Help! I’m Not Enjoying My Child
Do you ever feel like things aren’t quite right between you and your child? Before you had kids of your own, you may have assumed that when you became a mother you’d feel wonderful about them all the time. You knew, of course, that there would be occasional conflict; you didn’t expect them to be happy when you disciplined them, for example. But still, you knew how much you’d love your kids, and you thought that that love would help you avoid most relational conflict with them.
Now, though, as your kids have grown past the baby stage and developed personalities and desires of their own, things aren’t always as happy as you imagined they’d be. If you’re like a lot of mothers, you may feel guilty that things aren’t better more often. You might feel bad that sometimes you feel like you don’t even like your children or your role as a mom. You might feel like you’re the only one struggling with your kids. You might wonder what’s wrong with you.
The truth, though, is that relationships ebb and flow. We know that’s true, and we expect rough patches in long-term relationships.
Guess what? What you have with your kids is a relationship, too. And you’ll go through rough patches in that relationship, too.
Sometimes, you just aren’t in a good place to connect. Maybe you’re not taking care of yourself and your patience is chronically low. That’s not a good match for a child who is simultaneously pushing your buttons or who is struggling with patience herself.
Or maybe your child isn’t in a good place to connect. She may be going through a phase where she’s experimenting with being a little more independent, and it means you’re not hearing much about what’s going on with her, and this is happening at a time when you’re craving more connection. Sometimes needs of individuals in the family are in conflict, and we struggle.
Rough patches just happen sometimes. Here are four suggestions to help you get some perspective on the whole situation:
Take the long view.
Realize that it’s normal for relationships to have upswings and downswings, and if you’re not hitting your stride with your child at the moment, it will likely come back around. Today may be tough, but tomorrow will be better. Or this week may be tough, and next week better. As children develop, it’s normal for them to disconnect from their parents in various ways at various stages. Stay consistent and loving in your interactions with your child, and have faith that things will come back around.
Evaluate your child’s needs.
Ask yourself whether there’s something your child needs right now that he’s not getting. More time with you? More affection? More attention? Less conversation and more independence? More responsibility? Often, a child acts out because he’s needing something and doesn’t know how to ask. So do your best to listen to his actions and see what’s going on.
Evaluate your own needs.
What do you need right now that you’re not getting? Time by yourself? Time with your spouse or friends? More sleep? More exercise? You know that old saying: If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. So take care of yourself.
Keep investing yourself in the relationship.
Time, effort, and intention go a long way. Just as in your adult relationships, you’ll see your relationship with your child grow and deepen as you put in the time and remain a consistent, steady, loving presence in his life. As the relationship ebbs and flows, be the rock your child knows she can count on when she needs you.
See the original of this article at mom.me.
How to Talk to Your Tween Girl: Keep the connection even after she’s done with the kid stuff
I’ve recently written two articles for mom.me about communicating with tweens. Here’s the one about talking with your pre-teen daughter.
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She’s not a teenager yet. But she’s sure not a child anymore, at least in the way she used to be. Just last week her school notebook contained pictures of cute puppies. Now she actually talks about cute boys.
One foot in childhood, one in adolescence. Sometimes sweet and playful, sometimes moody and sensitive. She’s a tween.
How do you talk to her? Here are some suggestions.
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Click here to read the full article.
Click here to read my article about communicating with pre-teen boys.
8 Reasons to Be Grateful for Tantrums
Here’s a new post on Mom.me. It begins like this:
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Grateful? Really?
I know what you’re thinking: “File this one under ‘You can’t be serious.’”
But I am serious.
Nobody likes a tantrum: not your little one, and certainly not you. But even though we don’t enjoy our kids’ tantrums, there are plenty of reasons to be grateful for the times when they get the most upset.
For example . . .
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Click here to check out the whole piece.
My Appearance on “Conversations with Richard Fidler”
Yesterday I spent a fun hour with the delightful Richard Fidler on ABC Radio in Australia.
How Much Am I Screwing Up My Kids When I Don’t Handle Myself Well?
