We didn't. It passed. But of course the power went with it, and when it was still out the next morning, I had a bad feeling. We were without power for nearly a week after Hurricane Irene, and the word from BGE was that this would be a similar slog - and through 99 degree days, no less! I called my mom, looking for sympathy, and she suggested we come visit her. Yes. A fine idea. It took us about half an hour to pack up and get on the road.
The only hitch is that I am still really struggling with my dear eldest child. My mother is scaling mountains of work - excellent work - but still, work. We are not especially conducive to productivity. I am trying to contain the detritus that flies about in the wake of my darling tornadoes, and not lose my temper, nor allow my daughter to misbehave too glaringly, nor allow my son to tackle his grandmother while she is going over the rehearsal schedule. This containment effort is ill-fated at best.
Despite my ramped-up doling out of consequences (I'm trying for neutral emotions and immediate consequences in the face of minor infractions - rather than letting the rage build up after 20 such infractions and screaming like a mad woman) (Friends, please comment on this approach) (Isn't figuring out and implementing discipline the worst part of parenting?) ...good lord, where was I? Oh yes. Despite many time outs and stern words, I think things are okay. We remain relatively cheerful refugees, and our hostess has not lost her mind. Not yet, anyway.
We hear our power will most likely return on Thursday afternoon. We may just stay here til then. Staying out of Grandma's hair is inspiring visits with friends, sweaty playground adventures, trips to the market, and stops at our favorite cafe. Hopefully all the fun will ease parent-child relations, lessen the need for disciplinary interventions, and quiet any concerns my mom might be entertaining about whether or not she raised an intolerant tyrant.
Oh Mom, I'm doing it out of love! I'm pretty sure I am, anyway. That and desperation.
4 comments:
Oh, yes, discipline is awful. I don't have any words of advice, just wanted to let you know you are not alone in the frustration. I hate yelling, and yet sometimes it is so hard not to completely lose it at my kid. She's only 5 and generally a great love and friend, but man, our kids can bring out the best and worst of us.
I had this same feeling sunday; embarrassed in front of my mom for riding herd on my kids, and worried that she thought we were being tyrannical and intolerant. But, we have to live with them, and we are responsible for them. I try to remember that this, too, shall pass, even as I'm trying to keep them in line. It is hard!
You are an amazing, extraordinarily gifted mother. No worries. Your post made me remember all my screaming-mimi days. Yikes. Parenting is tough. You are doing a wonderful job corralling these two and trying to instill a little decorum. Ain't easy.
Hey Meagan, I know nothing I’m going to say will be new to you, but I just wanted to throw my support behind the immediate, short consequences as opposed to yet another discussion/talk/lecture and/or an eventual larger and anger tinged response from us the parents. I certainly try to be vigilant about not completely forgetting the other strategies (I won’t bore anyone with listing out all the ones that come to mind) and over using the consequences just because they are so effective, but for my money my number one concern while setting limits that turn into a conflict (after labeling and accepting any emotions that are coming out) is not creating a sense of shame in Olive. I certainly want Olive to feel a bit ashamed when she’s in middle school and treats someone badly because the cool kids don’t like said kid (although even then I’d recognize and respect the difficulty of middle school social politics), but I can’t really think of anything in my daily struggles with Olive where I want her to come away feeling shame.
I have a whole host of reasons for this, but the one that I think really sums them all up is that my understanding of current brain research paints shame as a very insidious emotion, one that is stored more widely throughout and in lower areas of the brain than other emotions and one that is therefore more readily enveloped into our self-images/concepts. With the way the brain works, once it’s in those lower parts of our brain as part of our self-image/concept, that is some hard shit to change.
How this relates to short, immediate consequences for me is that using them allows us (as you alluded to) to maintain our calm and not in tone or substance deny our child our love simply because she was acting like a child (which she is). Olive is three and half now, so just like the child development books tell you, she has entered a new phase of disequilibrium which is again involving more bizzarely defiant and angry behavior.
Last night I had to go up to her room a bunch of times as she was making excuses to try to have company for even one minute and then at one point she refused to go back into her bedroom at all for a stretch of time. In these situations we take away certain categories of toys one at a time and for very small increments (so we can keep adding on without feelings like we’re taking away too much) until she’s complied with our need (in this case for her to get some sleep). Last night was probably the worst or second worst evening with her since she hit around 18 months, and she eventually lost a good number of her favorite toys up through nap time today, but I never got to the point where I was angry or saying the inane shit we turn to when we’ve held off on any consequence in the hope that she’ll do what we want before we have to deal with a consequence (you know, good stuff like, “do you want to lose your toys?”), so I was able to stay calm and exude an empathy for her situation while still having her eventually do what I needed her to do. I fell asleep without being angry at her or myself, and I’m fairly certain she went to sleep without ever having the feeling that I loved her less while I was systematically taking away her toys for the following day.*
Ack, this is way too long. I hope this didn’t come off like I was trying to educate you on the topic, I just really believe strongly in this stuff and have a hard time typing “I agree with you” without jumping on my soap box : )
*Disclaimer, I’m not perfect at this. Oh, and don’t worry, she still had plenty of things to play with today.
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