be a gentle mother

I have been working on this goal for over a year and I feel I am now a gentle mother and have been for some time. Speaking calmly and gently to my children when I am upset is now something I do automatically. I also no longer get myself triggered into being upset when they are upset. Do you know how long I was a mother before I realized that I tended to mirror my children’s behavior? If they got hurt, I felt hurt. If they were crying, I wanted to cry. If they were upset, I was upset. If they were yelling, I would start yelling. For the most part my children have been happy, sunny people, but like all kids they have had their moments of acting out. I have learned to respond to those moments with sincere firmness, calmness and grace. This allows them to have their feelings but reign in the bad behavior. I have become the mother I always wanted to be.

I remember reading somewhere about how when women want to improve their communication with men in the workplace, the first thing to do is not ever raise your voice at work. This is because when women get upset our voices tend to get higher and higher and sounds very strident and whiney. Which apparently men find very irritating.

I figured this is probably true of children, because I have noticed my children getting a pained expression on their faces sometimes when I am telling them to do something. And sometimes they’ll ask me why I am shouting and I don’t even realize I have raised my voice. So lately I have been working on speaking to them in a lower tone of voice. The effect has been marvelous. When I tell them to do something, they take notice and do it right away. I realize now that they had gotten used to tuning out my ‘strident’ voice, which would cause me to tell them a second time, with my voice even higher and more buzzing. If I had to tell them a third time, oh man, I sounded very high-pitched.

T-bop told me tht other day that he liked my calm voice very much. That made me feel very happy.

I am doing so much better in this in many respects. I need to really keep working on my attitude, though, and what I say. My children are like sponges. They soak up everything from their environment: the energy carried by my words, tone of voice, body language, eye contact or lack thereof.

Because my writing has been so mama-focused (for example some of my books are Afro Mama, Veggie Mama, Teen Mama, etc) my kids like to say when they get upset with me that I should call myself Mean Mama. Oh my, this hurts me so much, because I don’t want to be mean and don’t consider myself to be a mean mother.

I do yell too much.

I used to curse frequently. Not at them, but around them. I have since stopped and that makes a world of difference to the atmosphere of our home. Now I am working on my yelling. I don’t yell as much at them anymore, but now they say I am making scary faces. Often I am not even aware I am doing it. For example, say I tell them to pick up the floor. No response, so I ask them this time. No response. So I say it again (I usually start yelling the second or third time) but now that I am working on not yelling, I say in a normal tone of voice but firmer this time, Please pick up the floor NOW. My kids will say Ack! Why are you looking at us so crazy! and scurry to pick up their toys and stuff.

LOL! It cracks me up. But it’s not really funny…I want my children to respect me, not be afraid of me. and I don’t believe that raising kids with fear is neccessary to inspire respect. I want to be a gentle mother.

This is a difficult job for me. I need to change my attitude toward parenting and make my automatic responses much less negative. I know I pick on my 2 year old’s behavior more than she deserves, but she is a healthy, happy child and mostly I feel I am a good mother. I need to learn to relax about the little things and save the big reactions for the big things.

I don’t have a lot to say about this. I don’t feel I am meeting this goal. I somehow have to get control of my temper and relearn better habits for dealing with little stresses. It’s not that I’m not gentle towards my son, but he sees the way I hit the couch or throw the phone when I lose it.. That’s probably why he’s hitting everyone lately. I suck :-(

But I find that taking two minutes whenever I need to helps a lot. He’s just so cute all the time, too. Who can help but laugh?

My husband has commented alot that since his last trip, he’s noticed a deeper connection between our son and me. We seem to have gotten through a rough patch and are back in sync. He rarely throws tantrums. I’m so impressed, and happy that he is understanding more of the things I’m explaining to him (like the fireworks). Everywhere we go, I’m so proud of him. He listens very well, especially to other people. He’s such a great kid! And so far, no punishment ;-)

I’m really fighting the urge to spank him at least once a day. Oh, the terrible twos! This morning I had to lock myself in the bathroom with the water running to drown out his screams. Sigh. But most of the time I can muster up some more patience to get through the day.

I’m really feeling like I need a break. Since my husband came back from Peru,, I haven’t gotten caught up on the housework and it’s driving me crazy. I’m trying to clean the house today so we can go out of town this weekend and relax, and not come back to a disaster.

I’m so proud of myself. We had a wonderful day today. I didn’t ever feel like I was losing my patience. He is showing some typical defiance, and I’m not sure how to handle it exactly. I really have to watch the threatening, because it seems to be second nature to me (I literally had this cross my mind today: “Pick up your trucks, or they’re going in the trash!”) What’s up with that?

I really can’t imagine using time-out, especially at this age. What would he get out of it? Besides humiliation and the need to rebel? Trying to correct him every time he does something, definitely backfires, I found out today. He’s not Cookie.