Parenting is fluid; if it never needed tweaking we’d still be working on sleep patterns and whether you need to eat or just have a pacifier. It’s also different for each child – just because I’ve had a 6-year-old before doesn’t mean I’ve had a 6-year-old Ada before who thinks she’s my equal. I’m currently rereading Boundaries With Kids for a book study I’m leading, and I’m SO glad. Here are a couple of things I’m tweaking, thanks to this book…
Homework I hate the homework battle. It seems to me that my kids should be used to it, but by that logic I would also be used to laundry and dishes. Every time I announce that it’s homework time I hear that dreaded “AWWWWW!” Not that Look at the cute baby kind of Aww, but the Do I have to? kind. And I get irritated. Every time. The book is teaching me that it’s GOOD for kids to protest things. This is how they learn to stand up against bullies or the bad choices of others. They are allowed to dislike homework. I did! It’s not my job to make them like homework, it’s just my job to make them do it. So the book encourages empathizing, “I know you don’t like homework,” then that’s it. If they don’t come when you call, that’s where the consequence comes in. So I’m working on that this week, and naturally Grace had a full-on, freak-out, rage over doing homework today. Calm….calm….I got this….
Feelings vs. Fits “I will listen to your feelings, but I won’t listen to a fit.” I say that to Grace so much I feel like I should just make a sign of it. If I empathize she takes that as her signal to open the flood gates, which is fine, but the longer it goes on, the more she tests the boundary of what is acceptable to say to me. She did this just today. She was singing a song she learned from another kid at school, and the words became quite inappropriate. I explained to her why the words were inappropriate, and now that she knew I expected her to not sing it anymore. She started sobbing because she never gets to make any choices, she just always has to listen to whatever I say, parents are always the boss…etc, etc. I just kept saying, “I know, it’s hard, I know that’s how you feel, I know” blah blah blah… 🙂 Then her words turned into, “Parents are so bossy.” Aaaand we’re done here. I explained, still very calmly, that I will gladly listen to her feelings, but I would not listen to disrespectful words. This is another technique I’ve learned from the book. (I love this book!) I forget this technique though if I haven’t had to use it in a while, so I’m glad I’m reading again so the tool will be on the top of my tool box!
So that’s where this journey has taken me this week. Sometimes I feel like we’re white water rafting, with some calm moments and some moments of holy-crap-someone’s-gonna-fall-overboard. As long as we keep tweaking and adjusting with the kids, hopefully at least the life jackets will stay on.
[subscribe2]