Putting it right

The sheet

For the parent: what to do when you feel your temper going, and on the back, how to put it right with your child when it has gone.

Pocket card · A4, four cards to cut, two sides · Two pages · PDF, 67 KB

How it helps

You’ll lose your temper sometimes, as every parent does. Stopping early helps, and going back afterwards to put it right, owning your part without a “but”, shows your child that things between you can be mended, and that it wasn’t their fault.

How to use it

1. Print on both sides, flipping on the long edge, and cut out the cards. Keep one where you’ll see it at the hardest time of day.
2. Earlier in the day, eat something, and lower the bar for the evening.
3. When you feel your temper rising, stop talking, breathe out slowly, and say what’s happening: “I’m getting cross. I need a minute.” With a young child, stay in the room. An older child can be left for that minute, if they’re safe.
4. Afterwards, once you’re both calm, go to your child and follow the back of the card. If you have hurt them, or ever feel you might, the front says what to do today.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with Big Feelings and Co-Regulation and When You Are Not All Right.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.