Do I like my kids? Now, please don’t judge me too harshly on the days I answer with an emphatic “no” to this question! I wish I could remember who posed this question to me years ago so I could give them credit, but it is a great question to ask yourself to see where you currently stand in your parenting.
For me this is situational, there are times the answer is, YES! Other times I’m ashamed to say the answer is no. Parenthood is a selfless act that leaves us feeling drained and defeated. My kids know all too well how to push just the right buttons to get my blood boiling. Many times the afternoon hours drag on way too long and we count down the minutes until we can put our kids to bed and get that much needed “me time” in.
Right now we have no escape from our home bound children. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic we can’t get away from them! Social media is flooded with mom’s venting over their frustrations of being confined to their homes with no other outlets and their children driving them bonkers.
The challenges of quarantine heighten our emotions and makes parenting so much more difficult. Because obviously, parenting wasn’t even easy before the pandemic! Right now I’m surviving on a day by day basis. Some days I’m a stellar mom, I’m engaged all day long and we do fun activities. Other days we are in our pj’s the whole day and the TV is turned on the entire time. My temper flares more often than I would care to admit, and there are days where multiple kids are having melt downs- ALL. DAY. LONG! At the end of the really bad days it is easy to fall into guilt trip mode and feel like I have failed.
Years ago in an act of desperation I started researching out self help parenting books and different discipline methods. I wanted to enjoy my kids and not feel defeated every day. Have you ever looked into parenting advice? The internet and book stores are flooded with parenting tricks that promise miracles. Everyone has an opinion on this topic. Even random strangers, at the grocery store, have been known to offer unsolicited advice to frantic, disheveled moms, with misbehaving children in tow. The list of must do’s and never do’s as a parent are never ending:
- Be consistent, follow through with the rules!
- Let your child fail!
- Model the behavior you want them to have, lead by example!
- Keep your own emotions in check!
- Be actively engaged!
- Spend quality time with each child!
- Keep a strict bedtime!
- No more than two hours of screen time a day!
- Practice positive reinforcement!
… You get the idea. The list goes on and on and much of the advice can actually conflict with each another: don’t spank, do spank! Don’t co-sleep, do co-sleep! To make things more difficult, every child is different! What works with my oldest definitely doesn’t work with my middle child. I can read parenting books and feel so inspired. Then a situation arises and I am deflated. “This wasn’t talked about in the book! What should I do now?” The hardest part, however, is when I fail to do many of the things that really do make a good parent. This inevitably leads to more guilt. No matter how many times I promise myself I will be a better parent, I end up letting myself down. The guilt of another bad day weighs on my shoulders.
We feel this way because we love our children beyond description and feel like they deserve so much more than what we have to offer. We feel like we are bled dry and have no more to give, and yet we still tell ourselves that we are coming up short in the parent department. How is it that we give so much and yet still feel that it isn’t enough?
Go easy on yourself. It’s okay if you aren’t a perfect parent. Tomorrow is always a new day. When we find ourselves in challenging circumstances, the best we can do is take it one day at a time. We must forgive ourselves for the bad days and try again the next day. Parenthood is a job we always show up for. There are times when we just want to hide under our covers, but we still show up. Because we have to. Because we love our children. It’s okay if we can’t muster the energy to put together great activities and experiences for our children every single day. It’s okay that some days we are in survival mode, as long as we recognize our limits.
What can we do when our emotions threaten to take over?
Simply surviving can be scary. While in survival mode we are stressed, and our emotions are on the verge of complete takeover. As a parent, this is not always a good thing. We can lose control and become the type of parent we never wanted to be.
I’d like to share a little story about a time in my life where I became all too familiar with survival mode as a parent.
I became a divorced single mom at the age of twenty-five. I rented a quaint little town home perched on the side of a mountain, a place I felt safe to raise my two-year old daughter. We were blessed at this time. I had just finished nursing school, passed the nursing boards, and had finished my training at the children’s hospital, where I still work to this day. In order to be with my daughter more, I worked night shifts. The shifts were twelve hours long, but as any nurse will tell you, that number is deceiving. At the twelve hour mark is when I would start giving report to the oncoming nurse. If I had a good day, I would be able to leave after about twelve and a half hours of working. On a busier shift I would have to catch up on charting and finish tying up loose ends, making my shift much longer.
This time of my life is a blur. Sure, I got to see my sweet little girl more than most single moms, but I was desperately sleep deprived. I would wake up with my little early riser at seven each morning, be with her all day, and go to work that night to start my shift at 7:00pm. When I got home from work the next morning my wonderful mom, who spent the night babysitting, would have to leave for work, so I still wouldn’t sleep. Three times a week I would be up for about thirty-two hours. I’d get naps in here in there, but it was rough. My daughter went with her dad every other weekend, so I was able to sleep a bit more between shifts at those times, but it was never enough.
Before my daughters third birthday she went through a phase of waking at about 2am every single night. Just so you understand, this wasn’t an “ignore her and she’ll fall back asleep” awakening. This was an “up for hours trying to get this wide awake tantrum throwing child back to bed”.
The problem was I needed this time. The few nights a week I actually got a full nights sleep, I needed a full nights sleep! I’d wake delirious and what I like to refer to as “Monster Mom” would emerge. I am not proud of Monster Mom, but she tends to come out when I am exhausted and need sleep. I tried so hard to bury Monster Mom deep within (knowing if she emerged getting my daughter to sleep would be ten times harder). But in those dark hours of the night I wasn’t always successful. After over a month of this I was brought to tears. On one specific night after her usual awakening, I was able to get her back to sleep and successfully sneak out of her room and crawl back into my bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow my daughter started crying out again. The tears welled and poured down my cheeks as I waited to see if she would go back to sleep. She didn’t. I dragged my exhausted body from the bed, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I sank to my knees on the floor outside of my daughters bedroom and sobbed to my Heavenly Father pleading for help. “What should I do?” I prayed.
