 | 2010 Video Debut!Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 |
Hey Mama,
If you’re seeing this post via email, you’ll need to click on the link to go to my blog so you can see my new video invitation debut. I got a flip camera this past Fall and I’ve been hankering to use it.
It’s always fun to see the person behind the e-zine and the posts, eh? I’m a mama just like you! Hope you’ll click “play” to listen to my 2010 message about The Mother’s Circle!
| Day 12: 12 Days to Stop YellingFriday, January 1st, 2010 |
You did it! You have reached the last coaching post toward your goal to yell less. Congratulations!
I want to end our 12 day series with an invitation.
If it’s been helpful to you to have frequent support through these daily posts, you may be interested in learning more about a new program I’m developing.
The program will be available for only 30 moms who are ready to commit to making parenting their daily spiritual practice. This unique group of moms will become part of my inner circle group – The Mother’s Circle.
The program will include:
Mothers in the circle will become connected, despite their on-line location. Your desire to parent intentionally and with clarity will be a unique quality the circle will share.
Be sure to learn more here and don’t hesitate to ask any questions. More details will be revealed soon.
| Day 11: 12 Days to Stop YellingThursday, December 31st, 2009 |
We are almost to the end of our series and it is my hope that it has given you some great food for thought and reflection!
My goal in presenting these posts to you has been to inspire you to become more mindful when communicating with your little ones.
It would defeat the purpose of this series if you have become inspired to communicate more effectively only to become even more overwhelmed by feelings of guilt when you slip back to yelling.
Be accountable but don’t beat yourself up with guilt when you make mistakes.
“Permissive parenting leads to the creation of demanding, willful, oppositional children. Stop the cycle by truly forgiving yourself. Forgiveness takes place in three steps, which I call the ‘three R’s of forgiveness.’
First, recognize and accept your feelings. Tell yourself, ‘I feel angry and anxious, and that’s okay.’
Second, reframe the experience. Forget about finding a good guy and a villain. Admit that, given your state of mind, you did your best and so did your child.
Third, request help. Calmly ask your child to work with you in forging new patterns of behavior. Here is an example of what you might say: ‘Last night at bedtime, I screamed at you and spanked you. I did those things because I lost control, not because you are bad. Sometimes I think you want to be my boss. I am your mother and I am in charge. I am going to be a better parent. I am going to work on expressing anger differently – with words spoken firmly’” (Becky Bailey, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline).
You’ll never be the perfect mother. Your child won’t ever be the perfect child. Mistakes allow us the opportunity to grow. Shedding the guilt around making mistakes, forgiving yourself of your transgressions, and making a concerted effort toward mindful communication are all steps in the right direction to becoming more of the mom you want to be.
| Day 10: 12 Days to Stop YellingWednesday, December 30th, 2009 |
We’ve explored the common reasons we may start yelling when it comes to our children – they may not be listening or they’ve made a poor choice – we’ve even explored the idea that we don’t always take care of ourselves enough. Today, I want to talk to you about something you might not have thought of before…
From Linda Popov’s book, A Pace of Grace…
Today, reflect on the idea of “cultivating the gift of your assertiveness.”
As women, we don’t tend to like conflict or confrontation. “Assertiveness is the virtue that helps us establish what we will stand for and what we will not stand for.” If you can think of activities or people that consistently drain you, perhaps it is time to figure out what you can do to bring more energy into your life by nurturing your assertiveness so you give yourself permission to say “no”.
“Being assertive helps us avoid both aggression and passivity. It doesn’t mean being selfish and pushy. It is having the self-confidence to tell the truth about what is just, to say what we think and ask for what we need. The key to effectively practicing assertiveness is to balance it with tact.
Here are a few assertive statements you may find useful:
“I’m quite involved right now. Thanks for asking.”
“My schedule is full at the moment. Please ask me again.” (Only if you want them to!)
“I’d love to talk but I only have a few minutes. How can I help?”
“It would be great to see you, but I’m sticking close to home these days, needing a lot of quiet time. I appreciate your asking.”
“I’ve already contributed my quotient to charities this year. Good luck with your campaign.”
“Mom, my life is really full right now, so I can’t spend as much time with you as I have been. I’ll be visiting once a month and I’ll call you every week.”
“I’d be happy to help you with this new project. Which of my other jobs would you like me to put on the back burner?”
“Let me give it some thought.”
“I’ll think it over and let you know.”
“I’ll give it careful consideration.”The last three phrases are particularly helpful in responding to children’s many requests and demands. Assertiveness is essential in parenting. When we appease our children by complying with their demands in the moment, promising something we later cannot fulfill, we destroy their trust and model dishonesty. We are teaching them to lie to avoid confrontation. Peace at any price is very expensive. It costs us our integrity and robs our children of trust. Be sure to be trustworthy – as well as assertive – and after you have thought it over, let them know what you have decided” (pp 177-8 Pace of Grace).
When we yell, we are expressing aggressiveness in order to get what we want, when we want it. Mothers who don’t express their own power over decisions, requests, and demands put on them, can easily become overwhelmed, resentful, and reach their tipping point with the little people in their lives instead of with the actual stressors. Acknowledge that you possess the virtue of assertiveness; take back your power and decide what you can put on your plate. Perhaps this is just one more piece of the puzzle in helping support your desire to communicate to your children more effectively.
Let me know what you think!
| Day 7: 12 Days to Stop YellingSaturday, December 26th, 2009 |
I don’t think you can ignore the idea of exploring what you believe about expressing anger when you’re trying to stop the habit of yelling as a discipline strategy. Obviously, parents yell out of frustration and anger. You would probably agree with me that our society doesn’t seem to be very well versed in having a healthy perspective on anger.
