In all fairness, some of the principles of attachment parenting are lovely and well-intentioned. I used them during the early months of my sons’ lives (and was a frequent visitor to Dr. Sears’ website). But ultimately I think they are misleading a lot of parents, and taking the power and control out of their hands.

In short, attachment teaches parents to be very kind and nurturing to children. Nothing wrong with that. But it also teaches people to understand their child’s angry feelings and negotiate for better behavior instead of giving a consequence. Two-year-olds don’t understand conversation. Instead of clearly teaching children that bad behavior is not acceptable, this tactic only creates very good negotiators.

We humans are tricky creatures. We’re stubborn and naturally a little bit arrogant. We don’t like to be told how to do anything. We only truly learn by doing, on our own, with real consequences, and sometimes failure. Actually, we learn the most by failing. (There are like, a ton of quotes about that online but I didn’t feel like copying one here.)

Attachment parenting doesn’t allow failure. As soon as a child fusses, mommy is there. How is a child going to grow if its parent is meeting every need? They have to find out how to meet their own needs. No one can ever be self-sufficient if they’re relying on someone else to fix every problem.

One teacher friend of mine was recently reprimanded for telling his students it was irresponsible to miss an event they’d planned. The parents complained that he made their children feel bad. I wonder if these parents plan on following their children around through life preventing anything upsetting from happening to them.

Mostly I can’t forget something another teacher friend of mine said. We were talking about the challenging behavior she faces in class and she pointed out that “since attachment parenting is only about twenty years old, I don’t think that we have seen the true effect of it on society and kids as they become adults.”

Proponents of the philosophy would say it’s wonderful, the effect will be a more peaceful world. But those of us who work with kids worry about just the opposite. What we see is children who expect adults to jump for them and have no concern for anyone but themselves.

This is not how to raise healthy people. I show love to my kids – all of them, my own and day care alike – by expecting them to do better. By challenging them to problem solve and learn that you can’t always get what you want (a refrain I often sing in a lovely lilting voice). And believe it or not, they respond to me with gratitude. I respect them enough to challenge them, which means I also trust them to succeed. That is the best thing a child could ask of an adult.

Going on these trips always makes me a little nervous. I have a teaching degree and figure eventually, one day, I’m going to use it. I was trained to be a teacher, I am one in my child care, and it’s the natural next step for my career. But I still feel daunted when I walk into a classroom.

My situation is so different – I’m in my home with really little kids, and it’s just easy and natural. When I go in to school I doubt my ability to be in charge of a classroom and have the authority over so many more kids.

I watch how the teachers behave on the field trips. All it takes is one look or sharp word and they’ve got those kids in line. While I follow them around reminding them fifty times to stop running away from me, and they turn around and sass me.

But I have to remember that on these trips, I’m NOT the teacher. I’m just a parent, and I also don’t want to embarrass my own kid, who’s been nice enough to say I can go and trust me not to do that. So I just get through the day without really stepping it up.

But this morning while playing in the driveway my littles started to fight over a toy and I just barked. I realized it was automatic and they responded. I DO have a teacher voice!

After thinking about it I know it’s because here, I AM in charge. This is my house, my rules, and the kids know my expectations. I also know the kids. I know who needs a firm voice, who needs a lighter touch, how far I can let one push the boundaries, how quickly I have to step into an argument.

This trust is built over time, and not just on an 8-hour field trip. During those days I was able to pick out personalities pretty quickly, and I already knew what was motivating some of those kids. If I had to work with them daily I would figure out how to handle them.

And I’d have no problem using my teacher voice. So my confidence is restored. I do know what I’m doing! (Phew.)