Peace flooded over me as the tears abruptly came to a stop.
“Just love her.”
The words were spoken clearly in my mind. It was not my voice but that of the Holy Ghost. The words were clear, loving, and strong.
I was able to stand and have the strength needed to go comfort my little girl for that night, and many nights more, until she started sleeping through the night again.
“Just love her,” are words I have turned to in my parenting many times since. There are always unpleasant childhood phases I don’t have control over. Just like when she wasn’t sleeping through the night. This same daughter will be thirteen this year and these unpleasant phases come and go all the time! I’ve learned I can’t “fix” my child. Especially as she has grown older and exercises her own agency, I can’t make her do what I want. I can guide, direct, and lead by example. Obviously, discipline is often in the equation too. What it mostly comes down to however, is this simple phrase, “just love her.”
“To you who are parents, I say, show love to your children. You know you love them, but make certain they know it as well. They are so precious. Let them know. Call upon our Heavenly Father for help as you care for their needs each day and as you deal with the challenges which inevitably come with parenthood. You need more than your own wisdom in rearing them.”
President Thomas S. Monson
As parents we all have desperate moments where we feel helpless. We can feel at our whits end and have no idea what to do. Our patience is gone and we are fed up. Monster Mom, or Dad, has emerged. At these desperate times who better to turn to than our Heavenly Father for parenting advice?
There are times we have to stop trying to parent, stop trying to fix things and just love. We have to learn to let go of perfection and the ideal picture of what a parent should be. That person doesn’t exist. You are what your child needs and you have what it takes! Every day doesn’t have to be perfect- instead strive for perfect moments. Moments of quality interaction, moments of tenderness, moments of love. Show love to your children! If you build these moments into your day, then when the bad moments strike- your children will never doubt your love for them. They will be so much more resilient if Monster Mom does end up making an appearance, because a couple of negative outbursts can never outweigh all the love you have shown them.
“Just love them,” is a phrase that has kept coming to my mind during the past several weeks of social distancing. My patience as a mom has been tested at a whole new level! On the bad days I have to remind myself what is most important, and that is love. Jesus taught us how to teach with love and guide by love. As an imperfect human, following His example takes practice on a daily basis.
When we feel the emotions starting to bubble up, we need to recognize our limits, turn to the Lord, and adjust our plans accordingly:
What if Covid-19 induced home school has to be put on hold for a day? –Oh well!
What if you were dealing with a tantruming toddler all evening only to find out that he just needed to be held and you can’t get dinner started? –Who cares, getting take out is an option!
What if you have to wait to discipline your disrespectful teenager until after you calm down? -Walking away shows more love than screaming at them when we have completely lost control and say things in anger we never should say.
What if Monster Mom emerged and you know it’s a good possibility it may happen again before the day is through? –Turn on the TV and just cuddle your little ones. Sometimes the TV is better when we know we aren’t in control.
These are just some silly examples, but adjusting our original plan to what will help us succeed when we are hanging on by a thread makes us good parents.
Learning to respond to our children with love, when they have pushed our buttons, can be hard! I am going to tell you the honest truth, none of us are perfect at it! We must love ourselves, forgive ourselves, wipe the slate clean after each bad moment or day and try again. Turn to the Lord. Look into your child’s eyes and feel the love they have for you! Despite every miss step and bad parenting moment your child still loves you!
“Parenting has nothing to do with perfection. Perfection isn’t even the goal, not for us, not for our children. Learning together to live well in an imperfect world, loving each other despite or even because of our imperfections, and growing as humans while we grow our little humans, those are the goals of gentle parenting. So don’t ask yourself at the end of the day if you did everything right. Ask yourself what you learned and how well you loved, then grow from your answer. That is perfect parenting.”
L.R. Knost
I believe the first step to enjoying parenthood, not just surviving it, starts with love.
Now I’d like to ask you a question:
Do YOU like your kids?
Of course you love them, that is not in question. But are you excited to come home from a long day of work or other activity and spend time with your kids? Do you look forward on a regular basis to being able to interact with your kids? Do you wake up each morning and jump into action the moment your kids beckon, or do you groan and want to curl into the fetal position and hide?
Don’t feel guilty if you are realizing you aren’t really liking your kids right now. I am no expert on parenting, I am in the midst of it just like you. But I have come to realize, when I have felt this way about my kids, these negative feelings directly impact the way I show love to my children. I don’t show as much tenderness, I am quick to anger, and frankly- I just don’t show as much love. The interesting thing is I don’t believe these feelings come from our children or their actions. We feel this way because we are too busy juggling everything else in our life and are overwhelmed with life itself. I talk about this more and the importance of caring for ourselves in depth in my posts, Aware in All Things and Never Inadequate.
Perhaps you are thinking, I love hanging out with my kids! I don’t know what she is talking about! Or maybe you are thinking, “I despise my kids, she is being way too nice on the description of these little monsters!” We all have our own unique circumstances and it doesn’t matter where we are in our own personal journey through parenthood. What we all can agree on is that it is hard! Parenthood is one of the most difficult tasks we have taken on in this life and has the biggest consequences if we fail. The stakes are high!
I know that if we turn to our Heavenly Father, He will guide us in knowing how to raise these precious little spirits we are blessed with (Prepare or Protect? Raising Spiritually Resilient Children). He will help us know how to show love, when we feel like we have nothing else to give. During those desperate moments when we feel like we have lost control and our emotions are rampaging, turn to our Heavenly Father. Seek his guidance. He knows we have the strength and the ability to meet the needs of our children. He knows we have the capacity to provide the love needed to sustain them. When we are unsure of how we can accomplish this, He will show the way.
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