(Almost) nothing done

Seriously, I think I've done nothing since Saturday's post.  It wasn't a total loss this weekend, but it was not great. First, to recap from the last post, it turns out that my son was not-not invited to a b-day party of a friend; the parent I was speaking with had misspoke about who's birthday it was. So I was wound around the axle for nothing. But we did do a playdate the next day with my daughter's friend, and that went pretty well--until my daughter peed her pants at their house. this is the first daytime accident she's had since she potty trained, so it really was a case of just being too excited. I almost handled it well. We  had just given the 5 minute "we're leaving soon" warning when it happened, so it seemed natural the just go ahead and leave.  But I was a little irritated/embarassed, so I was like, "well, we've got to go. we can't stay now."  Not a nice move. Commence meltdown.

The fallout from the meltdown (and her being generally tired) lasted all day and night, until bedtime, when she was pouting about something (I don't even remember).  I finally remembered/chose to practice empathetic listening, and bam, defenses came down and tears commenced.  I'm glad that the technique works so well, but I frequently fear that the only emotion my children can express well is sadness.

Tomorrow is a big day for me as I start school full-time again. I am going to be super stressed out fairly soon. On the bright side, I will be less depressed and probably less anxious, since school give's me something to focus on.  So, parenting goal for tomorrow:

The power of touch and non-verbal communication.  The first one is easy--I will just focusing on being more affectionate, and touching their arm when I am trying to get their attention (instead of repeating their names multiple times). The second is something I need to work on more. A lot of times I am just going through the motions and my heart is not really in it. And my daughter can tell. We are like a rubber band on two different fingers. If I pull away, she wants to follow. So I guess I'll be more mindful with them tomorrow.

Stay-listening

ok, so here was Thursday's goal: http://www.handinhandparenting.org/news/166/64/Offering-Reassurance

Basically, it's being there for your kids even when they're being a brat. "I understand you're upset. I'm here for you."  Sticking to your guns but being comforting at the same time. And honestly, I'm pretty good about that, most of the time.  As opposed to some of the parenting tips I've learned that are hard all the time, this one is easy when I choose to do it. It's the choosing that's difficult. Today was difficult.

I just found out my son was not invited to a b-day party of a classmate. I know it shouldn't matter but it did.  I had just had that classmate over to my house not a month ago and talked to his mom for a couple of hours. She has been promising for a month that she would reciprocate. I found out about the b-day party when I called another pre-school friend of my daughter's for a playdate, and her mom said she couldn't become because she was at that kid's b-day party.  I know my son is better friends with that kid then the girl I was inviting over, so I can only assume he wasn't invited because of me.

See, I am not a super-social outgoing person.  I don't know how to small talk well (another legacy from my mom, who can't make it at all). I say hi to the other moms at drop off, but we're not facebook friends. I guess I will try to rectify that next year when they start public school; facebook does seem to be the great equalizer.  Anyway, the whole thing may me feel rejected (irrational perhaps, but there it is) and hurt.  So I was in an extremely bad mood, and when I'm in a bad mood, I go into me emotional cave (thanks for that too, Mom--wow I have got serious Mommy issues). I don't want to talk, don't want to be talked to, nothing.  

That's not entirely true. I go into an emotional cave with my family.  I would love to reach out to friends, but I don't really have any anymore.  That's not entirely true, I live a in a great neighborhood, and I do go out with my neighbors sometimes and enjoy hanging out with them. But we are all busy. We're moms, we have jobs/school, it's not like high school or college anymore.  And my best friends are useless in the venting department, since neither of them have children.

I need something to force me out of my cave. It's hard to talk to my kids normally, but when I'm depressed, I just resent it. Since there's no easy fix for that, I'm going to just set a goal to do something positive with the kids.  Tomorrow night we'll try to do taco night and a pajama walk.  A pajama walk is when you get the kids totally ready for bed and then take them around the block in their pajamas.  Sounds lame, but I've read about it in a couple of places and it seems easy, so we'll try.

Oh, back to stay-listening--the reason I find it easy is because I know what I'm supposed to say. As opposed to so many of the other parenting moments when it's ad-hoc (lib?) and I have no idea what to do next, this one's easy. They're crying/pouting/whatever, and I just acknowledge their feelings and comfort them as best I can. Easy--when I'm up to it.

Speech love language

Blah. Talking.  I'm so tired by the end of the day. They are, after all, kids, and talking to them makes me feel good about myself as a parent, but it's certainly not the same as sitting and having coffee with a good friend. But it was a good reminder to make myself try and talk to them more.

I am generally doing better as a parent since starting this blog.  Prior to this, I tended to focus on the negative--on all the bad things I was doing as a parent.  I used to go to a MOPS church group and would frequently, and embarrassingly, end of up in tears as I talked to whoever was in my small group of moms about what a bad parent I thought I was. And despite everyone's reassurances to the contrary, I was.  Focusing on it made me feel bad, and it didn't improve anything. The only positive to come out of it was that I decided to start writing a family history of just what my siblings and I remember from growing up, and yeah, it sucked. A lot. It was somewhat reassuring to discover it sucked just as much for them. You always need a little reassurance when surrounded by crazy whether you're sane or not. A therapist I talked to a while back diagnosed my mom based on my descriptions as being borderline personality disorder.  I looked it up, and suddenly it all made sense. But I'll go into that another time when I'm up for emotionally draining blog posts.

