The baby is teething, your preschooler is throwing the temper tantrum of the century, and your six year old is boycotting homework since you won’t let him play his favorite video game. You feel your blood pressure rising, you’re ready to pull your hair out, and snap! We’ve all had those days when we’ve lost our temper with our kids. You feel so completely out of control and it feels like nothing you do makes a difference. Within a few minutes you feel terribly guilty and then without fail the cycle starts all over again. Kids are great at pushing Mommy’s buttons. It’s a way to get your attention, and while it is usually negative attention, it’s still attention so they continue.
This has been the state of things at our house the last couple of weeks. I’ve been so busy with school that Logan has been willing to do anything to get my attention. He knows exactly which buttons to push and just how hard to push them. I’ve found myself angered to tears a few too many times this week, because I just didn’t know what to do. Yesterday was a particularly bad day. I was so angry that I couldn’t get Logan to listen when suddenly I realized something had to change. I couldn’t live like this anymore. I hated walking around with all this anger inside of me. I wasn’t happy with anything in my life and it was affecting my parenting. I was getting mad at Logan over the littlest things because I just couldn’t cope with everything that I had going on inside of me.
I’ve found that the times I struggle the most are times when I am overly stressed and not getting enough sleep. These are the times when it is most important to step back and take a deep breath. Keep things in perspective. Does it really matter if he takes a bath or a shower tonight? Sometimes you get so deep into the power struggles with your children that you lose sight of what’s really important.
I’m horrible at taking breaks. When there are a million other things to do I have a hard time justifying taking a few minutes out for me, but I’ve found that when I do I can cope with everything else with much more poise.
Eat healthy and exercise regularly. I know, it seems like the answer to everything these days, but it really does make a difference. When you are eating right you have so much more energy and exercising can have a huge effect on your mood, which both impact your ability to cope with the everyday struggles of motherhood.
When you start feeling like everything is falling apart and you are going to lose it, take a step back. Remember that while you can’t always control what your children do, you can control how you respond to them. Take a deep breath, your children will thank you for it later.