Does parenting feel thankless sometimes? It can feel as though all our reminders to be polite and considerate go unheard. No matter how many times you remind your kids to be kind and thoughtful, to speak respectfully and put others first, they just keep snatching toys and calling each other names.
The constant bickering might be worse during the summer when the kids are all home from school. If you’re feeling overstimulated and on edge from it all, let me tell you something that happened yesterday that encouraged me in my efforts to raise kind and respectful children.
A timely intervention
Yesterday, things were not going well at one point in the afternoon. I was starting to get really frustrated with my younger kids’ behavior and my voice was getting increasingly louder as I tried to get them to listen and cooperate.
Just as I was about to start yelling, my 10-year-old did something he has absolutely never done before.
“Mom, it looks like you’re getting really stressed,” he said. He came over and put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic look.
“Wow, Mom, your body is all stiff and hard like a block of wood,” he said. “Here, calm down your body with me. Try to make your body soft and floppy like a blanket. I’ll hold out my fingers and you can pretend they’re birthday candles and blow them out to help you take some deep breaths.”
I was so shocked I almost didn’t know how to respond. If you know my rambunctious and rather heedless 10-year-old, this behavior was very uncharacteristic.
Familiar words
But I knew exactly where his words came from. He was repeating the script I say to him and his siblings when they are upset and out of control, and need to calm their bodies.
I’ve said those words to him probably hundreds of times in the 10 years I’ve been mothering him, and now for the first time, he was saying them to me.
Even more than my shock at what he was saying was my surprise at how well it worked. When I heard his words, my stress and frustration evaporated. Someone could see how upset I felt! I wasn’t alone with my big and uncomfortable feelings! The feeling of sudden emotional release almost made me tear up.
For the first time, I had a glimpse of what it has felt like for my kids all those times I’ve said those words to them. It felt amazing.
Watching the seed sprout
I thanked him with a big hug, calmed down, and got the younger kids in line. But I kept thinking about what had happened. It felt like proof that 10 years of teaching courtesy and kindness, day after day, were taking effect finally.
Every day we parents plant seeds in our children’s hearts, seeds of love, kindness, respect, courtesy, and empathy for others. For years, it might feel as though our words are going in one ear and out the other; it feels as though we are pouring water on a rock. But one day we will realize that the rock was a sponge, and the water was absorbed after all.
Yesterday showed me that years of planting seeds of empathy and acknowledging feelings were not wasted, even though I’m just beginning to see the fruit blossom in my oldest child. Many times over the years, I thought, “Will he ever learn? Is anything I’m saying making any difference?” Now I know all those seeds took root, without my seeing it at the time, and are beginning to grow.
And now that I’ve experienced how good it feels to be treated with kindness and respect in a moment of emotional distress, I feel renewed in my efforts to treat my kids that way, too.
After all, when we treat our kids with love and respect, we aren’t just teaching them how to treat their friends, teachers, and others they meet outside of our homes. We are teaching them how to treat us, their parents, both now and in the future.
And today we celebrate...