The trickling down of toxic stress in families

This morning, I went upstairs to wake up my daughter and I heard the shower running. I assumed my son was in the shower. I spent several minutes in my daughter's room waking her up and being silly. When I came out, shower still running, my son walks into the hallway dressed and dry. In a lighthearted tone, I said, "I thought you were in the shower." He replied that he was brushing his teeth and then getting in. We bantered jokingly back and forth about it and then we were done. It occurred to me that just a few years ago, this would have been a lesson that I felt I needed to teach and would likely have resulted in an argument and negative feelings all around. Now, I understand that in our situation, with well water and a solar water heater, this is a low-consequence issue and that may not apply to those who pay for water and gas heat. The point is that this was a minor issue for us that in the past would have resulted in an argument with my son.

My son and I had a pretty tumultuous relationship during his early teens and this has completely changed over the last two years. I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons, including middle adolescence independence seeking, emotional impulsivity from a highly active limbic system, etc. However, looking back, I can now admit that the biggest contributor to our tension was me. Two years ago, my relationship with my son completely changed. We were no longer arguing about everything. We were certainly still having disagreements and discussions, but no yelling, accusations or hurt feelings. This dramatic improvement directly correlated with my decision to leave a work environment that was causing me toxic levels of stress.

Stress triggers our limbic system and suppresses our prefrontal cortex. In his book Buddha's Brain, Rick Hanson, PhD, describes it perfectly when he says, "[Sympathetic nervous system] arousal stimulates the amygdala, which is hardwired to focus on negative information and react intensely to it. As limbic system . . . activation increases, the relative strength of the executive control from the prefrontal cortex declines. [This] pushes appraisals, attributions of others' intentions and priorities in a negative direction."

This activated state was my baseline for years and it significantly affected my relationships and interactions with my family. When I made the decision to address this and left that work environment, my stress level dropped immediately. My limbic system and sympathetic nervous system were able to rest and my now accessible prefrontal cortex could allow me to look at the world differently. I could focus on the positive moments with my family and could let go of that constant need for control.

So, if you are struggling in your relationship with your teenager, I urge you to look closely at where you are mentally and emotionally. Are you trying to manage unhealthy levels of stress? Are there things you could change? I get it, teens are hard and I'm not saying that things in my family are perfect, but, I am owning the fact that my chronic stress played a huge role when tensions were running high. I am incredibly grateful for my that I was able to change things in my life to make our home a happier place to live.