It's gonna a long one so grab your latte, your muffin, and brace yourselves ... or you could just skip to the comments and tell me something random that you regret about your early parenting days that would make my head spin.
I have been at my wit's end with Zesty this week. He's just been out of control. Tantrum after tantrum after ear-splitting tantrum. Defiant, into absolutely everything when I'm busy with Pinky, and doing anything to break any guidelines or rules we have for him. I have talked gently, yelled, ignored, appeased, distracted, spanked, countless time-outs, and nothing has worked.
Don't pretend you haven't been there, I see you nodding your head in understanding.
I found myself sitting in the car in front of CVS Thursday morning, bawling my eyes out. Pinky woke up wheezing and barking like a seal. My husband and I quarreled over the phone the whole time I was getting the kids ready to go to the doctor, at the doctor's office, and on the way to CVS because I got offended at how I perceived his reaction to my urgent worrying about Pinky. I'm the kind of mom who usually will try and wait an illness out, but this time her breathing was so labored - the nurse who took my call told me there wasn't going to be an open appointment until late afternoon, and I was ready to take her into the ER until she found me an earlier slot. It was that bad. Anyways, I overreacted to Mr Lemon's initial comment and hollered at him, hung up on him. Generally throwing a sweet little tantrum of my own. Not that I didn't have an excuse for being upset, but it wasn't reason enough to go off the deep end about it.
So there was that, and having to put Pinky on antibiotics for the second time in two weeks, and Zesty screaming bloody murder in the backseat, and us having to take our family out of church early the night before because two of the three were just ridiculous with their behavior and the third was well on her way to an upper respiratory infection - it all was too much. TOO MUCH.
Back to the pharmacy - I turned around while I was driving, once again, to show Zesty how to sit in his carseat, and I caught a glimpse of my facial expression in the rear-view mirror.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury - it was flat out ugly.
I am not exaggerating, the thought that crossed my mind was "If there is a video camera aimed at my car, I will totally be in jail in five minutes just for the fact of what my face looks like and the fact that Zesty is screaming."
That was the wake-up call. I sat in that parking lot and prayed harder than I have ever prayed in my life that God would help me to turn this trainwreck around. What am I going to gain if my kids obey me instantly out of fear instead of a heart that wants to do right? I felt like I was crossing the line from discipline and training into punishment and - dare I say it out loud? Abuse. It was a broken, heart-wrenching moment, and as terrible as it felt, I know that the Lord heard me. I had to change what I was doing immediately.
The perspective - I read a bunch of parenting websites and tried to glean a nugget of Godly principle from them. One thing that stood out to me was a statement about smiling at your children. Basically, the reason your children - my children - act out is built up stress over some unmet need. Closeness, attention, parental stability, hungry, tired - something is going unattended. They have natural stress reducers called tears and giggles. The point is to find the stressor and deal with that instead of treating the symptoms (like tantrums).
No matter what they do, what they say, smile. Grit your teeth and smile. Keep it pasted on your face. It builds a habit, and your smile will be mirrored on their faces. Your stress will be reduced because they will smile and not cry. Their stress will be reduced because they are receiving affirmation from you. And then you will have more time to give positive attention to them because you're not wasting those precious minutes by correcting them or being mad at them.
So -just for kicks- I tried it. I smiled all day Friday. From the time I got up to the time I went to bed I smiled. A few times I caught my eyebrows furrowing and I jerked those suckers back in line quick-like.
It was amazing. I didn't tell my husband or Splenda what I was doing, I just kept smiling. I didn't let Splenda's teenage angst over what to pack for her youth retreat wipe the smile off my face. In fact, my efforts to keep an honest smile on my lips resulted in more patience and more listening to what she was actually saying and needing from me. Even that leaky bottle of bathroom cleaner in the trunk of my car couldn't get to me. I kept smiling.
Throughout the day, I still had a smile on my face. Out and about after dropping off Mr Lemon and
!!
He actually understood what I was saying when I didn't holler at him. I was in shock. I didn't mince my words or use baby language - I simply presented to him the fact that Mommy's way is safe and his way is comfy. Let's find a safe and comfy way to sit.
He took a nap in the car, telling me "I so sleepy, and I going to sleep in the carseat so I can play when we get home." Of course that turned into a three hour nap in which Pinky toddled around after me while I cleaned. When he got up, I fixed him some popcorn and showed him how to thread beads onto pipe-cleaners. The three of us played Ring Around The Rosy, collapsing on the floor in giggles. We tickled. Cuddled. Read out loud. I made him a butterfly out of some scrap felt. He put his blanket and pillow into his tent next to a little table, climbed up on top of the table, and announced he was "going to my downstairs" - and went in the tent. We played with hats. They went to bed, everybody happy.
There were no spankings that day.
Because I smiled.
You might think that is a silly technique, and Lord knows I need more than one day of purposely smiling to straighten out the mess I've made by losing my cool with a toddler, a sensitive daughter, and a stretched-to-the-max husband. But I feel confident that I'm on the right track. Self-control with my family is much more important to me.
I'm gonna smile.
They are worth it.
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