Tuesday, August 18, 2009

self control

Dear Evolved Moms, why are some people just crappy parents?? It seems no matter how involved we are, how many good lessons we teach, how much we listen and care and do what we need to do to help our daughter learn the right things, some other kids comes along and pushes her, or swears or talks about a show we don't allow. I just want scream at all of the other parents who don't get it. What is wrong with people?? Daddy Bill

Hi Daddy Bill,

I so hear you! And I
for the longest time
was the parent who would intervene
yell at the kid pushing my kid
talk to the other parents about their kid
scold
make evil eyes at the misbehaving kid
nothing subtle - not that I am capable of that anyway

But over time
I have learned a very valuable lesson
and the sooner you learn it
and teach it to your kid
the better your like will be

first - yes - many other parents suck at the parenting job
they don't make their kids brush their teeth
show them MTV at 7 years old
have few limits on bedtime
backtalk
violence
media and video games
leave them unsupervised
in fact during family week on the cape
two kids (9 ish) kept coming onto our store
without parents
they would sit and play for an hour
no intention of buying anything
just playing - loudly
finally I went in search of said parents
and found the sitting on a bench outside
many stores away
they told me, oh we trust them......
so i told the kid, most people come into shop
do you know this is not a playground?? Play for 5 more and then go
that did it..

okay, number 2
your kid needs to learn to fight her own battles
I suck at this one but it's true
she needs to decide what you taught her is right
and use it
help her find a sentence to say over and over
like "that's not cool"..

okay #3 this is the big one
no matter how much you want to
you cannot control
anyone but yourself
the harder you try the more you will fail
I always fail
you cannot worry about those kids (unless there is danger of course..)
just teach her the rules and over time
she will fully integrate them
and begin to self-parent in those situations

I am a control freak
to the max really
I have an extremely shy kid
no matter what
she will not tell someone... a friend or teacher
when she is unhappy or someone has done her wrong
at home she is loud as all get out!

yesterday she began to cry before gymnastics
a sport she loves more than life
she has been hesitant about going
we thought she was tired, or it was too extreme for her
just before going onto the floor, tears rolling down her 6 year old face
she whispered to me,

the girls are always cutting me in line
pushing into their space
talking at me
bossing
I don't want to go
and she was willing to quit
rather than do something
to stop their behavior

my shy girl would not say stop, or no or I don't like that
and I wanted to rip their little heads off
self control...
this is her life
her lesson to learn

I said T
hold your ground
don't move from your spot
if you can't say no yet
tell the coach
and hold your ground show them it's your gym, your place too!

together we spoke to the coach
who was super
T wiped her eyes and went to the floor to begin
the coach must have scolded the girls because T smiled for
3 hours of the workout

and for the first time
in my parenting life
I did not get in trouble
for meddling with badly parented kids
and she became stronger!
win for T
win for me

we can only control ourselves
Good luck Bill!

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2 Comments:

At August 20, 2009 9:39 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

Well said. I HATE crappy parents. I will share more stories when I see ya.

 
At March 25, 2010 8:59 PM , Blogger Woo222 said...

Where did you go? I soooo miss your blog posts. Did you relocate to a new blog or has life been too busy? Hope all is well, I was bad at commenting, but I read every post of yours. Please come back soon! ~Susan

 

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