Do your kids ever do something and you look at them and can see you doing the same thing? For example, Hadley who is now 4 got mad at his sister for walking in front of him while he was watching a movie and he immediately exploded. She was in front of him for maybe 2 seconds and was on her way but he got totally out of control over it. I realized that that was me. I explode over the littlest things and my kids are turning into some of my worst attributes. I hope I somewhat control myself a little better than he did but the fact remains that I need to calm down to have calmer children. I have come to this realization by watching friends kids who have calm parents the children are much calmer and know how to deal with things in an appropriate way for the most part, after all kids will be kids.
To make up for my bad behavior for Family Home Evening this week there is a great little article in the Friend this month that talks about how when mom and dad ask for something to be done then we do it. And how when our tummys are hungry we listen and do it, when the prophet asks us to do something than we do it. So we had Dad ask the kids to do something, his was kiss mom on the cheek and mom asked then to play a game and then we ate desert because our tummys were asking us to do that :). And we talked about how the prophet has asked us to be better families and listen and do things without being asked.
Our goal since Monday night has been for the kids to do what they are asked to with no whining or complaining and for Mom and Dad to not raise their voices and to help more when we ask the kids to something that might seem to overwhelming for them. Like when Hadley and Madelyn's room was a disaster instead of me telling them to clean their room which would make them upset and overwhelmed and would usually make me mad because they were not doing what I had asked them to do I asked them to each pick up one thing, like the train set or the cars and then I came into help when it was all done.
For me this has been a big challenge I hope you are all better and calmer than I am. I have noticed though the last day and a half we have had a lot more peace in our home.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, our reward is a movie night on Friday night. We are going to take the kids to pick out a movie and get candy, ice cream and popcorn and a special drink and stay up late (9 pm) and have some fun family time for hopefully doing a good job. We plan to continue this until we have it down, so far I don't see an end in sight but hey we are a work in progress.
Feel free to post any ideas or what you do in your family to calm down and just be a little better of a parent.
2 comments:
Hi Amber,
Well one thing I have found that makes me calmer-and I am by no means perfect in this-is having a consistant schedule. We school year round, because I find the kids get in so much more trouble when they have too much free time. I also do a two hour mandatory quiet time from 1-3 most afternoons. This gives me time to get things done, make a phone call and or take a nap. It also gives the kids time away from each other, except in the case of Kamron and Aubrey who play quietly together, which they need because they have so many little brothers who want to play with them during all of their other play times. I have also found that the more children I have the calmer I get, sounds weird, but either I am growing more patient or just more realistic. Oh, one other thing is that I consciously adore them. By this I mean I make an effort to hug, hold, remember and share all of their cute things with their Dad. These phases go quick and I try to hang on to them I guess.
Melissa
Hey Amber, thanks for letting me know about the blog, I think this is great. I appreciate you sharing your idea about FHE, we are experiencing some issues with kids (4 yrs and 2 1/2yrs old) listening to Mom and Dad as well, I'm going to look into that article. I'll be checking back often for motivation. It's been just over 2 weeks since the birth of my baby, but I'm really wanting to get back into exercizing, if only my body could start feeling somewhat normal. Did you find that the third did more damage to your body and was harder to recover than the first 2? By the way, I'm not super calm with my kids either, but there's a really good book I read that gave me inspiration. It's a quick read, with short chapters (which are easy to slip in at night), and each chapter is based on a passage from the scriptures which the author relates to mothering. It's called "Mothering With Spiritual Power" and I think the authors name is Debra Messing (or something like that). Good luck with this.
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