, it's all well and good to do all these things I'm telling you, but you're not. Again, you're

human and you're not always going to get right. And you know, when there's emotions that are high and people are feeling triggered, things can happen, like as in, you know you will just maybe walk out, like the best thing for me if my kids are really triggering me, I'll just say I love you. I'm just going to remove myself from this situation because I don't feel like in control right now. I'll be back when I feel a little bit better, and that's if I'm really in

a bad way. So that's what I do personally. And the next step is communicate with your children. So like I just said, then, I'm really open with my kids. So one big thing for me growing up was, you know, I used to see a lot of emotions, and the emotions tend they were blamed on me when little stuff that actually didn't do anything I don't want to get

into it here, but you know what I mean. Basically I was the family punching bag, and so when I would see, you know, my mother crying and things like that, that would make me really feel like shit. Basically that everything was my fault kind of thing. So when I am crying, and that's been lately because obviously I lost my dad and my nan and things like that, I always tell my kids, Mummy loves you. You didn't upset me. Mummies crying because of this, so I just like to

let them know. And that again is because that's what I dealt with as a child, So just communicating with them, or when you feel like you didn't react in the best way, I always apologize to my kids. I think it's so important for us to show that as adults,

we make mistakes too. And I think that's one thing that's kind of heft up our generation is because we saw our parents and it looked like they had all their shit together and there were this authority figured up, there were this authority figure and they never apologized, well mind in anyway. So it's kind of given us this expectation that at our age we should have our shit together, and we don't have our shit together. And the last

step is practice forgiveness. Not only you know, I guess, for your children's behavior and you know, not expecting them to be like in the military and be perfect, but also for yourself and how you act, and also just seeking support and making sure you're taking some time out for self care. And I know you're probably gonna roll

your eyes at this, but it's true. So for me, my thing of self care when I'm at home and it's been a bit of a time is I bought this chair from Bunnings and I popped it on the balcony of this little balcony out the front, and I'll go and sit out there. And it's been actually really nice lately because it's been raining. So I did that last night because we had a bloody night, that's for sure, and I sat out there and I just listened to

the rain and I just got that fresh air. And that's like my little I guess, like my little reset for myself. So doing something similar, making like a little self care caddy where you can have crosswords or drawing like supplies in there, your journal and have like this something for you to go to and It doesn't have to be this big extravagant thing where you go get

a massage or anything like that. So please do download the free sheet I made for you guys and do your stepping stone this week, which is doing it every night. And I really hope this episode helped you. I know it's just such a thing that we do need to talk about, and please do send it to a mum, friend or a parent that needs to hear this. And I love you, guys, and I'll talk to you guys on Monday. Bye. Thank you guys so much for tuning

in today's episode of Stepping Up. I don't want this to be just another podcast that you listen to you get inspiration and then you don't take action. If there's been something in this episode that will help you step up into the best version of yourself, open up your trusted planner and make a plan. And if you've loved listening to today's episode, take a screenshot and show me where you've been listening from. I love seeing it. Make sure you tag us at Stepping Up and steph pace

underscore on Instagram so we can see it. And make sure you subscribe because you won't want to miss what's coming up next Week two,