One of the (many, many) things I want to do with this blog is give parents, especially stay-at-home parents, some tools to help them when they feel overwhelmed by their children.
It happens, even to the best, most patient parents. Children are not particularly reasonable creatures, what with the natural (and appropriate!) self-centredness they sport a lot of the time. And sooner or later, things will reach a breaking point. A kid will throw a tantrum, a parent will bark an order and then suddenly the day is cascading down like that pile of stuff you were hoping would balance for just one blessed minute on the edge of the table.
I have a trick that I do in that sort of circumstance, and it might help you too.
Being a chatty sort of “let’s learn by example and explanation” parent, I’ll say, out loud, ‘Wow, things are getting crazy here, aren’t they? Let’s stop before we all get too mad.” Then, I wil crouch down to their level, give them a hug *and say, “let’s take a few deep breaths and loosen up a bit.”
That’s just the my intro and something else might work better for you but here’s the important part:
Then we all stand up, and breathe in as we raise our arms over our heads. Then we drop our arms down (sometimes with a boneless sort of wiggle) and while we breathe out we say a long silly-sounding word. My favourite is “hippopotamus” but “rhinocerus” has good results too (if things are desperate and toilet humour isn’t big no-no at your place, you can even try saying poooooooop).
If you do this three times in a row, it gives everyone a chance to calm down and shakes the tension right out of the room. And it gives you back the measure of control (in a sensible, non-control-freak way) that you need to make it through the next little while without losing it.
See, like I’ve said already, three deep breaths – makes almost everything feel better.
Now, I’m not trying to come across as some sort of Madonna-like, peace-perfect parent here. I don’t manage this EVERY time, but every time I can do this it always helps.
*If you are so mad that you can’t bear to be touched, please know that that is okay. You can feel however you feel, it’s your actions that have the impact, so if you need to move away to calm down before trying this, please do. There’s enough parenting guilt out there, I’m not trying to create more.
