Have you ever noticed that sometimes you can remain calm and tolerant, even when dealing with annoying situations or people, yet at other times you’re quicker to get irritable or snappy? If you’re a parent, you’ve no doubt observed and wondered about this same variability in your kids. One minute, they’re able to be patient with siblings who are pestering them or can endure hunger while waiting to be served in a restaurant, but the very next minute they’re melting down.
It turns out that these shifts from easygoing to irascible are not personality quirks (or evidence of bad behavior). Rather, this reflects how much self-control is available to any of us at any given moment. Willpower, as it turns out, is a limited resource; we have only so much in reserve. The more we use it, the faster we deplete it.
This means that challenging days especially take their toll. Let’s say that you have one of those days at work. Despite a series of frustrations and setbacks, you have to remain pleasant to your coworkers and then give a big presentation. By the time you get home, your emotional resiliency is stretched so thin that despite your efforts to be patient with your family, you might overreact to even the slightest provocation.
By the time they get home after school, teens are often in the same shape. Your daughter may have worked hard to keep it together through eight or nine classes during which a classmate taunted her, she struggled through a harder-than-expected test, and a teacher reprimanded her (unfairly, in her mind). Then she walks in the door and all you might do is ask, “How was your test?” and she acts as if you took away her cellphone—forever. You might wonder what in the world just happened. According to neurobiology, her willpower is officially tapped out.
Knowing that self-restraint dwindles throughout the day—and even more rapidly when it’s been used continuously—suggests how to avoid an empty tank. All of us need breaks from demands to replenish our reserves of willpower. Consider this when making plans—and especially when deciding if or when to talk to teens about sensitive subjects. Don’t expect them to have unlimited self-control or willpower. Make sure teens and tweens have enough time to decompress on days when they have to marshal a lot of self-control.
The same goes for you; carve out times to be alone or to do restorative activities to restock your reserves so you don’t get to the point of losing patience with your kids.