by Gerald Gonzales, Ph.D.
It was the Fall of 2022, and I was the director of a Kaiser Permanente mental health clinic. We had just discovered that Kaiser therapists in Northern California were going on an open-ended work stoppage.
My stress level and the stress level of my entire management team multiplied 5-10 times.
About two weeks into the work stoppage, majority of therapists in Northern California continued to strike. In my clinic, we were close to having almost all of the therapists return to work.
Kaiser leaders across the region asked, “How did you do that?” and “How did you get most of your therapists to return to work so quickly?” My answer was simple: relationships. More specifically, my managers cultivated healthy relationships with their direct reports.
Over the years, we, as an admin team, put a lot of effort in fostering a cohesive clinic culture. We built trust by keeping our word and following through with our promises. Our staff also understood we were committed to their development and well-being. We kept rituals that mattered (e.g., lunches during monthly staff meetings) and added new traditions (e.g., naming a group room to a psychologist who had dedicated their work in the same clinic for over 30 years!).
Despite the many challenges, I felt that I was thriving at work because I worked on my relationship with my teams.
At home, it was a different story. My relationship with my children started to deteriorate.
The Angry Parent
For most of the last two years during that time, I regularly came home grumpy, irritable, and emotionally reactive. I hadn’t realized that the weight of my emotional backpack—the work stoppage, employee issues, organizational changes—had gotten that heavy. This caused my backpack to be close to 100% capacity.
According to my spouse, underneath our children’s misbehaviors was their desire to connect with me. Instead of being understanding, I greeted them with a frown, a stern voice, and some yelling.
My children began to experience me as “The Angry Dad” because of how I reacted to tiny problems.
The angry dad was completely the opposite of what I aspired to be; I wanted to be the compassionate, understanding, and authoritative parent who practiced soft-skills and hard-edge parenting practices.
The Wake-up Call
“The shoe cobbler always wears the worst shoes.”
You might be aware of that saying or some version of it. For me, it means that many people don’t apply their skills and abilities to their personal lives. That is why the shoe cobbler has the worst shoes.
Let’s convert that overgeneralized statement to my profession: “The child and family psychologist always has the worst child(ren) and family.”
You can imagine the horror that flooded my mind: images of chaotic home life, constant yelling, and distant relationships. Who would sign up for that kind of home? I didn’t particularly enjoy where my home life was heading.
Something had to change. I took a tiny step toward compassion.
A Tiny Change
We know that when people take tiny steps to change toward their desired goal, it is more likely to stick. This happens for many reasons—tiny steps are reasonable, achievable, and, most importantly, sustainable.
I desperately wanted to get rid of The Angry Dad. My tiny step was to remain in my car and perform The Basic Minute to practice mindfulness and self-compassion.
I became aware of the heaviness of my emotional backpack. I acknowledged and let go of my unhelpful thoughts—specifically distorted thinking that tried to convince me it was real. As a result of taking this one minute for myself to decompress, I noticed my stress slowly melt away. This practice made me more aware, intentional, and compassionate in just one minute.
When I changed my approach; I slowly started to change how my children experienced me.
Other Tiny Changes (that you can do, too)
In the subsequent weeks, I added another tiny change—giving my children space to self-regulate. It's important to give children the space to self-regulate so that they can learn on their own. I've found that they learn to self-regulate faster when they are given the opportunity. When we try to regulate them ourselves (e.g., "Calm down"), it has the opposite effect. The bonus to this approach: you, as a parent, probably need space, too. It's a win-win approach.
I added another one—listening to my children with the intention of understanding. In short, I listened to understand rather than listened to respond (and share my parental wisdom). More often that not, we are victims of our own good intentions of sharing our lived experience and expertise. We think that this might be a teaching moment, and so we persist. But what if the student is not ready to learn the life lesson? Listening to understand is the first step to inviting the student to truly understand your wisdom.
And I added another tweak—reassuring them that everything would be OK despite the hardship that they were facing. Given that their brain is still developing, children's emotional mind can get them to overgeneralize and come to a catastrophic conclusion. It's like their illogical thinking convinces them that the world is going to end. Reassure my children in times of distress and letting them know that you'll always be there for them goes a long way of showing your empathy for their situation.
Pretty soon, the sum of all these small changes began to add up. I began to role model how to respond (vs react) to my irrational thoughts and unpleasant emotions.
Closing thoughts
The wake up call was a gift. I needed to change my approach to parenting.
With these changes, my children began to experience me differently. I became a more regulated, responsive, and patient father; I wanted to be a Compassionate Dad.
Today, we are closer than before. I will continue to cultivate my relationship with them. Because I don't want to be that shoe cobbler.
So, what will you do different to change your children's experience of you?
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