Why Do I Keep Snapping at My Kids? (You're Not a Bad Mum)

"Why do I keep snapping at my kids? Am I a bad mum?" If you've ever typed some version of that into a search bar at 11:47 pm, you are very much not alone.

I'm a holistic counsellor. I teach early childhood development. Explaining children's behaviour is my actual job.

And recently I told off a three-year-old for pretending to be a sheep.

Some context. A few days earlier, our orphan sheep had broken into the house through the dog door and left it weak and wobbly. Then Emmi, being a sheep, bashed her way through it and finished the job.

I was angry, and I told her off. She was upset. So there we were: one broken dog door, one upset little girl, and one mum who had snapped.

When we snap, our first instinct is to stage a full-blown revolution against it. We swear we'll never be like that again and fling ourselves a full one-eighty in the opposite direction.

If we grew up around explosive anger, we might shut our voice down completely. If we felt micro-managed as children, we might let our own households slide into chaos. If we had controlling parents, we might become the "it's fine, do whatever" parent who secretly simmers.

It feels powerful, and it's a trap. When we force ourselves to become the opposite of what hurt us, that old hurt is still the puppet master calling the shots.

The way out came to me one night when I was trying to sleep. I was thinking about women as creatures of evolution.

So many mums want to get back to themselves. But once you've become a mother, you have evolved into a different human. Your physiology is different. Your brain has been through major structural changes. You've become a carer and a guide, with the incredibly privileged job of raising a new human into the world.

Then the word revolution stuck. Think of the French Revolution, or the Russian. Those people were at the brink, many of them starving, with nothing left to lose.

And single mothers know that brink too. There are days you don't know how you'll keep going. I have been so scared I felt disembodied, so far from everything I knew that it was genuinely terrifying. When I acted out of that fear, it never looked pretty, it never felt good, and it never ended well.

That's revolution: acting from terror and anger. Evolution is the other road. It's letting the fear move through you, and growing into who you are now rather than lashing out from who you were.

You don't stop snapping by swearing you'll never snap again. You stop by getting curious about the snap. Evolution, not revolution.

So I got curious, right there in the kitchen.

Every time I'd told the sheep story that week, I'd been laughing. Because it is hilarious, broken dog door aside. Emmi wasn't being naughty. She was trying to make me laugh. She was a tiny human living her best life within the limits she'd been given.

We sat on the kitchen floor and I explained all of it. I explained the boundary, and why breaking the door wasn't okay. I told her I knew why she'd done it. And I thanked her for trying to make me laugh.

We both apologised, cuddled, and moved on with a smile.

Your turn. Think of the last time you snapped. Open your notes app, or grab the back of an envelope, and answer three questions about it:

1. What was this trying to protect in me?

2. Where did I learn this?

3. Is it still helping, or is it just familiar?

On a rough afternoon I add a few more. Where am I in my cycle? Did I take my iron? What kind of day has it been? A bad mood is information.

The door is still broken. But Emmi hasn't knocked it off its hinges again, and I know she won't.

I've explained things to her in too much detail since she was tiny. Now, at three, she understands the situation. More importantly, she understands that I understand her. So she trusts me even when I snap. She still feels safe to come for a cuddle.

The research agrees with her. In 1989, psychologists Ed Tronick and Jeffrey Cohn filmed mothers and babies and coded their play moment by moment. Even healthy, close pairs were out of sync about 70 percent of the time. Those were babies, not three-year-olds, but Tronick's conclusion has held up across his later work: what builds trust isn't never slipping. It's coming back.

You might be thinking: that's one cute story. I've snapped a hundred times. Haven't I already done the damage?

It's a fair worry, and it shows how much you care. But if being out of sync most of the time is normal, then the snap was never the whole story. The repair is the part your kids remember, and you can start it today, about a snap from last week.

You don't need to burn your whole life down. You're allowed to make tiny, gentle shifts. You're allowed to learn, recalibrate, repair and try again.

Do I still snap? Yes. Far less than I used to, and we find our way back faster.

You hold the compass. You hold the pen.

If the snaps mostly arrive around 5pm, I've made a free guide for exactly that time of day. Sanity at Sundown: 7 Ways to Stop the Sundown Meltdown is seven small practices you can do with your kids right there. Get it here.

Anna writes from Yabberup, in the South West of Western Australia, where she lives with her daughter, the horses and the rest of the animals.

If today is more than a hard day, Lifeline is on 13 11 14, any time.