You might not imagine that there are many scenarios involving kids and a “safe word,” as this is a concept often used in the context of kinky sex. But agreeing on a safe word with your partner for a totally different kind of situation can help both of you be better parents to your kids.
Here’s how it works, as described in a video posted to Instagram by Locke Haman, a father of four in New Hampshire who runs a personal coaching business.
“If you’re losing it on the kids and your partner says the safe word, you need to walk away and let them handle it,” Haman says in the video.
This strategy helps to de-escalate an explosive situation while allowing your partner to save face, he explains in the video. Instead of confronting or criticizing your partner directly — which would likely make them feel, and act, defensively — you’re simply signaling that you can see they need to take a break.
An added bonus? It’s a way to mess with your kids and bring a little humor to an otherwise tense situation.
“Imagine the confusion when I’m in the middle of losing my temper and mommy walks in and says ‘sassafras’ like she’s casting a magic spell, and I just stop and walk away,” Haman says in his video.
Haman told HuffPost that he doesn’t remember where he and his wife got the idea for the safe word but explained that learning how to handle these situations was a process of trial and error for them. “When one of us was losing our temper or getting agitated, we’d try to step in to help, but that brought its own issues. How do you tell someone you love that they’re losing their temper without pushing them farther over the edge?”
When they discovered the safe word, he said, it proved to be a way for “one imperfect person” to “respectfully hold another accountable in a moment of weakness.”
HuffPost consulted with a couple of parenting experts about why this safe word strategy works and how to use it.
It allows for you to make mistakes.
If you’ve agreed upon a safe word to use (the sillier the better, Haman says), then you’ve both admitted that at some point you’re probably going to need it.
This is a healthier and more realistic attitude than trying to never lose your cool.
“I often tell parents that acknowledging that it’s going to happen is more in alignment with parenting in a healthy kind of way than thinking we can never yell at our kids,” Mercedes Samudio, a licensed clinical social worker in California, told HuffPost.
It supports a healthy relationship with your co-parent.
Setting a safe word establishes that you are on the same team and are trying to help each other become better parents.
Instead of adding to the tension by confronting your partner angrily when they start to lose their temper, the safe word gives them what Haman calls a “soft exit.”
Your first instinct may be to yell at your partner. “It’s hard not to come in guns blazing,” Haman said. “But usually, that only escalates emotions.” A safe word, on the other hand, offers a “silent opportunity to acknowledge their misstep without having to do so outright,” he said. In this way, you allow your partner to save face in front of the kids.
The practice of a safe word “has the potential to deepen your relationship and communication with your partner,” Kristene Geering, a California-based parenting coach, told HuffPost.
Geering added that in order for this strategy to work, your relationship with your partner needs to have a baseline of support and respect, and that some situations, such as those involving trauma or abuse, call for the support of a mental health professional or even law enforcement.
It encourages reflection.
Whether it’s your partner calling you in with the safe word or you yourself noticing that you need a break, the practice of acknowledging these moments alone can make you a better parent.
“I teach parents a lot of the time that sometimes we don’t know what triggers us, what activates us, until it does. Once that happens, that becomes your moment to say, ‘Oh, I get really overwhelmed when the kids are trying to pour their own milk. I get really overwhelmed when they’re trying to put their shoes on,’” Samudio said.
This awareness is a critical step, she said, even if you aren’t always sure where to go from there. When setting up the plan with your partner, however, make sure that each person knows what to do when the other says the safe word. This likely involves the person who says the word taking over parenting duties while the other leaves the space. Geering suggested that you could explain the interaction to your children by saying, “[Parent] was about to flip their lid so they’re taking a break. You need a little break too.”
If you have a practice such as the safe word, it gives you an opening (during an appropriate moment when tension isn’t raised) to gently let your partner know about any patterns that you see, such as, “I notice that in the mornings, you’re shorter with the kids,” “I notice that after practice, you’re shorter with the kids,” or even, “I notice that when we’re having a harder time together, you’re shorter with the kids,” Samudio said. Instead of coming in with anger or accusations (“You always yell!”), these kinds of observations frame the issue as a challenge for you to tackle together.
It can help you recognize when you need a break even when your partner isn’t around.
If you get accustomed to your partner gently calling your attention to the fact that you need to take a breather, you’ll likely start noticing these moments even when you’re alone with your kids — which is often when you meet your edge.
“This is something that happens to every parent at some point in time, because we are all human beings,” Geering said.
Ideally, you have a plan that you’ve practiced, “like a fire drill,” she continued, so that “when you’re in the moment instead of trying to use the part of your brain that’s not working so great in the moment, you just know what to do.” You might put a toddler in their crib and go into another room for a few minutes while you calm down, or let an older child know that you are going to step away.
Geering recalled a time when her twins were 2 years old, and her husband was out of town for a couple of weeks. She didn’t have family around to help. “I have a vivid memory of being on that edge and running to my room to slam the door closed,” she said. “The kids toddled after me, and they were on one side of the door screaming and pounding on it while I was on the other side on the floor holding it closed, and sobbing, and yelling, ‘Mommy needs a break!’”
While the moment was “awful,” she said, “We got through it. I was able to recognize I was on the edge and about to lose it, I separated myself, the kids were safe, and after some breathing exercises to calm me down, I went back out and we tried again.”
A situation that might feel like failure at the time can, in hindsight, be a victory.
It shows your kids one way to handle big emotions.
Whether you yell or manage to leave the room before you lose it, you can bet that your children are watching carefully.
“Safe words, or however parents decide to communicate, become a way for them to model how to be aware of themselves for their kids,” Samudio said.
When your kids see you take a break and step away rather than acting on your anger and lashing out at them, you give them a strategy they can use when their own emotions overwhelm them.