Calm Mothering in the Face of Stress

As a mom of boys, I often hear that it must be nice to have a drama-free house, and while that is mostly true, now that we’re parenting teenagers, some mornings are a rollercoaster of emotions that can leave me spinning for hours if I’m not careful.

Occasionally our boys sleep straight through their alarms, and when they do wake up, they are stressed, rushing to get ready for school. Other days they seem to awake in bad moods. Whether they didn’t sleep well or are just cranky doesn’t matter; for a few minutes they attempt to recruit the entire household to be as moody and grumpy as they are, only settling down if they succeed or we call out their behavior.

Sometimes one of our sons will remember last minute as he is rushing out the door that he needs a signature on a form or money for a field trip, or worse, he misses the bus, requiring me to pause my workday and drive him to or from school.

I’ve learned that in every one of these scenarios, I have a choice. When my kids sleep through their alarms, and I need to wake them, I can startle them awake or do so calmly. My response to their stress has the potential to increase their anger or shift the momentum of the rest of their day.

When they ask me for a signature as they rush out the door, even though they know they are supposed to hand me documents when they walk in the door from school, I have the choice to respond with exasperation or to take the paper, sign it, and move on calmly.

When one of my sons rushes home in a panic after missing the bus, he knows my workday has started, and that he has misjudged his time in the morning. When I hear the nervous, “Mom?” I know an opportunity is waiting. I calmly pause, close my laptop, and smile, and that car ride becomes a gift.

The ten extra minutes in the car is time to chat one-on-one with my child and hear about something he is working on at school or an experience he recently had with a friend. I much prefer this to pointing out a mistake of which he is already fully aware, as this leaves him feeling defensive and sulking.

This simple choice builds trust between my sons and me. The more I show my children consistent kindness in their hard moments, the quicker they will come to me when they need help. They know they can approach me without fear of punishment or an angry response. Instead, they encounter a calm tone and actionable help that will ease the stress of their day.

Isn’t that what we all crave when we are facing a hard situation or in a bad mood? We want someone to acknowledge us and to help. Jesus understood this, which is why he focused so much of his time on relationships.

Both in his interactions with people and in the parables Jesus told, we see that the kindness of meeting people’s needs reveals God’s love in a way that invites them into a deeper relationship with him.

In the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) Jesus reveals God’s heart for his children. In all these stories, overwhelming compassion and care are the central theme, which deepens the relationship between the characters.

Stories where Jesus speaks with the woman at the well (John 4), has dinner with Zacchaeus (Luke 19), and heals the man who was born blind (John 9), all shifted the trajectory of their lives, but none of their encounters with Jesus started with the understanding that they could have a personal a relationship with the God.

In John 14: 7, Jesus says, “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him,” and in verse 9 he says, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (NASB). I can show my sons they don’t have to fear coming to me or their heavenly father in hard seasons. Just as Jesus showed people the depths of God’s love, I can do that for my sons when I choose kindness and compassion as my response rather than frustration.

There is another benefit of a calm response early in the morning. On a practical level, when we are facing a stressful situation, and the person we turn to for help heightens our stress level, we tend to turn on the next people we encounter and frustrate them as well. However, by choosing to diffuse the situation, I can help my sons move past a hard situation.

This is the same way that God loves us. We may not always receive an immediate answer to our problems like the man who was suddenly healed from blindness, but when we lean into him and ask him for help with our problems, God will always help us shift our perspective.

Knowing this about my heavenly Fatherly, I can’t think of a better way to start the day than by spending time with him, especially when I wake up in a bad mood. What about you?

Beth Walker is a football coach’s wife and mom of two energetic boys. She strives to encourage those around her to pursue their best lives in Jesus whether she is near the game field, in church, or at the local coffee shop. As a writer, Beth has been striving to find her voice through seeing Jesus in the ordinary and extraordinary of daily life. She blogs at Lessons from the Sidelines.