How often do you hear from your kids, "NO!" "I don't want to." "This isn't fair. Why doesn't she have to help?" I don't want to clean the dishes." "I am too tired to clean up." "Why do I have more chores than my siblings?"
I hear those sentences or something similar to it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!
How do you respond to those comments? Some days I stay in control and reply calmly with, "I know." or "I would appreciate if you would help even if you don't want to." Other days, I respond with, "I am tired too!", "I am always the one who does everything around here.", "Just wait til you are an adult and have kids of your own!"
You can imagine how the second set of responses ends up...slamming doors, mean words yelled, elevated blood pressures, anxiety fills the room, and everyone is unhappy and No one feels heard.
If you have to win the battles with your kids, that means your kids have to lose. We do not want a win-lose relationship. We want a win-win relationship.
So how do we get that kind of relationship? We must act from love. We must love our self first and foremost. We must have respect for our self and understand that what someone else says cannot change the worth within us. We must believe our own Thoughts about our value and our ability as a parent. If we truly believe we are a good parent, we won't believe the words that our child says. We will react to their comments with love for them and curiosity as to why they are saying those words.
I am still working on this, and I do better on some days than others. But one thing is for certain, Kids show us our weaknesses faster than any other person.
So next time your kid says No, take the time to say a quiet "thank you" that you get to practice being the Adult in the situation. And if you end up acting out, then just get curious with yourself to figure out why you responded as you did and then try to do better the next time.
It takes practice and thankfully our kids give us lots of times to practice. HA HA!
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