Dealing with kids: How to become a zen parent

Dealing with children can sometimes seem impossible. In family life, moments of peace can seem rare. Do you recognize the feeling of overwhelm when your running children, chaos, incessant questions and unexpected problems test your patience to the limit?

Many parents strive for more peace in the home, but struggle with the practice of staying calm with children.

This blog post offers a refreshing perspective on Zen parenting, inspired by a recent breakthrough session featuring Elke. She is a mother of two young, energetic children. She displayed an admirable sense of calm.

Her ability to stay peaceful is not an accident, but a learned skill that anyone can develop.

We dive deeper into the practical strategies and mindset shifts that help you maintain composure and inner zen, even when life feels like a whirlwind. Prepare to transform everyday moments into powerful exercises for personal growth and stress management.

Daily chaos: Training ground for inner peace

Family life is a never-ending source of lessons in dealing with children. Every moment—from a spilled glass of milk to a tantrum at the supermarket—offers a unique opportunity to practice resilience and stress management. What we often see as a disruption may, in reality, be our most valuable training material.

Take Elke. During her session, with her children playing lively around her and demanding her attention, she remained remarkably calm. Her reaction was not one of frustration, but of acceptance and playful, yet firm, direction.

This is not an innate talent that only a few possess. It is the result of applying principles that can be learned. It all starts with the recognition that the situation, no matter how challenging, is a neutral fact. Chaos is a fact. Your response to it, that is your choice and your area of practice.

The ideal does not exist, accept reality

We often tend to compare life to an ideal image. When reality doesn’t live up to that ideal, friction and stress arise. The principle of “A is A” is fundamental here: reality is what it is. A child who cries is crying. A traffic jam is a traffic jam. The meaning we assign to it—the “B” in “bad” or “happy”—is our own interpretation, not reality itself.

• The Child Who Cries: Suppose your child is inconsolable. Instead of thinking "Oh no, this is terrible, I'm doing something wrong, I need to fix this," practice: "My child is crying. That's A. My response B, 'this is terrible,' is a thought."
• The messy kitchen: See mountains of dishes? The dishes are there. That's A. "I have another mess" (B) is your judgment. By focusing on A, you remove the emotional charge.
• Accept what is: This acceptance opens the door to staying more peaceful with children. It allows you to shift from a reactive to a proactive attitude. You no longer fight reality, but learn to deal with it.

Elke's peace came from recognizing that her children were, as they were, in the moment. She added no "should" thought that they had to be quiet or behave differently. She simply observed and acted from that observation, rather than from resistance. This is a powerful way to conserve mental energy and avoid getting carried away by unnecessary emotions.

Research also shows that parents who have children with mental health issues (such as ADHD) and who are able to accept this experience less stress and fewer depressive symptoms[1].

Observe not only the situation, but also your thoughts

Our mind is a bustling circus, full of thoughts, judgments and stories. However, these thoughts are not facts and do not define you. It is good to learn to observe your own inner dialogue, without identifying with it.

• The circus of thoughts: Imagine your thoughts are acrobats, clowns and elephants in a circus. You are the audience, not a participant. Thoughts come and go, but you don't have to go along with them.
• Disassociation: When a thought arises, such as "I'm tired of all this," observe it as, "There's the thought 'I'm tired of all this'." Creating this small distance reduces its intensity.
• Don't identify with thoughts: This skill is crucial for dealing with children and zen parenting. It allows you to see that negative self-talk or judgments about your situation are only passing phenomena. They need not disturb your inner peace.

This ability to disconnect yourself from your thoughts is a core principle of many m indfulness and therapeutic approaches. It allows you to respond consciously rather than automatically to the demands of your environment.

Research also shows that the more mindfull parents are, the better they interact with their child[2].

Dealing with children in practice

Elke's ability to remain calm, even under pressure, is a skill she has learned through experience. "If I go against it," she noted, "it only makes things worse." This insight is crucial for anyone striving for greater inner peace. It is the art of choosing your response.

