A blog friend of mine likes to pull out posts about her older child and repost them when her younger child reaches the same age. I ran across this one, originally posted in July 2008, in my archieves the other day and thought immediately of my all-but-twins, and our ongoing effort to teach them to obey. “Wow,” I thought. “So this is what the age of three is going to be like. Times two.”
For the record, I still get really mad about milk spills. But maybe that’s because we have three a day.
***
My nephew was eating lunch when there was a little disturbance at his end of the table. Focused as I was on my own kids, I didn’t really notice until his mother darted into the kitchen and came back with a paper towel. “Wipe it up, honey,” she said, and her son, who is not yet two years old, did so. No fuss, no upset.
I was impressed by how coolly she took it, and I said so. Christian made a face at me across the table and nodded. “You’d be yelling at Alex,” he said. And suddenly I felt ashamed of how easily I get upset. It seems like I’m always fighting with him, trying to get him to do what I say, when I say it. This is not how I meant to be as a parent.
Probably all three-year-olds are like Alex. They’re sweet, they’re lovable, they’re so much fun you just want to eat them up. “Mommy!” he says, “I have a good idea! Let’s go to the pool!”
“Great!” I say. “Go get your swim trunks.” He shrieks with glee, but rather than go do it, he runs away. When I call him back, he ignores me. When I yell, he comes back to play with Julianna, looks at a Lego instruction booklet, and decides he has to go to the bathroom. “Okay, go to the bathroom,” I say. He goes into the bathroom, but then he stops to explore the box of oral motor toys on the floor by the sink, moves the stool around, flips the light switches a few dozen times, and then informs me he doesn’t have to go after all.
It seems like perfectly justifiable parental frustration to me, don’t you agree?
But the problem is, this happens every time we do something. So lately there’s been a lot of shouting in my house, a lot of threatening (Fine, we just won’t go to the library today, then!). Watching my sister-in-law handle a mess without breaking a sweat made me realize how far I have wandered from my intent as a parent.
The scene stayed with me all afternoon, as we explored the Magic House and ate dinner at Culpeppers with six of nine cousins in attendance. Sometime during that afternoon, I resolved to do better. I will keep my cool.
My resolution fielded its first challenge when it was time to leave for home. Alex wanted to keep playing with his cousins. He plopped down on the floor; he absolutely was NOT going to sit on the toilet. Well, we absolutely were NOT driving two hours at bedtime without putting him on the toilet. So I made a big joke of it, grabbed him by the wrists, and pulled him across the floor. He was giggling hysterically. (He loves to be tossed around; he’s just too big these days.) When we reached the bathroom, he leaped up and ran behind the toilet. I ran through my options. He’d already had his ice cream; we were already leaving; it was already too late to read books before bedtime. What could I threaten to take away? Nothing. So I put on my “I’m gonna eat you up” look and said, “You’d better get over here, or I’m gonna get you!”
He giggled harder but made no move to comply. And I realized that he wanted me to get him. So I did, and then I put him on the toilet. Mission accomplished, no shouting.
Keeping my cool when we got home 2 ½ hours later was quite a bit harder. All the way back, we heard how tired he was and how much his bottom hurt. But he kept singing songs to keep himself awake. He finally fell asleep ten miles before our exit—so you can imagine what it was like trying to get him out of the van, let alone up to his bedroom, teeth brushed, toileted, hands washed, in pajamas. He cried the whole time, yet every time I tried to do something for him he’d cry harder and insist he had to do it himself. I had to keep reminding myself, Cool! Keep your cool! But in the end I managed it.
We’ll see how the resolution holds up the day after, when Mommy’s only had 6 hours of sleep.
Kathleen M. Basi 
as a mom of five kids… when one falls asleep in the car they get put to bed as is… one night of unbrushed teeth will not ruin their teeth but it will help them have an uninterrupted night of sleep…..only exception was if a diaper/pull had to be put on
I always say that, too…but all of our kids still wear diapers at bedtime, and they always wake up, anyway…
i’m going on very little sleep and we have a doctor’s appointment today. i’m praying for patience.
Love this post! I think we all have our off days, but I always feel so good when I can come up with a peaceful solution to a problem. I think the longer we do it, the more second-nature it becomes.
That’s hopeful…make it a habit, and it gets easier?
I totally think that it gets easier the more you do it — we have made a very conscious decision to try not to yell at the kids. What has helped us the most is coming up with sort of standard phrases that we use in response to certain annoying/frustrating behavior. That way we can automatically resort to those phrases, while keeping our voices calm and taking a moment to cool off ourselves. Of course, we have times when we yell…and I am pretty good at it:-) But I do think it is easier to not yell when it is a habit.
What a coincidence that you should choose this to repost. I just made the no-more-yelling vow yesterday and today Eva really tested my resolve. Sometimes she outright ignores what I say. It drives me crazy! After about five instances of this, the final straw was that Elsa was sleeping in her stroller as we were walking back to the car Eva leaned in to love on her and I said “don’t touch her! She will wake up!” and wouldn’t you know it, in thee time it took me to spit those two sentences out, Elsa had been touched and awoken. Argh! Keep in mind, “don’t wake the baby” is a standing rule in our house. Very. Hard. Not. To. Scream.
And it’s not like it’s unjustified, either! I always admire mothers who manage to keep it together when the kids are obnoxious to e/o, but then I wonder, too, if all that gentle correction actually makes any impression at all.
It is so consoling to know that I’m not alone. I keep make a promise to myself that I’m not going to yell; and then break it, usually by the end of the same day. {sigh} I sometimes think that my 6 year old has made it his mission in life to push my buttons – constantly.
I wonder sometimes if we’re beating ourselves up inappropriately over this issue. Yelling is not a good thing, but it’s probably not damaging, either, as long as there’s plenty of love expressed, and plenty of uplifting words to counterbalance. Sometimes you have to get your butt kicked before you recognize your own shortcoming, you know? And that’s in adulthood, after we’ve supposedly got our characters formed. I don’t know. Just something I’ve been thinking of.