Seems like I don't have many "good" parenting moments lately. More of just survival! However, I am trying to take life back instead of letting life take me down! For those who know my nature, you know this is difficult for me. I'm prone to not plan, procrastinate and even when I do plan, not follow it because something or in most cases someone comes up to interrupt the plan!But last night was different! And it worked!
Going out to eat with my crew takes half a months wages..ok, not quite half, but more than we can afford very often. So we rarely go to "nice" restaurants. However, we want our children to know how to behave somewhere besides Taco Villa, and we want them to have experiences in the restaurants others talk about. So once in awhile we splurge. The fact that these trips are rare and that we are spending a small fortune to have the experience means I get very upset when one of the kids ruins it with a fit or attitude. We have one child in particular who routinely ruins our restaurant experiences. He/she usually throws the first tantrum when it comes time to order drinks. He/she stalls on purpose, for what reason we haven't quite figured out, which usually ends in us telling the waiter that he/she will take water since he/she can't make up his/her mind. Then the pouting and taking anger out on whatever unlucky sibling is in the vicinity begins.
Last night we had a big surprise for our kids planned. It started with dinner at a nice, sit down restaurant. I was determined that said child would not ruin our entire evening...once the pouting starts, it's all down hill and behaviors worsen exponentially until we get home. So with what I know had to be a Holy Spirit idea, I had a pro-active discussion with this child.
Last time we went out to eat, we had one of these meltdowns and I had told this lovely of mine that the next time he/she threw one of these fits, he/she would not go with us to eat the next time and would be left at home with a baby sitter at his/her expense. So right before we left, I took this child aside and reminded him/her of my promise from the last time the fit was thrown. But I also made a plan for if something happened. This is a child who has a very difficult time expressing any emotion in a constructive and appropriate way. Something we actually deal with a ton in our family because of the background of most of our kiddos. I told this child that I wanted him/her to know that I was willing to listen to any argument he/she had about anything he/she felt was unfair during the course of the evening, but I would not have that discussion until we got home. So I asked him/her to come up with a code word so that if he/she felt something had been unfair or he/she was getting angry, he/she could use the code word and know we would talk about it later instead of holding it inside and getting angry or lashing out at the nearest sibling. He/she got to choose the code word which was "meep - meep" - like the road runner says! Wouldn't have been my choice, especially since I had to use it if I saw behavior I needed to stop, but it was his/her choice, so "meep-meep" it was! He/she thought that was really cool and we set out for our evening with a plan!
The coolest part? Well, we didn't have to use that code word, not one time! I truly think taking that time before we left made that child feel significant enough and also gave him/her a feeling that no matter what happened there was a way to be heard that there was no acting out!
God used this to remind me that parenting must be intentional! And that when I stop to prepare for behaviors instead of constantly just reacting to them, our world turns much smoother! And since this is so contrary to my nature, I often wonder why God gave me a) so many children and b) children from hard places to parent! Maybe its because regardless of how many times I fail as a mom, I love these babies! I may not discipline the right way, I may not provide all the experiences I wish I could or that they may want, but I couldn't love them anymore than I do!
But from now on, we will have that little conversation before every trip to eat out! It was such a nice evening!
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We've found that those preemptive strikes help so much with the boys. Glad you found some success and got to enjoy the evening!
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