As a child, you may have repeatedly watched your own parents explode and yell and maybe even become physically aggressive with you out of anger. It is not unusual for you to be using the same aggressive reactions that your parents used with you, on your own children.
Part of your work toward yelling less or using more effective discipline is to understand how you can appropriately express anger. It isn’t realistic to believe that you will never be upset or angry when your child behaves inappropriately.
Learn to appropriately express anger. Your children under the age of 7 are learning so much from you about the world through making mistakes, creative play, and imitation. Who are they imitating? You! Anger is an emotion and you want to be able to model how to handle strong emotions to your children.
The first place to start in learning more appropriate expression is to be sure it’s really anger you are feeling. Could you be masking another feeling? If you were punished for being emotional or even labeled “sensitive” or “a drama queen” growing up, you may be using anger to cover up your real feelings of being hurt, frustrated, disappointed, or afraid.
I read a lot of books and blogs and take pages of notes on things I love. Unfortunately, I can’t give credit to the person who came up with these 5 steps because it isn’t in my notes. If you know who you are – please reveal yourself – they’re great tips to follow once you’ve discovered that you’re truly angry!
1. When you are upset, say so in an upset or angry tone of voice.
Let your whole body speak the message in a straightforward, assertive manner-not aggressively or passively. Say what you are feeling in a firm voice. Your tone can convey anger without a loud scream or a shaky whisper.
2. Tell your child your feelings.
“I am angry!” It is critical that your body and mouth are saying the same thing. To grab the coat and throw it on the floor and say that you are not upset about anything is passive aggressive. To say in a soft whisper that you are angry is to not involve your body in delivering the message. In fact, if you quietly say you are angry, anger is probably masking another feeling.
3. State your belief out loud but avoid killer statements.
“I believe each one of us needs to pick up our own dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket.” Avoid comments such as “You never pick up your clothes.” “You are such a slob.” These killer statements only attack the other person.
4. Close the time gap between the hurt and the expression of that hurt.
Give direct feedback. Tell her what she has done. “This week I have picked up your crayons and paper every day. You dump them on the living room floor and leave them there.”
5. State what you want.
“I want you to pick up your crayons and put them in the box and put the box in the drawer.”
Write these 5 steps on a sticky note and hang it up on your mirror for practice! Let me know your struggles and triumphs as you retrain yourself during your fitful moments.
This post included in Real Life’s Your Life Your Blog
| Day 4: 12 Days to Stop YellingTuesday, December 22nd, 2009 |
You’re on Day 4 of your 12 Day Challenge! By now you may be realizing that you have been expecting too much from your child and because your expectations are often not fulfilled, you feel frustrated and angry with her.
I’m sure that just reflecting and striving to implement some of these new strategies has worn you out.
Let’s agree one more time for the record that parenting is hard work. It’s a job that stretches you. Your core qualities are being tested beyond what you think you can even manage at times. You wouldn’t be the first mama to feel overwhelmed by the tasks of consistency and fortitude!
At this point in our coaching, however, I want you to put some thought into the idea that “all behavior is communication.” Obviously, you could immediately think of your own child and contemplate what her behavior is communicating to you, especially the challenging behaviors.
But I want you to think about yourself instead. How often are you feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and angry? Think about a scale from 1 to 10. Say 10 is your rage, your absolute boiling point. Where are you on this scale most of the time?
If you’re thinking you probably fall between 5 and 10 most days, I want you to reflect on this for a moment: You already understand and acknowledge that young children will be noisy, messy, and they will most assuredly push your buttons. Their brains are still developing; they are still learning how the world works, how their own emotions work.
You’re the emotionally mature one, mama, in this scenario.
You need to take care of yourself and your own needs. If your anger and frustration consistently stay between 5 and 10, I invite you to entertain the thought that you are communicating a message to the world. You might be communicating, “I need a break! I need support! I need to rest! I need solitude!”
There’s absolutely no reason to feel guilty about needing to be away from your children now and again! In fact, it is absurd of you to expect yourself not to have regular times away in order for you to refuel, to re-energize.
If you don’t have regular dates with your spouse, schedule one sooner rather than later.
If childcare is a problem preventing you from taking a break when you need one, connect with some other moms and create a babysitting co-op. When my first child was just a baby we had a co-op with a few other families in our neighborhood. It was amazing! I would sit for a mom while her kids slept so she could go out with her husband and then she would do the same for me on another night for me and mine.
Another great way to recharge regularly is creating an early bedtime for your little ones. One of the best ways I refuel is knowing that my nights belong to me. I value a 7 or 7:30pm bedtime for my kids. I value it so much that I actually get disappointed when we have things scheduled in the evenings that will hinder me from getting them to bed early! From 7:30pm until 11pm, I can attend a mom’s night out, read, blog, scrapbook, watch a show, call a friend, snuggle with my hubby… the possibilities are endless.
Moms tell me all the time that their kids won’t go to sleep early. I’m sure there are exceptions, but this past summer when I took care of my niece and nephew for 3 weeks along with my own 2, I wasn’t surprised when I had them bathed, jammied, storied, and beded by 8pm. That was exceptional considering that they don’t have a regular early bedtime at their own house.
I LOVE the bedtime routine. It means restorative, healthy, sweet quiet is on its way. I truly believe that all mothers can have this, especially once your children are 2.5 or older. We started both of our kids on an early bedtime since birth. It evolved since nursing and fears and sickness and teething – all of these things do play a part in interrupted evening time for awhile. I forged through and there was a time when my oldest actually needed to go to bed by 6:30pm in order to sleep well! It was amazing!
But I digress…
The bottom line? If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. And if you’re pulling your hair out most of the day with your kids, then you aren’t happy and it means you are in desperate need of some personal, daily respite. It’s not a guilty pleasure, it’s a necessity. I invite you to pursue it!
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