If so, how do you cope with the moments that raise tension and cause ptsd flare ups? How do you handle the PTSD situations without your kids knowing something is seriously wrong? Like my thoughts race in those moments and my judgement is impaired.
I'm not sure what you mean by PTSD flare ups. It effects it all differently and there are many symptoms that could be considered a flare up. So I'll go with what you say about your thoughts racing and being unable to judge what to do.
I would take a two fold approach. Firstly, read a lot and learn about what experts say are good parenting methods.
The two life changing methods that I learned was 1,2,3 timeout. So you give a clear instruction "stop throwing the ball", then you say 1, stop throwing the ball, 2, stop throwing the ball now, 3, that's time out. The child then gets 1 minute (depends how old the child is) sitting on the stair without any attention or you talking to him/her. If they get off, they have to start their minute all over again. Personally, after the minute was up, I would go and explain why what they had done wasn't acceptable and that i loved them loads. I learned that from a video my health visitor leant me. It was a long time ago, but I googled it to see if I could find ot for you and I thing this is the one
http://www.123magic.com/ . I've explained the basic method, but the video also taught me lots about attitudes towards parenting and really opened my eyes to a new way, that worked for me because I couldn't rely on emotional reactions to be a good parent.
The other useful thing I learned was when my son started having temper tantrums. I couldn't cope well with that, and would literally go and hide, then kick myself and tell myself I shouldn't hide in the bedroom. So I read up on it, and the expert advice at that time was that parents shouldn't respond to temper tantrums with attention. They should make sure the child is having their tantrum in a safe place, and leave them until they have calmed down a bit. So then, instead of running away in a panic, I would make sure he was safe, tell him I wasn't going to respond until he had calmed down and walk away knowing it was ok for me to do that. I smoked at the time, and used to go outside and have a cigarette, and in the house I lived, I could look through the window to make sure he was ok. But it was the knowing that it was ok for me to walk away, that made the difference.
I also found during the day time that if he was being demanding and I was feeling crap, that going to the park or for a walk somewhere nice worked well. It gave him the chance to play and run around, but it was also a relaxing place for me because it was in a nice place with trees all around and it gave me space to be calm.
So the first part of the two fold approach is to learn set methods to handle certain behaviors. This means that you don't need to be making decisions on the spur of the moment because you are already prepared.
The second part, is to practice ways to bring your anxiety down to a manageable level quite quickly. For me it was smoking, but that's not a recommended method lol. There are lots of breathing methods and grounding methods that you can use. But also, when you can, make sure that you find time out to do whatever you find relaxing for yourself.
It's worth realising also, that most parents find the early years stressful and feel like they don't know what they're doing and that every other parent must be better than them.
