Yelling at My Kids
My son was 8 when he started having some struggles at school. My husband and I realized that in order to support him, we needed to change our behavior at home. We committed to being more present, yelling less, listening more, and finding patience even in the most challenging moments. It didn't take long to see the results. Both of our children responded immediately to our changes, and we could see how, as young parents, we had a lot of learning to do.
We've had our setbacks. We forget just how critical patience and listening are to the health of our kids. We get caught up in a moment, stressed out at work, or find ourselves running on empty, and those old habits come back.
Last night was one of those nights. I yelled—a lot. I came home to find the dog had peed on the carpet. Then as I was throwing the mess away in the garbage, I found that the kids had put a garbage bag in the recycling bin. As I grabbed the bag to move it, a half-empty jar of pickles came tumbling out of the untied bag and smashed on the concrete - like a slow-motion video. I stood over the broken glass and pickle juice and screamed. I came inside raving like a lunatic, screaming at them about not doing their chores properly and having a full-on meltdown.
I cleaned everything up and began making dinner. Before we sat down to eat, I pulled them both aside (separately) to apologize. I looked them in the eye and apologized for screaming. I acknowledged that I was mad at the dog and the mess, and I had taken my anger out on them, my beautiful children. I told them it wasn't fair of me to do that, and I was sorry. I gave them big hugs, and we sat down to eat dinner.
I want to say, "and we had a wonderful evening at home together after that." But, unfortunately, that was not the case. I had another mini-meltdown during dinner over someone not eating their vegetables.
At that moment, I realized I was struggling with something larger under the surface, most likely unrelated to my children and the dog. A wise friend once told me, "It's never about the thing." She meant that often when we've had a fit of anger or sadness, and it feels exaggerated or unexpected based on the moment, you're probably expressing emotions about something ELSE that is going unacknowledged. This goes for our kids too. When they cry over something that seems insignificant, they could be exhausted or have had a stressful day at school, or maybe had a difficult social situation they're still processing. Whatever it is, it probably isn't that very thing that happened at that very moment.
Just like it wasn't about the smashed pickle jar or even the dog peeing in the house.
So what did I do? After I cleaned up dinner and I'd slammed a few cabinet doors (yep, I'm that person), I went upstairs and sat on my bed, and breathed, and pet the dog. I told my son he could sit with me and read if he wanted, which he did. I also tried to reflect on what was really under the surface. I tucked them into bed and kissed them and hugged them and silently spoke words of gratitude for the beautiful creatures I get to call my kids.
What didn't I do? For the first time in a long time, I gave myself some grace. I didn't beat myself up. I didn't replay the scene 1,000 times in my head, wishing I had done something different. I didn't tell myself I was a terrible mom. Episodes like this used to be followed by at least two days of self-flagellation and guilt that resulted in no effective change or outcomes. I apologized, I learned from it, and I will continue to improve my parenting. That's all we can do.
