The Angry Mum Hair Tie Trick We All Need in our Lives

I don’t want to be a dragon mum. I want to be a soft-spoken, happy-go-lucky, rainbow-and-sunshine mum.

But my kids want to ignore sunshine-rainbow-mum until I lose my sparkle and turn into an angry-fire-breathing-mum who yells, screams, and threatens to rip the head off my child’s Barbies if they don’t put on their goddam shoes right now. (Okay, not really, but you get the point).

If you feel the angry mum manifesting inside you often, then this hair tie trick is going to be a serious game changer. When I first saw it, I didn’t think much of it, but then I thought, you know what, let’s try this.

I had just purchased a 20-pack of hair elastics at Woolies and I knew I had a few days before my daughters lost the majority of them.

What is the hair tie trick?

It involves putting five hair ties on your wrist as a visual reminder to stop before you snap (at your kids).

Here’s how to do it:

1. You’ll need five hair ties or five scrunchies if you happen to have a collection of scrunchies.

Put the hair ties on your wrist when your kids wake up in the morning. Don’t leave them there all day and night as this will cause them to sort of blend in with the background and won’t be as effective. You need to associate hair ties with your kids.

Take off the hair ties when you’re not with your kids too, so throughout the day if they are at school or you’re at work. Then, when you’re back with them, put the hair ties back on.

Now, go about your normal routine with your kids.

2. Move the hair tie from one wrist to the other anytime you lose your sh*t. Repeat any time you lose your sh*t with them.

Anytime you start to turn into dragon mum, you have to remove a hair tie from your wrist and place it on your other wrist. Your mission is to try and keep all hair ties on the original wrist by the end of each day.

You can choose what constitutes “losing your sh*t”. You may want to remove a hair tie every time you react poorly or mutter FFS under your breath but you may find that you’re already hair-tie-less 15 minutes later. Or you may want to stick to extra angry moments and outbursts. Up to you.

3. Earn your hair ties back

You do have the chance to ‘earn’ your hair ties back, however, It takes 5 positive interactions to undo your 1 angry-mum-moment. According to research, to have a healthy relationship, for every negative interaction you need 5 positive interactions to balance that out. It’s called the Magic 5:1 Ratio.

Does it actually work?

I first saw this angry mum hair tie trick on Happy You Happy Family. Kelly, who runs the site, explains how using the hair ties teaches our brains to be aware of what we’re doing and can help to break any bad habits.

“Visual cues are a powerful science-backed tool that will remind you to avoid a bad habit when you’re most likely to slip back into it,” Kelly writes.

Fo Kelly and her tribe, it works beautifully.

I gave it a go too and, yes, I will admit, having the hair bands on my wrist did actually help me be more aware of when I started to feel angry. Sure, I still LOST all of my hair ties for several days, but, it’s a work in progress and some days I am able to keep all of them on the original wrist.

The main thing is that having the hair ties on your wrist does make you aware. It can remind you to stop, to breathe, to perhaps calm down before you react.

Of course, this all goes to sh*t when your daughter loses the 5 billion hair ties you’ve bought her over the years and steals the ones from your wrist.

What about if you have more than one child?

You can just use all five hair ties to represent all kids or opt for different colours for each child.

I use black for my oldest, yellow for my middle child, and red for my youngest. Sure, I look like a weirdo mum who has an obsession with hair ties, but, hey, at least I’m not a dragon mum (well, not as often at least).

If you have a collection of hair ties scattered around your house, give this hair tie trick a try and let us know if it works for you.