• The pause between stimulus and response: Between the event (e.g., child screaming) and your response is a small but crucial pause. In that pause lies your freedom to choose how to respond. Each utilizes this pause intuitively.
• Choose Calm: When chaos strikes, you can consciously choose a calm, thoughtful response instead of an impulsive, emotional one. This doesn’t mean you’ll never feel frustration, but that you acknowledge those feelings and then consciously choose a path that leads to Zen parenting.
• Practicing patience begins with this conscious choice. Every time you feel the tendency to react with irritation, and you choose instead to have a moment of calm and observation, you reinforce this new habit. It is a muscle that needs to be trained.

This process of conscious choice transforms stressful situations into learning moments and allows you to focus your energy on effective solutions rather than emotional outbursts.

With hypnosis, there are visualization techniques that help you accelerate the transformation in your subconscious, allowing you to respond more automatically with calm.

Concrete steps to peace and patience

How do you apply these principles in daily practice? In addition to the A is A exercise and responding with calmness, there are a number of other practical things you can do to deal with children in a healthy way.

Breathing in Chaos:

• When tension builds, take three deep breaths.
• Inhale through your nose, hold for a moment, exhale slowly through your mouth.
• This short break breaks the automatic response and gives you a moment to recalibrate.
• Benefit: An immediate physiological reset that promotes calmness.

 Recognize your value:

• Every evening, write down three things you did that day that added value to your family, no matter how small. (For example, “I listened patiently to my child’s story,” “I gave a hug when it was needed,” “I prepared a meal.”)
• Benefit: Reinforces awareness of your inherent worth and promotes self-compassion.

 Find the joy in the small:

• Consciously pay attention to small moments of joy throughout the day. Your child's smile, a quiet moment with a cup of tea, a bird whistling.
• Remind yourself of moments when you felt truly happy, even briefly, and try to rekindle that feeling.
• Benefit: Trains your brain to recognize and appreciate positive experiences, contributing to greater inner peace.

Practice self-hypnosis daily:

• Take time every day to practice self-hypnosis . Through self-hypnosis, you can, for example, change behavioral patterns and improve your self-confidence as a parent.
• Lie down in bed once the kids are asleep, play a self-hypnosis MP3, and take a moment to unwind after the day.
• Benefit: A moment of peace and reinforcement of behavioral changes within yourself.

Dealing with Children: The pitfalls

The path to greater peace of mind and practicing patience isn’t a straight line. It has its ups and downs, and things won’t go perfectly right away. Just like learning to drive, it takes practice. You won’t become a perfect Zen parent overnight. Mistakes are part of the process—see them as learning opportunities.

If things do go wrong and you still lash out at your partner or children and can't stay calm, it doesn't help to address yourself sternly. Criticizing yourself only makes you feel even worse[3].

Be gentle with yourself. Everyone makes mistakes.

Staying calm doesn’t mean you have to go along with everything. Self-care is essential for maintaining resilience. So be sure to listen to your own limits and needs.

The exercises in this text are not just for "big" problems. The principles of "A is A" and thought observation are most effective when applied to small, everyday irritations. This builds the "muscle" for the bigger challenges.

Managing children in a healthy way

Being calm and healthy with children is not a pipe dream, but an achievable reality that starts with small, conscious steps. By embracing the principles of "A is A," observing your thoughts rather than identifying with them, recognizing your inherent worth, and consciously choosing to be calm, you can find a deeper calm in the daily chaos of family life.

These moments are your training ground. Embrace them, and find the peace you seek.

How hypnosis helps

Is it still hard to stay calm? Then there may be other issues underlying your outbursts toward your child or similar behavior. I sometimes say that parents need to “raise” themselves first before they can raise their child.

With hypnotherapy, you can explore what beliefs are now causing you to judge a thought or situation despite trying not to.

In many cases, regression is used to explore which situation in your life led to a particular belief. A hypnotherapist can then help you reinterpret that situation, so that the beliefs that currently lead to judgment and self-criticism change, and you unconsciously become more zen.

When hypnosis is compared with mindfulness on reducing stress, for example, the results with hypnosis are significantly better[4].

Hypnosis can also help children improve their self-esteem and change their thoughts[5].

Learn Hypnosis

Do you want to help yourself—or others—deal better with children? Then knowledge of hypnosis can come in handy. Come to our free masterclass for an introduction.

Or sign up right away for one of our events or training courses. You can take the training in a classroom setting or live online.

Have a question about the training? Schedule a 1-on-1 consultation here.

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