In my mom's defense, borderline personality disorder is often caused by severe emotional abuse, so the fact that I seem to suffer mostly from a lot of anxiety is a testament that she tried to do better than was done to her. And I'm gonna try too.

Anyway, enough background. Parenting goal for tomorrow: stay-listening. Here's a great article on the subject:

http://www.handinhandparenting.org/news/166/64/Offering-Reassurance

Love languages....

I was recently able to join a dear friend on a spur of the moment adventure to a waterpark.  She scored free tickets and knew I was crazy enough to drive 3 hours and take the kids out of school to do it. I did, and the kids had a great time.  My mom never did anything spur of the moment, so I think I try to make up for it by being up for doing almost anything, no matter how crazy. My husband knows better than to try to talk me out of stuff and just sighs and goes about his business.

There's a book I skimmed once that said there were 5 love languages that people speak to varying degrees.  Words, acts of service, quality time, physical touch, and gifts. I suck at quality time.  Spending time at home with the kids playing pretend, or doing games and crafts makes time seem to slow down to a trickle.  I am an acts of service person. Doing totally insane stuff for my kids is the easiest way for me to show love.  I feel bad though, since even during acts of service, quality time is important. I find it no easier to spend good quality time with them in vacation destination than it is at home. Sometimes it's even harder than at home since I'm exhausted from traveling.

But I don't think acts of service really shows love, at least not for kids. Kids are pretty egocentric at this age anyway, so doing acts of service could just be spoiling them.  Just another area to work on I guess.

I think tomorrow I'll work on the words part of love language. Still easier than quality time.

Clarifying directions

So, I didn't blog last night because I was a bit tipsy and really tired. But yesterday's goal was clarifying instructions for kids. Suggestions were getting down on their level when talking to them, having them repeat it, saying it in more than one way.  Actual carry out was more like this: "Edward, pick up the bag and take it to the garbage. <pause, repeat with more emphasis in a way that you would never talk to your friends> Edward, Pick Up the Bag, and Take It to the Garbage."  On the other hand, since I was checking to make sure they were following through (not the ideal way to check for understanding), I didn't get angry when I told them something and they just didn't do it. Baby steps.

Because I'm aready halfway through today, I'm going to just work on a combination of all the tips so far, so today is:
5-1 ratio in the love banks (5 positive interactions are required to make up for one negative interaction
Commenting on everything they are doing
Giving them the same respect I give adults
Clarifying instructions.

I am also somewhat exhausted from Thursday's all day outing with the kids, Friday's late night with the kids, and a birthday party today. My inner introvert needs a recharge. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Talking to children like adults

So today's goal was to talk to my 5 and 6 year old like they are adults. The idea is that you should respect them and give them the same respect you give adults, so that they know how they should treat people.

To start, today was a surprising easy day. We skipped school, and the usual stressful morning rush, because we were going to grow strawberry picking nearby, but the farm was unexpectedly closed. So we headed to Chuck E. Cheese, cause the kids love it there, and I think it's a fun outing in the middle of the week when it's not crowded. Easy success there, just follow them around and give them tokens. Later we went to the children's science museum.  I don't think I really talked to them any differently, but I did pay more attention to them when they were talking, and I made much better eye contact. I also remembered to use yesterday's tip of noticing/commenting on helpful things they were doing.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. In fact, in reference to my first post about the 5-1 love bank thing, I think we might have a positive balance today.  I didn't loose my cool at all. I sounded exasperated and repeated myself more than I wanted to a few times, but that was it. Of course, after spending all day with the kids, by 6 I was emotionally exhausted and needed to recharge.

Oh one little failure--I was playing an arcade game when my daughter came up to get another token. She spilled them all over the floor, a total accident, and I still very exasperatingly said "Graaaace" in that long punitive tone we all have. She immediately looked sad and said sorry, and I just said "Well clean them up."  Which she did, but was still upset when she walked away. I explained that the cleaning up was just a necessary result of having had an accident, but that she was right to be upset because I had seemed mad at first, so I apologized. She got over it fairly quickly, probably because she had a token in the game.

I will probably try this one again later. I didn't really feel like I did a great job at it, though it did do what all the other ones have done and succeeded at making me a more mindful parent.

Tomorrow's goal: taken from http://www.healthunit.org/children/parents/positive_parent.htm

Clarifying directions. Make sure they understand what I am asking them to do. Make sure I have their full attention before giving directions, then have them repeat it back. Rephrase if they have difficulty understanding.

I think this will really help with my son. My daughter, as an extrovert, is constantly hanging on my every word, but my son tunes me out almost as well as his father can.

Inane commentary results

Note--yesterday's 5-1 ratio is based on the idea I've heard that people have "love banks". For every negative thing you say, you must have 5 positive things in the person's love bank to prevent them from being overdrawn.

