This is a busy season for a lot of us parents… but to be honest, it seems like every season can feel busy. Perhaps your family is juggling a variety of school or club sports, there are conferences to attend, volunteer commitments, dance recitals, summer activities to plan and of course your own job and house work.
I’ve been talking with a number of parents recently who are reflecting on how “demanding” their child feels; demanding the parents' time and attention. “Can we go somewhere?” “Can you play with me?” “Can we do something fun?” These parents are feeling pulled in a million directions: “there is so much I have to do, why can’t my child just go play?” Maybe you can relate, I know I can.
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Have you ever found yourself in a season of increased conflict with your child or teenager? Are there times when it just feels like your butting heads about lots of seemingly small things, or maybe butting heads repeatedly over the same old issue that keeps coming up?
I certainly have been there! A variety of reasons can contribute to finding ourselves in these cycles of increased conflict with our child/teen including their growing desire for independence. Sometimes it just really feels like the young person is “looking for a fight” or “trying to be difficult.” When we start to see the situation through the lens that our child is being “defiant” or “manipulative” we feel the need to act! Often, at this point, parents tend to increase their control over the situations and the child. It makes sense! We are trying to restore order, instill a respect for authority and sometimes maybe make it clear who’s the boss. Maybe you’re struggling with a child that refuses to come and eat dinner at dinner time, or a child that “stirs the pot” by creating some drama when she’s bored. Maybe it’s a teenager that is missing curfew or not getting done the agreed upon chores. Increasing our attempts to “control” our child or teenager is a losing game. We can’t really make that independently minded young person do anything. So what’s a parent to do? Time to move into coaching, not controlling. Put on your “coaches hat” and let’s get started! You’re not alone. Every parent has moments that we look back on and wonder why we lost our cool like that. Maybe it's an afternoon where you’re feeling extra irritable or “ triggered” by your kids' normal behaviors. Maybe it's a single episode of exploding at your kid when they make a mistake and then regretting it. Sometimes we find ourselves in a longer season of coming across as the “mad mom” or “explosive dad”.
I personally have an ongoing frustration with my oldest child who is now technically an adult, as he just celebrated his 18th birthday. For as long as he has been going to school, he has struggled with being ready to leave on time. I know he's capable of getting up and leaving on time because this fall when his football coach made it clear that arriving on time for school was a requirement for being eligible to play in the Friday night game, he did whatever it took to hot-foot it out of the house in time. But now, the football season is done and that external motivator isn't there. We are back to frustrating mornings of poor time management. I've tried many approaches to help him succeed. The most recent approach has been letting him choose to be late for school and explain it to the teachers himself. The end result was that he was late for school everyday for a week! I'm not seeing him learning from his mistakes quite yet 🫤 Today he was late again, and I became a “mad mom.” Can you think of your last angry parent moment? What led up to it? Usually it's a combination of factors. Something in our kids' behaviors, what they do or don't do, what they say or don't say, gets under our skin. But how resilient we are to these frustrations and our ability, in the moment, to pause and think of the response we want to have rather than reacting on our first impulse has a lot to do with how well our own basic needs are being met. When we have unmet needs we are going to feel more irritable, frustrated, impatient and inflexible, just like our kids feel when they have unmet needs. So the next time you find yourself feeling like the “mad mom” or “explosive dad”, consider these possible unmet needs and how you can meet them to help you stay more balanced and regulated.
The fall brings some fun and also busy days and weeks for families. What are your kids involved in; soccer, football, dance, gymnastics, youth group, band practices, swim team, volleyball or something else? Each activity has great opportunities for our kids, but they also come with a cost on the family's time and energy. If you are a parent who's running kids to activities, making meals, scheduling appointments and keeping up with all the school stuff like permission slips, lunch money, conferences etc, then YOU have a lot on your plate. You are taking care of your family and lots of details to keep things running smooth, so let's talk about WHO's taking care of you.
Hopefully you have great support in your life. People who take the time to take care of you and "fill your cup." But a lot of parents are feeling like they don't have a great support system. And whether or not you have excellent support, self-care is incredibly important for parents who want to be at their best for themselves and their families. Support and self-care are two of the 10 steps to navigate parenting challenges that I write about in my book Parenting Marathon. There is a lot of practical thoughts and easy next steps for you in the book but I'll leave you with one first step here. Start with small chunks of time. Waiting for self-care until you can carve out a day or weekend away isn't enough. Today set aside 10 minutes for yourself to do something that is relaxing, brings you joy or fills your cup. Caution: Don't use this 10 minutes to clear out your email, answer text messages or schedule that dentist appointment. This 10 minutes is a self-care pause. Need ideas on what you would enjoy doing in those 10 minutes? I have a whole list in the free resources page shared in the book. Maybe it's listening to music, enjoying the quiet, prayer or meditation, watching the birds, drawing... you get to decide. Set a timer maybe and protect that little chunk of time. |
AuthorDana Parisi Archives
April 2024
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