As many of you know, parenting is the most exhausting and most gratifying oppertunity on the planet. Since I have been given the tremendous blessing of raising four people, it is the topic of most of my thoughts, and conversations.
I have been challenged since day one of mommy-hood with my emotions, actions, and re-actions. I want only the best for my kids. Often, I am realizing, I act out of selfish desires. My kiddos are 7, 6, 4, and 2. I have the ability now to see some of the effects of my parenting on my older children, good and bad.
About a month ago I was completely overwhelmed with the amount of frustration and anger in my home. My kids were fighting all the time, there was screaming and yelling. I was at my wits end. It seemed as if we were all against eachother. I felt llike a refferee, only an angry bitter one. Sure, I worked hard at never slandering or belittling my kids with words, however my tone was doing more harm than good. One day it hit me. There was to be NO MORE YELLING in our home. Now, Jonathan and I NEVER yell at eachother, we take great care in handling eachothers feelings with love and work hard at showing respect, always. However, our relationship with our children was headed down another road. I guess we thought that modeling healthy relationship between us would be good enough. I do believe us making our relationship a priority is important, not only for ourselves but our children as well.
My Dad always said respect is earned not owed. Well, I decided to take an agressive action towards our new NO MORE YELLING rule. I spent an entire, and I do mean entire, day stopping every flare up of anger and nip it in the butt. If I felt anger coming on I would stop, take a few deep breaths and either ask the child to sit in the other room or I would remove myself for a moment. Only when I was calm and thought I could speak to my child out of love and in a manner to help direct and teach them, not rebuke and belittle, would we come back together. I openely told the kids that mommy and daddy will no longer be yelling at anyone, that God asks us to be slow to anger and quick to listen, that love is not easily angered. That We love them dearly and it is wrong and unacceptable for us to raise our voices in anger towards them. I apologized and then would say, now you have to listen to when we are speaking softly.
It is NOT easy to control frustration and anger, especially when you are sick. I have been struggling with illness for almost a year now. First a minor stroke, then cancer, surgery, and radiation, and now Mono, and Lymes disease. I am living a distance from friends and family. All of us face challenges. If I truly love my kids I will be concerned with their hearts. I want my kids hearts turned towards me. I am a firm believer in discipline, not punishment. I admit I was heading down a bad path of losing my temper, and in that seperating my kids hearts from mine, little by little. When I scream, I crush their spirit. Ugh, I can't even believe I was so weak as to hurt the people I love most, what a selfish act anger is.
Since making this declaration in our home, things have CHANGED (though there have been slip ups). My kids are laughing with me more, we are making better connections. The kids are lying, crying, screaming, fighting, and disobeying far LESS. We are rebuilding trust in eachother. Instead of losing my temper, I am taking action before the volcano erupts. As parents, we are so busy, we don't always take the time to act before we are just re-acting. I'm finding the importance in acting, not re-acting like a fool.
Anger is weakness, self-control is strength! I can choose Love over anything, after all it is a choice.
I'm an imperfect person. If I can make this choice and change the dynamic in my home, so can you!
