I always wanted kids. And I was blessed with 4. I love being a mother. I do believe it is the hardest job anyone can ever have.
For many years I stayed home with my kids, I homeschooled my oldest til he went into 8th grade. I am still at home just not homeschooling at this time. My girls have been in public school since Kindergarten. But being home with them through their earlier years was a blessing but truly an experience like no other or so I thought.
Now my girls are 8,9, and 11. I believe I am only now going into the tricky part. My husband and I work so hard on keeping our cool, breathing, counting to ten whatever it takes to not get upset, blow up and yell. Generally we do really well, and keep each other grounded. I read all these blogs and watch things on TV and some of these families seem so perfect. Like they never have conflict even when they have more kids than me. How do they do that? For years I have been trying to emulate other families and make ours better. Don't get me wrong we do very well and people are always commenting on how well behaved and how well mannered our kids are. I do feel that is a very good accomplishment. But I want to be better and I want my kids to have a wonderful childhood and look back and know their parents loved them and did everything they could to make theirs lives great.
So my 9yo is the biggest challenge I have. She is very emotional and very sensitive. Her 8yo sister seems to be maturing faster in certain ways. She does not seem to want to do anything that requires growing up at least when it comes to home and family. She does well in school and with her friends. She and I got into a tift today. She has a habit of arguing when you tell her something or going ahhh or some other sound that is a sound of not wanting to listen. We talk and talk and talk some more day after day. Explaining to her that she is doing it. She says she doesn't realize she does it and she says she can't help it. So we work on it repetitively and try to help her and there is no change it continues. So today it happened 4 times within 2 hours and Mommy just couldn't take it any longer. I am sorry to say after telling her again what she was doing and then her arguing she wasn't, I had a moment. A not so very nice pretty mommy moment. When I have a moment of course she gets worse which makes me worse and so on.
It ended with her crying and going to her room and staying for over an hour, her choice. And me regretting how it all happened and trying to figure out what can be done differently.
And that is one more thing Mommy will work on. Being a mommy is a continual work in progress.
When did you write this, Heather? You have such an awesome way of writing and getting the complete point across to the reader. You know how I am about reading. Blehk... Can't stand to read. But this was very interesting and kept me reading. Thank you. I appreciate you pointing out that mommy's are far from perfect, just like our children (even though we feel that they are perfect, sometimes it's just... GAAAHHH!) Heather, Momma, I have seen you care for your children. And I will tell you, that you do the best that you can, with what you have and what you know will work. For MY kiddos, the single worst form of discipline to them (you ask em and they will tell you this) is getting talked to. I don't mean a simple discussion about what they did wrong, or what the consequences are of the bad choices that they made. I am talking about an HOURS WORTH OF LECTURE. OMG they hate it! So, I am asking MY Heather (to those that do not know, my little girl-17-is Heather as well)about this form of discipline:
ReplyDeleteME: Heather, what 2 forms of discipline do you dislike the most?
HEATHER: 1. Yelling, 2. Lecturing.
ME: Why? 1. YELLING: It makes me feel like you just don't really care and it makes me feel like you want what you want and nothing else matters. And, it is irritating. Yelling is not effective for me.
2. LECTURING: The over & over & over & over again is annoying. I'm so used to it now, so why bother?!
ME: What is effective discipline now, for you?
HEATHER: Taking what I DO have, away from me; grounding me from my electronics, etc.
Okay, that was super painful to do that interview with Heather, for BOTH of us. LOL. She did NOT like it at all. She gets very, very irritated with me when I am trying to talk to her about anything that has to do with her responsibilities, choices & consequences, etc.
So, I just wanted to give you some ideas of what we go through in this household. Like people always say, becoming a parent does NOT come with an owner's manual or handbook! Do not feel like you have to be perfect. Do not give yourself daily or long-term goals that are going to drain you. Just give yourself small achievable goals each day. The best you can do is research ways to deal with children of all of their temperaments. Look it up. Just type in a search for behavior and temperaments in children. See what you come up with. I am so stinking tired right now, that if I have not made any sense, I apologize! LOL. Anyhooo, I need to do one of these blogs. I've been meaning to start one on www.myjournal.com. It is completely private, if you wish to keep it that way. NOBODY can access it (accept yourself or whomever ya want to know about it LOL:)). Anyway, gotta go. Gotta lay down. I am doing the touch-n-go's and nosedives into my laptop! LOL.
I love y'all & miss y'all so much....Roni Shawn
I just wrote this on Tuesday. But I feel like this several times a week.
ReplyDeleteThe conversation you has with Heather is similar to the ones I have with Aaron of course he is 17 also. I guess its just that age. But with him it doesn't seem like doing anything works. Lecture, yelling, or grounding him and taking all his things away.
I love the change to this blog. It is real cute! It seems as tho Aaron is numb to what you guys do to try to give him structure. He is probably just waiting for his b-day, and then he will say, "Im GONE!" Typical. Heather eventually understands why things have to be the way they are. And she always provides an apology when she is wrong. I listen to her intently, if she has a problem with me or Lee. Then we work on how to make things better for all of us, and make compromises.
ReplyDeleteThanks. We have been talking for ever. At the time he seems to understand and get it. We do compromise. And he has it pretty good. But he still pushes the limits. He starts out after the talk and the compromising doing great and slowly goes back to before.
ReplyDeleteI know he is waiting til he turns 18. He has already asked his girlfriend to marry him and she said yes. But of course we all know how teenagers can be.
He is lackking in responsibility. No matter what responsibility we give him he still acts 13. We explain and he already knows that moving out, having a wife/girlfriend takes a mature man. He doesn't have his license, a car or a job. He does not want to go to college which is perfectly fine with me. But what does he expect to do when he may not even finish highschool? We go over this like beating a dead horse. He says I know I know, you don't have to tell me anymore.
It will all eventually work out, but it is so stressfull and heartbreaking knowing he could be messing his life up.
OMGosh I soooo know what you are saying! IT IS like beating a dead horse! Heather does the same thing to me! She says, "what pisses me off mom, is that you keep repeating yourself over and over and over and over and over", so on and so forth. I tell her, "well if you would listen the first time, I wouldn't HAVE to repeat myself like that!" Her room is the one thing that we have a problem with. And at this complex, we are managers, and we have to make and set examples for the families that live here. I am trying to get her to realize this. Of course, the tenents dont come in and look at her room. But the people that own this place do. And it CANNOT be like that. She has been sleeping with me, cuz my bed is like HEAVEN (Lee had a bad fall when I had surgery a month ago, so he cannot sleep in our bed). Even so, if her room was clean, she would sleep in it. Her bed is FULL of shit. Clothing, etc. She got her room clean enough for a teenager. But not to MY expectations. And it is okay. I have to learn to not be perfect with house stuff. I have been terrible with that. Anyway, yah. She gets mad at me for being repetitive. And I dont care. Like I said. If she listens the first time, it wont have to be like that. LOL. For the most part tho, she is doing so well. OMG. Guess what? Shit. I gotta send you a FB message. I cant put it on here. You are gonna shit.....
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