One day at church I heard someone say, 'It's hard work being a good parent.' Those words were my mantra today. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth it to scold and remind and discipline and reward and compliment and thank and commend. It IS hard work to be constantly ON all the time. I'm finding myself repeating the same phrases over and over each day. Some of them are rewarding to say like, 'Thank you, Sarah! You are so (insert kind complimentary word here)' or 'Great job, Allison! High five!' But frequently I catch myself saying, 'Allison, no hitting your sister!' or 'Sarah! Do NOT take that from Allison!' or 'Sit down in your chair.' and sometimes 'If you are going to throw things and scream, go to your room.'
Yup, the glamorous life, right? When I think of everything I do each day I take comfort in the fact that the more tired and irritated and frustrated I am the more confident I am that I am a good parent. I work my tookus off making sure my girls know what the rules are, love one another, and learn responsibility. Yelling isn't the answer. That's not how I want my girls to think of me when they get older...that I was constantly nagging, yelling, swatting, and berating them. But I want them to remember that I never gave up on teaching them what is right and wrong. No matter how tired I was or how many times I had already said it, I never stopped disciplining because I knew they needed to know boundaries. And no matter how angry I was I never let them doubt how much I loved them.
With that being said, I don't succeed at this every day. In fact, it's a rare day that I manage to stay on top of things with them. I often let things slide and sometimes I ignore the fact that Allison is playing with something she shouldn't because it gives me five extra minutes of peace and quiet. It's all relative. I have faith this teaches the girls that there are times when it's not about what's right and what's wrong, it's about finding peace amid the chaos...or something like that.
1 comment:
It was called Wordpress, and your first entry was "Tired of all the Hooplah" and I named the bookmark, "Jenna's NEW blog" and I checked it almost every day, not knowing you were back here going crazy!! What's a mother to do...So now I'm all caught up. (If you want to see a cute baby or two, check out my blog!) You are doing a great job of teaching your cute girls to share and be kind. When they share blankies and snacks you gotta know you are succeeding. Glad to hear Joel can still put a for sale sign on something, because he doesn't have the room to be a collector. Is the orange truck the lost then refound truck? Well, I'll be checking THIS site again, it's great to have you back! xo
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