Emotionally
This week was #2 in my happiness challenge and I focused on increasing my emotional happiness through better parenting. It was a great week. I didn't raise my voice, I limited my sarcasm, and I tried to be more fun and easy going when my kids were being challenging.
On the first day when my three-year-old spilled her full bowl of cereal all over the floor, I sang to her to get a towel and clean it up instead of my usual, are ya kidding me? In fact, singing helped a lot in the beginning of the week. I sang to my children when they were fighting and I sang to them when I was super annoyed for various reasons. The best was when my three-year-old sang back to me in a very operatic voice telling me she would sit nicely at the table. I laughed out loud and that was a wonderfully fun moment that I appreciated.
I feel like I'm constantly correcting my kids. Eat over your plate. Be nice. Don't scare your little sister. Give that back. Stop whacking him with the blanket. Try that again. Sit nicely, please. Go brush your teeth. Did you actually brush your teeth? Go try again. Clean up your room. Clothes don't belong on the floor. What did you just say to me? Try that again. Still toys on the floor. We don't throw food. Close the door. Try that again.
It was so refreshing to lighten up a bit this week and decide to respond to the daily challenges of life with a silly song or to just ignore what I could. I approached everything with a more positive attitude it made a big difference. It certainly helped that this week was almost entirely unplanned. I didn't have to rush my kids out the door to go anywhere and could really just roll with our mood. I had thought we would go to the pool one morning but when everyone was just kind of tired and we ended up hanging out all morning, it was all good. They played so nicely all together that morning and I was so glad to let them. Normally I would have felt like we were wasting one of our last summer days and we should go have fun and I might have tried to push them out the door, but not this week. This was I'm-a-chill-mom-and-I-will-sing-to-you-if-you-annoy-me week. So we'll see how I handle life when we add in school, dance, baseball, and me back to teaching piano lessons at the most stressful time of the day. But I'm grateful to have had this week to experiment and see that even with my very type A personality and the demands of raising four young children that I can choose to relax in the moment. I can choose to make it a silly or funny moment instead of a uh-oh-mom-is-going-to-be-mad-that-I-just-made-my-baby-brother-cry moment. I can still raise four fantastic children with good manners and respect for our home and each other even if sometimes I laugh at their behavior instead of being so bothered by it.
I am definitely happy after this week. No residual guilt for how I treated my kids this week and that makes for a happy me! Week #2 is in the success column.
On the first day when my three-year-old spilled her full bowl of cereal all over the floor, I sang to her to get a towel and clean it up instead of my usual, are ya kidding me? In fact, singing helped a lot in the beginning of the week. I sang to my children when they were fighting and I sang to them when I was super annoyed for various reasons. The best was when my three-year-old sang back to me in a very operatic voice telling me she would sit nicely at the table. I laughed out loud and that was a wonderfully fun moment that I appreciated.
I feel like I'm constantly correcting my kids. Eat over your plate. Be nice. Don't scare your little sister. Give that back. Stop whacking him with the blanket. Try that again. Sit nicely, please. Go brush your teeth. Did you actually brush your teeth? Go try again. Clean up your room. Clothes don't belong on the floor. What did you just say to me? Try that again. Still toys on the floor. We don't throw food. Close the door. Try that again.
It was so refreshing to lighten up a bit this week and decide to respond to the daily challenges of life with a silly song or to just ignore what I could. I approached everything with a more positive attitude it made a big difference. It certainly helped that this week was almost entirely unplanned. I didn't have to rush my kids out the door to go anywhere and could really just roll with our mood. I had thought we would go to the pool one morning but when everyone was just kind of tired and we ended up hanging out all morning, it was all good. They played so nicely all together that morning and I was so glad to let them. Normally I would have felt like we were wasting one of our last summer days and we should go have fun and I might have tried to push them out the door, but not this week. This was I'm-a-chill-mom-and-I-will-sing-to-you-if-you-annoy-me week. So we'll see how I handle life when we add in school, dance, baseball, and me back to teaching piano lessons at the most stressful time of the day. But I'm grateful to have had this week to experiment and see that even with my very type A personality and the demands of raising four young children that I can choose to relax in the moment. I can choose to make it a silly or funny moment instead of a uh-oh-mom-is-going-to-be-mad-that-I-just-made-my-baby-brother-cry moment. I can still raise four fantastic children with good manners and respect for our home and each other even if sometimes I laugh at their behavior instead of being so bothered by it.
I am definitely happy after this week. No residual guilt for how I treated my kids this week and that makes for a happy me! Week #2 is in the success column.
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