Family Briefs

In an effort to put together some ideas to begin our own podcast, my husband has been listening to a wide variety of those available. He was telling me about a particularly poor podcast he had listened to the other day. Apparently, the woman doing the show came across as giving “expert” advice; she gave the impression that she had all the answers.

As I reflected on some of my previous blogs, I began thinking about how you might be reading them. I HOPE you are reading them! I certainly don’t want to come across as a mom that has all the answers - I assure you, I don’t!

Let me share with you one of my recent failures . . . I have many to choose from . This past Friday was a school holiday, and my children were ALL being less than cooperative. By the middle of the afternoon, I had had enough! My husband had already put our oldest in a time out, and he was still having a fit (my son, not my husband :)  . In a loud, firm voice, I was telling my son that he needed to get control of himself before he tried to talk with us about his behavior.

Two minutes later, I come in from the garage SHRIEKING at my husband, because our two middle children were making a HUGE mess in the garage when they were supposed to be cleaning up. I had obviously lost control. There is my oldest son - sitting there in the corner getting himself together - right where I should have been.

I yell too much. I know I do; I’d like to think I’m getting better, and I guess some days I am. Some days, I need to work a little harder (like when I’ve got some extra hormones, or too much to do in too little time, or when life just feels like it’s ganging up on me). I could spend time berating myself about my behavior, but you know what? I’m not. I’m human, and I make mistakes like everybody else. It’s what I do with those mistakes that is important.

Now, the scene I’ve described wasn’t funny at the time, but I can laugh about it now. And once I had calmed myself down, I began seeing the irony in the situation. Later that evening, I talked with my oldest son about my bad behavior. We had a great discussion on self-control. It’s hard! He agreed that it was hard, and I think he felt better about himself when he realized I was still working on this area in my life too.

Having four children means I have lots of experience - especially with things that don’t work! Hopefully, our website will be a place where we can all talk about the things that haven’t worked for us, as well as the tricks that have. In sharing our successes and failures, I hope we’ll cut each other some slack and learn from each other too!