Your child asks you if they can stay up past bedtime, which is a simple request. Yet somehow, in the space between their question and your response, your nervous system goes full nuclear.
Your jaw clenches. Your chest tightens. Your thoughts race: Here we go again. Why do they always ask? They never respect boundaries. Why can’t they just listen? I’m so tired of fighting about EVERYTHING.
By the time you open your mouth, you’re already yelling. Then you feel terrible because you know you overreacted again. You tell yourself you’ll do better tomorrow, but tomorrow comes, and your fuse is just as short.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. You may be stuck in a pattern where discomfort triggers immediate reaction. The good news? There are skills that can help you change that pattern which I’ve put in the acronym PAUSE. Learning to PAUSE is useful because it reminds us of the overall goal which is to pause before reacting so we can determine if we’re reacting to our feelings or the situation.
Why we explode so easily
Parents can be stressed for a lot of reasons and that can show up as a short fuse. When we’re stressed, we’re more likely to be reactive instead of responsive.
Let’s say your child asks you the same thing over and over again. You start to think things like
“ugh, why don’t they listen?”
“What is wrong with them?”
“They are on my LAST NERVE…”
“I know they don’t do this when they’re with their dad, why does it ALWAYS happen with me?????”
Before you know it, you’re yelling. When we take a step back, we can see our reaction doesn’t fit the situation. Yelling is reacting to your feelings, which is what we don’t want to do. We want to respond appropriately.
We want to get better at stopping ourselves before we yell. We want to recognize that we’re at risk for reacting to our feelings, and take actions that allow us to come down enough so we can respond more rationally.
Meet the PAUSE
PAUSE is a practical tool to help you stop reacting automatically and start responding intentionally when discomfort shows up. Think of it as creating space between feeling triggered and choosing your behavior.
You don’t have to do anything right away, even if your mind is screaming that you do. This process helps you respond differently when discomfort shows up, not to eliminate the discomfort but to practice staying with it without reacting and making everything worse.
P: Pause
Literally stop before acting and take some breaths.
This sounds simple, but it’s not easy. It takes a lot of practice. Most of us operate on autopilot when triggered. The pause interrupts that automatic response. Remember you’re not actually trying to calm down or feel better. You’re just stopping the momentum toward reaction.
Take two deep breaths. We just want to buy ourselves seconds.
A: Assess
Check in with yourself and ask, “Am I actually in danger or just uncomfortable?”
Your body’s alarm system can’t distinguish between “my kid is being defiant” and “a bear is chasing me.” Both trigger the same fight-or-flight response in your brain (which is just trying to protect you). Your job is to remind your nervous system that discomfort is not necessarily danger.
Even panic, that overwhelming sensation that you need to do something RIGHT NOW, isn’t dangerous. It’s just incredibly, horribly uncomfortable.
U: Unclench
Drop your shoulders, lengthen your exhales, and relax your jaw.
Notice where you’re holding tension in your body and release it. This isn’t about forcing yourself to feel calm, which we can’t really do anyway. It’s about sending signals to your nervous system that you’re not actually under threat.
Try letting your jaw hang open slightly. Drop your shoulders away from your ears. Take a longer exhale than inhale. These physical adjustments help your body shift from defense mode to something more manageable.
S: Soften
Stop fighting the discomfort.
This is the hardest part.
Every instinct tells you to make the discomfort go away. But fighting it only makes it stronger and more persistent. When you soften into the discomfort, when you practice being okay with the moment even though you don’t like it, it loosens its grip.
You’re not trying to enjoy it. You’re just acknowledging that it’s happening. “I’m uncomfortable. And I can move forward anyway.”
E: Engage
Redirect your attention toward what matters, regardless of how you feel or what thoughts are in your head.
This is where you get to choose your behavior based on your values instead reacting based on your emotions. You feel angry, and also you respond calmly. You feel overwhelmed, and also you hold the boundary. You feel like yelling, and also you speak in a measured tone.
Your feelings don’t have to change for you to act differently.
What this looks like in real life
Let’s go back to that bedtime scenario. Your kid asks to stay up late. You feel that familiar surge of frustration and tension.
Old pattern: You snap. “I’ve told you a hundred times bedtime is 8:30! Why do you always do this? Just go to bed!”
New pattern with PAUSE:
Pause: You stop before responding. Take two breaths.
Assess: You check in with yourself. Am I in danger? No. I’m annoyed and tired, but nobody’s life is at stake here.
Unclench: You drop your shoulders. Let your jaw relax. Take a longer exhale.
Soften: You acknowledge to yourself that you’re frustrated. That’s okay. I can be frustrated and still respond the way I want to.
Engage: You respond, “Bedtime is 8:30. I know you don’t like it, and that’s the rule.”
Your kid might still push back. You might still feel frustrated. But you’ve responded based on your values (consistent boundaries, respectful communication) instead of your discomfort (anger, exhaustion).
This is practice, not perfection
Some days, unclenching your jaw and lengthening your exhale might be enough to help you respond differently. Other days, you’ll need the entire PAUSE Process plus your favorite hype song playing in your head to keep yourself from exploding.
That’s normal. This is about building capacity over time, not achieving some perfect state of calm.
You’re going to mess up and lose your temper. You’re going to look back on some interactions and cringe. That’s part of being a parent (and being human). What matters is that you keep practicing. Each time you PAUSE, even if your execution is messy, you’re building your distress tolerance muscle.
You’re stretching your comfort zone
Think of this like strength training. You wouldn’t walk into a gym and immediately lift the heaviest weight, right? No, you’d start lighter and progressively add more resistance. PAUSEing works the same way.
Start practicing when the stakes are low. If you’re familiar with my first book, you may recall we want to scale the change. This makes doing something hard a little easier.
Your kid asks for a snack five minutes before dinner. Practice your PAUSE.
They complain about doing homework. PAUSE.
They want to wear mismatched shoes. PAUSE.
When you practice during lower-intensity moments, you’re building the neural pathways you’ll need when bigger challenges show up. Over time, your capacity increases. What used to launch you into orbit becomes more manageable.
The real goal is to act on your values
PAUSE is not a technique to eliminate anger or frustration, it’s a set of skills to help you get more comfortable feeling those emotions and still choose your behavior.
You get to be a parent who feels big feelings and still shows up the way you want to. You don’t have to wait until you feel calm to act calmly. You don’t have to wait until you feel patient to respond patiently.
You can feel all the discomfort and still engage with what matters.
Tape these skills on your mirror. Keep it on your desk. Fold it into your wallet. Pull it out in those moments when the feelings are intense and you need help not reacting.
Because the truth is you’re not getting so mad so easily because there’s something wrong with you. You’re getting mad because you may not have learned how to sit with discomfort without immediately trying to make it go away.
That’s a skill, and skills can be learned.
