My daughter and I were having one of our regularly scheduled fights about her phone use. Texting, instagram, snapchat—all vehicles that rob her attention from more meaningful ways of connecting. Yet, the more I demanded and threated, the more tenaciously she clung to that device.

This week I demanded she surrender her phone to me, and when she didn’t, I grabbed it out of her hands. We both yelled and screamed at each other, and it sucked. I had the phone, but it was far from a victory.

After dropping her off to school, I felt overwhelmed with anger. How could she be so defiant, I began to contemplate. I would never have acted this way with my mother, I told myself. The anger welled up inside me. But now, I had no choice but to sit with the feelings. I breathed in and noticed that the anger was making my heart beat faster and my stomach nauseous. As I sat with this yuck, something else was lurking underneath it all.

The well of anger was replaced by swells of tears. These angry struggles were primarily based on fear, anxiety, and sadness. Anxiety that she’ll not have deep relationships because snapchat exalts the superficial. Anxiety that my parenting probably sucks. Worry that her life was going to fall off the rails while I stood by, paying AT&T to strip her soul. Sadness that this wasn’t how I envisioned her adolescent years.

Real anxieties, real sadness. It became clear to me that I was fighting not only my daughter, but fighting my own feelings of loss about her growing up and fighting feelings of inadequacy as a parent.

When she came home from school, I must’ve surprised her by not getting into my typical rant about her phone. I told her how sad I was about fighting, that I felt pained by her words, and I apologized for hurting her feelings. The armor that each of us had erected began to soften. “I’m sorry, Mommy. It’s just I need my phone to reach my friends.” This time, I didn’t lecture her on how much better it is to have face to face contact with people. I just listened. We talked for a long while, and though fruitful, it wasn’t all flowers and pretty skies. When the unpleasant feelings came up, I let them, but purposefully didn’t get lost in the storyline in my head.

This is the first key to unlocking the door: don’t get caught up in the storyline. The storyline (why is this happening, what’s the future going to hold, etc.) had me justifying, explaining, and blaming. It’s like internal Fear Factor. Though it’s useful to figure out the whys, it’s probably best not to do the exploration in the middle of agitation. This is the time to let your feelings come up, and label them (“angry” “sad”), and drop the story about it. I’ve found this labeling technique allows the intensity of the emotions to dissipate and even transform into more clarity.

The second key was noticing where my muscles tightened and my bones misaligned when I was being challenged. We all do this differently. For me, my shoulders round, my arms and neck tense up, my breath goes underground. Classic Fight or Flight response. So, I consciously told my upper body to relax and my spine to elongate as I took a deep breath in and a long exhale out. I did this for a good 30-45 seconds until my nervous system chilled out. These two keys dovetail, making a healthy inroad to keeping our hearts open and receptive to both ourselves and our loves.

From a place of calmer clarity, we chatted about boundaries for her phone and developed a system that both she and I could live with. I’m not so unrealistic as to think that this will solve things, but it’s a start, a work in progress. More important is that I’ve identified two tools that will help me, and maybe even one of you, keep some sanity, during those heated moments.

Adolescence is harder on the parent than it is on the teen. We’re all doing our best to find the freedom to love our children as deeply as we can during this and every part of the lifespan.