So last night Tuety and mom made tacos for dinner. YUUUUMMM!!! I LOVE tacos!!!! (And Jason loves them too, which probably makes me enjoy them twice as much.... Kinda weird how you can learn to love things twice as much when your partner loves them too....) ANYWAY, we all ate those freakin delicious tacos.... Tuety cleaned and cut up a bunch of strawberries. HOLY COW.... YUM!!!! Then she got this idea to MAKE Taylor try a strawberry.... Well, anyone who knows Taylor knows she is a freak about texture.... And the more you force an issue, the worse it makes the situation.... Well needless to say, the situation was ugly, and just kept getting uglier.... And she was crying.... And crying harder. And then her nose was running.... And then snotting.... And then stuffy AND snotting.... And she cried harder.... You know, usually I am the impatient one, but last night it was Tuety, and usually I don't feel bad for Taylor when she doesn't want to try something. Instead, I just say okay fine. Forget it. No dessert, don't even ask. End of story. But last night, (and for the past few weeks) I think an old level of patience has been coming back to me.... It urked me the way the situation played out and I couldn't stand to hear Taylor getting more and more worked up.... So finally I just said "we're going home. Get your stuff together and let's go." And that was another ordeal because she REALLY wanted to go swimming and spend the night at nana's. I spent a little bit of time explaining to her why we were going home. Once we were home, we set up her tent in the living room, and she made a bed inside. Jason and I came in the room, got in bed and went into a conversation. One thing led to another and before you knew it, it turned into, a big long conversation about children.... How do children express their feelings? They voice it (which she did.) "I don't want to try the strawberries.". When you tell them again to do the same thing they just voiced they didn't want to do.... And they tell you again, maybe reword it. "I REALLY don't wanna try that but thank you." And you turn to almost forcing them to try something.... The tears start. They start working themselves up, with this anxiety (?).... They DON'T want to do this.... How can they get you to understand the level of importance that they DON'T want to do this? This is where your life experiences tend to rule your style of parenting (I believe) unless you consciously ask yourself what your plan of attack is.... What is your goal as a parent? What are you ultimately trying to teach your child? Which lesson is the most important? Which one is the most traumatizing? How important (on a scale of 1-10) is it that she TRY this strawberry right at this moment? Will the forcing of the issue make her more traumatized and will the forcing of the issue leave more of an imprint, than just letting it pass this one time, and maybe catching her on a different day where she might actually want to try a strawberry? I felt bad (which doesn't happen very often) Much of the time, I don't feel bad. I don't feel sorry for everything she might have to do that she doesn't want to do (like go to school maybe, or go to the grocery store with me, rather than watching spongebob).... But last night.... Last night was completely different....
Anyway, I feel much better about the whole thing now....
1 comment:
I like your little realization here on the "style" of parenting vs. more of an emotional reactionary response to the situation. Very few parents, or people at all for that matter, think about what they're trying to accomplish and the effects of their actions. Although it's important in all situations, I think it's especially important with raising a child. Both educating them on how things should be communicated, as well as listening and taking into consideration what the outcome of your actions will be.
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