Parenting is a Gift We Don’t Always Steward Well
Kids can sometimes wake up in a bad mood. (Don't we all!) We often chalk it up to "waking up on the wrong side of the bed", but is that really the problem? I'm guessing if we asked ourselves that question, our answer would be no.
The other morning my daughter was in that kinda mood. She didn't wanna cuddle. She couldn't decide what she wanted for breakfast, yet she was also mad and very hungry. She would make noises in anger at her sisters just for looking at her the wrong way. This kinda attitude kept up all morning. I was about to lose my cool. To be honest, I'm not the most patient person (I'm working on it).
I decided I could do one of two things. I could either do what feels most natural to me and lose my cool. I could go down a rabbit hole of telling her she needs to be kind to others whether she's in a bad mood or not. OR I could talk with her and hope she lets me in on WHY she's being this way.
I knew I had a slim chance of getting anything out of her. When most people are in these types of moods, the last thing they do is wanna talk about it. As much as I just wanted to scream, I chose to let go of my anger, okay maybe just try to set it aside for a second so I could try to find out the underlying issue.
After asking a heck of a lot of yes or no questions, I figured out that she had a horrible dream the night before. As she began to explain the nightmare, tears immediately began flowing down her face. "I had a nightmare that a bad guy took you and daddy away from me forever." And there it was. My heart broke! It is gut wrenching as a mother watching your child get emotional from just the idea of mom and dad being taken away and never to be seen again. All I could do was embrace her and tell her "I love you" a thousand times.
Us parents are so quick to anger! We are so quick to blame a bad attitude on the child rather than their circumstances. We forget that while they may be small, they are still humans with underlying reasons for screaming, whining, being closed off, or anything else. My heart hurt because I recognized that I was just about to yell at her when what she clearly needed was my love.
How many times are we busy yelling at our children because it's an inconvenience to step away from our computers or chores around the house? What kind of a positive impact could we make in our children's lives by simply walking away from whatever we are doing and find out what is causing them distress? We are too focused on our fast paced lives to learn to slow down. While that may be the way we get a lot done, is it really okay to get a lot done at the expense of letting our children, spouses or friends down? I don't think so.
The social norm should change from an insensitivity of emotions to simply loving our children well. Spending time talking and getting to know them on a deeper level. Letting them experience our love rather than our judgment. It should switch from them being afraid to let us in on what is bothering them and afraid of being told to get over it or that it's not a big deal, to knowing that we are for them and with them throughout life's highs and lows.
Parenting is a gift. Let us slow down from our busy lives so that we may be good stewards of these gifts that are known as children.
