Calm in the Chaos: Managing your Anger while Parenting Young Children
It’s a wonderful, messy conundrum to raise small humans. Even if you are completely devoted to your children, the fourth tantrum before breakfast can still make you feel like an overextended rubber band. Olivia Hess, MSN APRN FNP-C’s book Calm in the Chaos: Managing Your Anger while Parenting Young Children embraces that paradox with clarity, honesty, and a welcome lack of bias. This isn’t just another manifesto for “perfect parents.” It’s a manual authored by someone who is obviously aware of how crazy and unexpected raising small children can be.
As a parent myself, I was so excited to read this one, and it did not disappoint! Let’s go ahead and dive into my review and you’ll see why you should get a copy for yourself, or a parent friend in your life.
A grounded, compassionate approach
The first thing that is striking is how much Hess values her readers’ emotional realities. She doesn’t reprimand, humiliate, or sugarcoat. Raising toddlers, preschoolers, and early school-age children may strain even the most patient parent, as she points out. She carefully guides readers through the psychology of emotional overload—why anger spikes, why emotions happen so quickly, and why self-blame never helps—instead of making broad claims or providing one-size-fits-all solutions. It’s like having a conversation with someone who has actually experienced the storm rather than merely observing it from a distance.
Tools you can actually use in the moment
This book is full of tactics, which are more valuable than theory. While the cereal is hitting the floor or the bedtime confrontation is happening in real time, Hess provides quick-reset techniques that you can use. These “30-second calmers,” which are simple, repetitive tasks that break the cycle before yelling takes over, are surprisingly effective.
The long-term habits she instills are even more beneficial. These are about developing emotional stability on a daily basis, not about being the fabled zen parent. The kind of stability that allows you to control behavior without shouting, threatening, or experiencing a strong sense of remorse afterward.
Real parenting, not fantasy parenting
The book’s ability to combine relevant, lived-in circumstances with evidence-based tactics is one of its strong points. Hess transforms the circumstances that every parent is all too familiar with—such as grocery store meltdowns, school morning pandemonium, and bedtime sagas—into instructional, controllable scenarios. She provides you with a route map rather than miracles. She provides control and clarity rather than cliches.
Particularly potent is the emphasis on connection. Hess demonstrates how calm, consistent reactions naturally build the link between parent and kid rather than concentrating just on lowering conflict. It’s more important to guide children in a way that safeguards the relationship at its core than it is to “get kids to behave.”
A must-read for overwhelmed parents
This book meets you precisely where you are, whether you’re raising your first toddler or navigating the early school-age years with a little more mileage. It is profoundly uplifting without veering into fantasy, practical without being chilly, and sensitive without being soft.
This book is a great resource if you’re searching for techniques that truly work—not perfection or unachievable ideals, but genuine peace in the real chaos of family life.
Every parent should have access to the intelligent and caring resource Calm in the Chaos. Your kids won’t become any less crazy, but you will become more capable, patient, and at ease in the midst of it all.
A book worth reading, worth keeping, and worth revisiting whenever life tilts a little off balance.