Your Kid’s Emotions Are Triggering You—Here’s Why That’s Not Your Fault

Your kid is losing it and instead of feeling calm, something inside you short-circuits. It’s the age-old parental dilemma, and it’s okay to feel this way. You may go cold, or you blow up. And afterward you’re left wondering why that reaction felt so much bigger than the moment called for.

Blame your nervous system. It learned something a long time ago—probably in a home where emotions were dismissed, punished, or just ignored. Nobody sat with you in the hard feeling, so your brain never built the wiring for it. Now you’re trying to raise kids who feel safe expressing themselves, while your own body keeps treating their tears like an emergency.

That’s exactly what Kristen Gallant and Deena Margolin dig into on After Bedtime with Big Little Feelings: the fact that parenting differently than you were parented means doing two jobs at once. Here are their tips on how to actually do it.

Be the Parent You Never Had: Breaking Generational Cycles

First, understand what’s actually happening

☐ Recognize that your triggers aren’t random
When your kid’s meltdown sends you into panic mode, that’s your nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do. If crying got you in trouble as a child, your brain filed it under “danger.” Now your body responds accordingly, even when there’s no actual danger. It’s just your nervous system doing its job with old information.

☐ Understand co-regulation (and why most of us missed it)
Co-regulation is what happens when a calm adult helps a child work through big emotions—not fix them, just be with them. Most of us didn’t get this consistently, which means our brains never built strong pathways for regulating feelings on our own. So now we’re learning in real time, mid-toddler-tantrum.

☐ Make space for the grief
When you sit with your kid through a hard moment and hear yourself say words no one ever said to you, something aches. That’s grief for a version of you who deserved those words too. Letting that feeling exist, rather than bulldozing past it, is part of how this work actually sticks.

“It’s the tears that hit when you say, ‘It’s OK to be mad, I’m here,’ and you realize not once did you ever hear that,” Gallant says. 

Know that your brain can actually change

☐ Trust neuroplasticity—it’s not just a buzzword
Every time you pause instead of exploding, you’re carving a slightly deeper groove in your brain. At first, the old groove wins almost every time. That’s normal. But the new groove keeps getting a little deeper each time you choose differently, until eventually, the new response becomes the default. One rep still counts.

☐ Stop interpreting your reactions as your identity
“I’m an angry person” isn’t who you are, it’s the groove that got worn deepest by how the adults around you responded when you were small. You built those patterns in childhood because they were the only tools available. They’re not permanent personality traits. They’re just well-practiced habits.

The 4 tools—use them daily

1. Name the feeling

When something spikes, stop and name it out loud or in your head. “I’m scared.” “I’m overwhelmed.” “I’m furious.” And labeling a feeling doesn’t necessarily amplify it; it actually organizes it. Your brain can’t problem-solve when it’s drowning in unnamed chaos. Naming is the first step out.

2. Ground your nervous system

Try any of these: one hand on your chest, one on your belly, slow breath. Back against a wall (primal but effective—removes the threat from behind you). Or grab something with a strong smell—an orange, cinnamon, whatever’s close—and breathe it in. These aren’t cute tricks. They’re sensory interruptions that physically shift your brain out of alarm mode.

3. Change what you’re saying to yourself

Most of us narrate our hard moments with our parents’ voices—”What’s wrong with you?” “You’re too much”—sound familiar? When that voice shows up, replace it deliberately. Try: “I’m not in danger right now.” “I feel overwhelmed and I can handle this.” “This will pass.” It sounds small, but it can help rewire your brain over time.

4. Check in with your inner child

In a hard moment, ask yourself—what did little me need when things felt like this? Then give yourself some version of that right now. Picture a 4-year-old version of yourself. What would you say to them? That’s what you say to yourself. It feels weird at first. It gets less weird.

To hear all of Gallant and Margolin’s insights, listen to After Bedtime with Big Little Feelings wherever you get your podcasts.

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