One of the things that drains my energy and raises my stress level is dealing with arguments between my children. Some days it feels like I can’t even take a shower without a child knocking on the door and telling me that someone did something to someone.
Here’s an aside about interrupting mom’s shower: It’s never going to end well for the tattler unless there is blood or a life-threatening emergency.Here’s how it goes:
I hear mostly unrecognizable words coming at me from the other side of the bathroom door. I can’t really understand what is being said because the door is closed, the fan is on and the water is running. I have to make a decision, do I get out of the shower, wrap a towel around myself and stand in my doorway freezing and dripping water all over just to hear that the kids are having an argument that they need me to mediate or will I discover that someone is about to lose a limb? I don’t really want to find a pool of blood on the floor, but on the other hand, if there is no emergency, I’m not super thrilled about having my shower interrupted.
Why are they calling for me? Because I’ve somehow established myself as the referee for my kids. This is what I need to let go of.
This is a hard one for me. I hate noise and arguments. I rush over and demand that everyone stop arguing and the noise stop as quickly as possible. I can feel energy draining from my body as the volume level rises.
But this solves nothing in the long run. I have momentary peace, but my kids haven’t learned to solve their differences on their own. So, for today and the next several days, I’ll be journalling how I figure out a way to remove myself from their arguments.
Am I alone in this? Please tell me some of you have experience this!
In my experience (still ongoing!), you’ll first have to spend time teaching them some tools to use to find a middle ground. As kids, they want their way, right then, no matter what. I’m working toward teaching mine to consider the alternate views (who doesn’t need THAT in their lives?) and letting go of anger and frustration to calm down and find a reasonable point to argue, but politely. This is one I think we moms probably need to participate in a little more than we want to sometimes, but only to guide the process and teach them HOW to fight fair rather than throwing them out the backdoor and letting them figure it out alone. 😀
Good food for thought, friend!