Perspective

I used to have these wonderful dreams of kind of mother I'd be (I guess most of us have), but in all those dreams, my kids were perfect, and I never had to deal with misbehavior...in that kind of world, it's easy to be the perfect mom! When Finn grew out of the baby phase and I did have to deal with misbehavior, I realized that the parenting style I grew up with didn't fit me well.  Which led to lots of reading and research on my part as I tried to find what works for me, and that led me to the concept that discipline is about teaching the proper way to behave, not punishing for misbehavior (note, that's not to say there won't be consequences for misbehavior but natural consequences are different than punishments).  I've been holding back from fully embracing this because I wondered what people would think when they saw this in action.  I wondered and I worried that I would be judged.

Over the several months, I've also realized that much of my interactions with both boys is tinged with some constant background noise: am I doing the right thing? am I doing the right thing in the right way? what will other people think of my parenting choices? am I damaging my children? am I making it worse?  The list goes on and on.

It's exhausting, all this worry about other people and about doing things the "right way." It puts distance between me and my boys, keeping me from being in the moment. And it keeps me from trusting in my own instincts.

So these thoughts have been percolating in the back of my mind over the past few months - and then I found myself in a parenting situation with Finn that had quickly deteriorated to the point that he was not thinking at all, not hearing what I was saying, and lashing out by trying to hurt me.  There have been several times this has happened where I have been tempted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, but stopped myself because "that's not how it's done." But this time, I felt the urge to laugh, so I ignored everything but my instincts and I laughed.

And what do you know - Finn stopped, looked at me with surprise, and then started laughing, too.  Just like that, the horrible moment passed, all bad feelings were lost in the laughter, and he said, "I'm sorry, mommy," gave me a hug, and did what I'd asked him to do.  Later he misbehaved a little and I could see him looking to me to see how I would react and when I reacted with humor, he relaxed and grinned at me.

Wow.  I listened to my instincts instead of over-thinking the situation, and it worked.

Somehow, that's given me the freedom to finally stop worrying so much about the rules and about everyone else and focus on what's right for our family.  I'll take a little that I learned from this book, and little that I learned from that blog, and blend it into something that works.  And whenever we hit a new phase that I struggle with, I'll go back to the books, try something new. And when all else fails, I'll just laugh.

Because sometimes, that's all it takes to make everything better.