I have been trying so hard to be nicer to my child. Does this mean I'm not disciplining him and just letting him roll around in a pile of his own filth? No.
It means I'm not barking at him every 5 minutes and reading him the riot act for doing or not doing things that are actually pretty common for a 9 year old. You know, leaving stuff on the floor, forgetting his flute, not unpacking his lunch, leaving his homework at school, making a mess when he eats, groaning when he has to go to bed, or wake up. The usual. The list makes me cringe.
It's hard. My desire for him to be better than us is going to make him neurotic and I am suffering from such bad anxiety and not showing him how to properly cope that I'm the one who is really at fault. I'm supposed to be the grown up.
Freaking out is just going to make an introvert like him shut down and withdraw more and then rage like southern hurricane. Same sh*t, different year.
Self-awareness is grand, but it's just lip service if I can't change things.
It's also hard for me to let go of something I feel right about. I'm trying to summarize things. I want him to just try hard, try harder.
I think this needs to apply to myself as well.
I could have written this, word for word, especially the introvert -> withdrawl -> rage. Ugh. I felt so bad on Friday for not being a good, patient parent. Tom said to me, "It's no wonder Yoshi doesn't like you. You're mean to her." Ouch.
ReplyDelete