How well do you handle yourself when you’re upset with your kids?
Me? Sometimes I respond extremely well, making myself proud of how loving and understanding and patient I remained. At other times, I lower myself to my kids’ level and resort to the childishness that upset me in the first place.
My message to you today is that when you respond to your kids from a less-than-optimal place, take heart: most likely, you’re still providing them with all kinds of valuable experiences.
For example, have you ever found yourself so frustrated with your kids that you call out, a good bit louder than you need to, “That’s it! The next one who complains about where they’re sitting in the car, has to sit in that same seat for the rest of the year!”
Or maybe, when your eight-year-old pouts and complains all the way to school because you made her practice her piano, you say, with your parting words as she departs the mini-van, “I hope you have a great day, now that you’ve ruined the whole morning.”
Obviously, these aren’t examples of perfect parenting. And if you’re like me, you beat yourself up for the times when you don’t handle things like you wish you had.
So here’s hope: Those not-so-great parenting moments are not necessarily such bad things for our kids to have to go through. In fact, they’re actually incredibly valuable.
Why? Because these less-than-perfect parental responses Continue Reading »
When a Parenting Expert Loses It: How NOT to Discipline a Preschooler
Here are some things parents say to me about their discipline frustrations:
–I feel like I just put my daughter in time out all the time and don’t know what else to do when she’s misbehaving.
–I don’t feel like I have an overall theory of discipline. It’s more that I just do whatever comes out at the time. Sometimes my reaction or instinct is really good, and other times I’m being just as immature or reactive as my toddler. I just feel like I need to give more thought to it and have a plan.
–I feel disempowered. I think I’ve been told a list of things that I should NOT do –spank, yell, etc. – but I don’t know what I CAN do, other than just take a toy away. So I find myself making empty or meaningless threats (“Do that again and you’re going to be in BIG trouble!”) and then I’m just so frustrated. I don’t know what to do in the moment.
Do these parents’ comments resonate with you? I can certainly identify. I remember how clueless I felt as a new parent, and even though the stories often end up being funny in retrospect, I’m embarrassed at how I responded at times when my kids acted out.
The Parenting Expert Gets Taken Down by Her Own Reactive Brain
One day my three-year-old got mad and hit me. I guided him to his time-out spot at the bottom of our stairway, sat next to him, and smiled. I lovingly (and naively) said, “Hands are for helping and loving, not for hurting.”
While I was uttering this truism, he hit me again.
So I tried the empathy approach: “Ouch! That hurts mommy. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”
At which point he hit me again.
I then tried the firm approach: “Hitting is not OK. Don’t hit any more. If you’re mad you need to use your words.”
Yup, you guessed it. He hit me again.
I was lost. I felt I needed to up the ante. In my most powerful voice I said, “Now you’re in time out at the top of the stairs.”
I marched him up to the top of our stairs. He was probably thinking, “Cool! We’ve never done this before. . . I wonder what will happen next if I keep hitting her?”
At the top of the stairs, I bent over at the waist, my pointer finger wagging, and said, “NO MORE HITTING!”
He didn’t hit me again. Continue Reading »
Give Your Toddler or Preschooler a Little Power (revised)
Toddlers and preschoolers see their grown-ups and older siblings doing everything so easily. It can be frustrating and discouraging for these little ones to try and try, and not be able to do what they see everyone else doing.
Knowing that self-esteem can come from being competent at something, there are several ways we can empower our toddlers and preschoolers and give them opportunities to feel capable and competent:
Let them do things for themselves.
Sometimes it’s hard for a parent not to step in and quickly do something a child is trying to do. Especially if the child is taking a long time to, say, figure out how all of the chalk pieces will go back into the box. (Sometimes I want to pull my hair out when I’m watching my own four-year-old meticulously try to fix the Velcro fastener on the back of his Continue Reading »
Related Posts
How to Talk to Your Tween Girl: Keep the connection even after she’s done with the kid stuff
Overestimating Your Child’s Ability to Deal?
Sharing, Taking Turns, and Other Things That Suck