So today went better than yesterday.  I didn't get any commentary in for Grace this morning because she was mostly asleep until I got her in the car, but Edward got up early, dressed himself, and cleaned up his breakfast plate.  Easy commentary/praise there. We got off without any hassle this morning--I really think having a concrete, positive goal in mind makes it so much easier to achieve my real goal--not to yell.

When I picked them up, my son had requested a visit to the park, so we did a couple of trails. Again, nothing specific to comment on, but we had a good time.  At home, my son helped me sort legos, but my daughter was upset I was not playing with her, and not interested in picking up legos.  Sometimes she is super-helpful, but today was not that day for her.

I am a hard-core introvert, so by hour 4 of hanging out with them, I was pretty done. That sounds terrible, I know. But I just tuned out during dinner and then I was ready to go again for the bed time routine.  They spilled water all over the bathroom floor again, but this time I calmly told them it was time to get out, and that it would be time to get out every time they spilled water all over the floor.

The commentary is somewhat difficult to do. I tried to avoid using the phrase "good job" since all the current childrearing stuff says that.  It's basically just statements about what they are doing, but it feels really unnatural.

So, overall, not a terrible day. Concentrating on the praising tip helped me more successfully achieve the 5-1 ratio good things for bad things. But I'd like something that could move our day from "meh" to "awesome."  So....

From a cornucopia of parenting sites.... tomorrow I will treat my children with respect. I will treat them, as much as possible, like other adults (or at least other people's kids--haha.) I will not make disparaging remarks about their time management skills under my breath, I will hopefully not yell, and I will respond to all conversations (you know, admitting to all the terrible parenting things I do is embarassing and cathartic.)

Oh, and have I mentioned the kids aren't going to be in school tomorrow?  It's going to be a long day....

5 to 1 in the Love Bank results

Hi. I'm Amy. I'm starting this blog to make myself accountable to do something every day to make my kids' day more enjoyable.  One goal, every day. I would love to have you, my internet readers, try too. I will post one goal a night, and write about how it went the next day.  I would love to hear in the comments how your day went with the goal.

A little about me...I have two children, one in pre-school and one in kindergarten. They are only one year apart. The first couple of years were REALLY hard, but things have gotten easier. But I had a not awesome childhood, with a mom from an even worse childhood, so while I'm glad she wasn't as cruel to me as her parents were to her, I'd like to keep upping the bar.

I'll start with a description of the goal I had for today, how it went, and then discuss tomorrow's goal. Today's was to say 5 positive things for every negative thing I say.  This seemed more feasible than my usual goal of saying no negative things all day, which usually gets derailed first thing in the morning when my daughter wants to wear a sundress and rain boots when it's 30 degrees and sunny out.

So, I tried my 5 things. I'm pretty lenient with myself for what counts as 5 things--I made small talk with them on the way from school to gymnastics and gave myself 2 points. We did kids night at a local restaurant for dinner and I worked with them on their projects and gave myself a point there. Oh, and I didn't loose my cool at all this morning on the way to school (always a goal), so I'll give myself a point there. And then.... I was cleaning up while they were in the bath and came back to find they had spilled a ton of water over the side of the tub. Got on to them and told them to get out now (minus 1). They play with these little lego type toys in the bath, and my son wanted to keep the ones he had made together instead of putting them away. Fine. But then my daughter starts taking them apart. I tell her not too, she does it anyway. Totally loose it. Then my son totally looses it. I tell him to knock it off; it's just legos and he can build it again tomorrow. Do you see where this is going? I yell at my daugter, demanding to know why she took it apart after I told her not to. Why? Why?!  Crying. Both of them are crying and in their towels at this point. I walk away for a couple of minutes so I don't say anything else stupid.  Fortuantely, I am married to a pretty great guy, so he steps up to the plate with my daughter and I eventually get my son, who is now crying on the ground still just in his towel. ( minus 4).

I calm down and read them a story (+1), then do a silly dance before I leave the room to the tune of veggie tales on their night time  CD. (+1)

Total for the day: +1. Oh wait, it's supposed to be a 5-1 ratio. Ummm....I got 5-25. I hate math.

Yeah. We'll try that tip again later.

Okay. Tomorrow's goal is from Conciousparenting.com on their facebook page (I recommend "liking" it, then their helpful daily tips will show up in your feed.


"Children need lots of encouragement. Imagine a football game where everyone sat quietly until a touchdown was made. We need to encourage our children like we do a team attempting to get two yards for a first down!

Power pack your encouragement with useable information, so your child knows exactly what he/she did that was helpful!

Here is some language and examples to get you started:

Look at you! You put on your shirt and now you are stepping into your pants so you can finish getting dressed. Way to go!

(Child's name), you are putting the Legos in the bin. You are doing it!

You started clearing the table all by yourself. That was helpful!"

So tomorrow that's what I'm going to work on. Praising them for getting ready in the morning, praising them for getting undressed and in the bath, praising them for working at school.

Honestly, it sounds lame, but since I have a hard time coming up with 5 positive things to say during the  day to make up for my negatives, so maybe this'll up my points.