Thanks for this! My partner and I have different levels of distress tolerance--often related to sleep, stress, etc., but also sometimes due to the nature of our kids’ distress (I’m currently better at dealing with our 4 y.o. and he’s better with our 6 y.o.). I’d love to hear about more ways people increase their distress tolerance.
Also, I appreciate the thermometer idea; we’re going to use that to support our communication when deciding whether or not to intervene.
This is 1000% spot on. I am so glad you are talking about this with your patients. I feel fortunate that somehow both my husband and I have pretty high distress tolerance. It does make this part of parenting easier. Our kids are now 5 and 7 and I can really see it paying it off but it was so hard in the earlier years to know whether it was going to help at all.
The other issue that further complicates this for me is and is over looked in general is a parent’s past trauma or when the parent is single with little to no help. That level of distress tolerance and emotional regulation looks completely different. Thankfully we have the resources for all of us to be in therapy. I feel like nuance of different parenting situations needs to be addressed more often.
Thanks for this! My partner and I have different levels of distress tolerance--often related to sleep, stress, etc., but also sometimes due to the nature of our kids’ distress (I’m currently better at dealing with our 4 y.o. and he’s better with our 6 y.o.). I’d love to hear about more ways people increase their distress tolerance.
Also, I appreciate the thermometer idea; we’re going to use that to support our communication when deciding whether or not to intervene.
This is 1000% spot on. I am so glad you are talking about this with your patients. I feel fortunate that somehow both my husband and I have pretty high distress tolerance. It does make this part of parenting easier. Our kids are now 5 and 7 and I can really see it paying it off but it was so hard in the earlier years to know whether it was going to help at all.
The other issue that further complicates this for me is and is over looked in general is a parent’s past trauma or when the parent is single with little to no help. That level of distress tolerance and emotional regulation looks completely different. Thankfully we have the resources for all of us to be in therapy. I feel like nuance of different parenting situations needs to be addressed more often.