I love my children. I must say this 100 times a day. No matter what day it is, there’s some sort of yelling between them, getting hurt, or just doing things that make my heart skip a beat.
They are children, after all. That is what children do. However, it drives me nuts. Some days I have no idea how I will get through it without having a nervous breakdown.
Often times, I lose my cool and yell, “Can you please just stop.” It doesn’t do much. They get stunned because I don’t normally yell but then they shrug their shoulders and just continue on.
The only consequence that comes out of me yelling is feeling bad for losing my patience.
Mind you, as I write this something that sounds like glass just crashed to the floor and there is an eerie silence. Ah yes, then the “Mommy…..” My daughter broke our ceramic trash bucket in the bathroom. Patience is a virtue…I love my children. I am not lying – this really just happened.
Anyway, after cleaning that up, I am back.
Losing my patience comes with the territory of parenting. I don’t think any parent can get through parenthood without losing their patience at some point.
I give myself that leeway when it happens to me. I try to treat myself well.
It’s good to take care of yourself when you’re a parent because there’s no way to get through it sane if you are too hard on yourself. You don’t have to be the perfect parent, you just have to be good enough.
I know that I should have patience. They are just children. For the times I don’t quite make it though, I make amends with them, with myself and then I move on with my parental duties.
As time goes on, patience will be tested more times than you can count. Beating yourself down when you can’t be the calm, collected mom you want to be won’t help you. It will only make it harder to be the mom you want to be. As I tell my daughter, “learn from your mistakes.”
All you can do is strive to do what you feel is right. As long as you set your eyes on how you want to be and keep moving in that direction, without allowing the pitfalls keep you down, you’ll succeed.
Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net