• Make sure my sub (Famous Carol) can come for day care
• Alert parents that Famous Carol is coming and they need to pick up at 4:00
• Send in check for Younger’s cost to school
• Make sure permission slip was signed and returned
• Send in $2 for his “I belong with this class” bright blue t-shirt
• Find out that chaperones need to pay and send another check
• Send another $2 for MY bright blue (“I belong with this class and am not a kidnapper”) t-shirt
• Ask Michelle to pick up Older after school
• Make sure Older knows he’s going with Michelle
• Write dismissal email to Older’s homeroom teacher
• Note for Older to remember to go home with Michelle and not on bus
• Have talk with Older to figure out what will happen if he does go home on bus
• Write down Michelle’s phone number for Older in case he goes home on bus
• Reassure Older that he will remember to go home with Michelle and not to worry
• Email Famous Carol to be sure she’s coming and tell her what’s going on with the kids this week
• Send parents reminder email and write early closing time on whiteboard
• Write “Bag lunch” on the menu for that day so Dad won’t make normal lunch
• Take a picture of the TV remote and upload it to computer, print it out and write instructions for Famous Carol
• Find my small travel backpack (throw out first one I found because it’s disintegrating)
• Charge two iPods since they’re allowed to bring them for entertainment
• Gather Younger’s book, headphones, charged iPods, and journal to go in his backpack
• Find a better journal because the first one is too small
• Pack my own bag with sunblock, magazine, snack for four kids, bandaids, tissues, itinerary, etc.
• Go over the checklist sent from the school to make sure I didn’t forget anything (but I’m plagued with the feeling that I did)

Now for the morning of the trip:

• Pack the bag lunches and Younger’s snack
• Change whiteboard message for parents to pickup early today
• Set up the cribs
• Get pile of VCR tapes
• Leave check and instructions for Famous Carol
• Leave the tv set to VCR
• Vaccuum under the snack table because I forgot to last night
• Greet kids arriving at normal time
• Review TV use with Carol
• Make sure Younger’s ready (which he is, because he’s awesome)
• Go on field trip!!!

Older’s field trip is next week.

But last night my son did something so amazing I just have to say it. My quiet boy, the one who holds it in and buries it until it explodes (like his mother), who has struggled to find his place, stood alone in front of ten people and took his yellow belt test. In Korean. With a man he doesn’t usually train with, so the pronunciations were different, and he was asked to do several things over.

We’ve never done this before and had no idea what to expect. His father and I sat anxiously on the sideline, watching closely for signs of a breakdown. And what would we do if he had? Would it be worse to sit back and let it happen, or rush in and hug him? The whole point of the class was to give him more confidence.

The way he faced this challenge was inspiring. He’d been nervous all day and I kept telling him his teacher would not have arranged the test if he didn’t have faith that Younger could pass. We used all the tricks we’ve learned to keep calm – deep breaths, repeating the words “I can do this. I know what I’m doing,” over in his mind when he got upset. As his instructor told us, it will just be doing everything you already know and do in class.

I looked at my little one, so tiny in the middle of the big room, and was scared for him. It was silent except for the tester’s commands, and all eyes were on him. He went through his moves with strength and determination. Occasionally he made a slight bobble but always recovered.

When it was time to get his new belt his teacher asked for a family member to come and take his old one. Older Son jumped up and ran to his brother. Younger got his new belt, a certificate, bows and praise and claps, and it was over.

When we got home, Dave told him there was no way he could’ve done what Younger did when he was that age. I just hugged and hugged him. He wrapped an arm around my neck and held me tight, tighter than he has in a long time. It surprised me, and I think he really needed to hold onto something until all the energy of the experience had left his body. I held tight back, for as long as he would let me.

Just when we are most worried about our children they can really surprise us. I am prouder of my son than I have ever been for any of his accomplishments. He had more in him than I ever knew. And today I am overwhelmingly grateful for that.

I’ve been dealing with a little mean girl stuff around here lately, but it’s giving me the “wonderful teachable moments” that my friend Lynne is always talking about. I’m almost grateful for the run-ins that happen because then I get to teach a child how to make a healthy choice to protect herself.

For example I have a girl who I call my little boss. She’s only imitating my behavior, which a lot of girls do, but she likes to be in charge of everyone. She was telling Miss C what to do when Miss C yelled at her and started to cry (I so get that feeling).

The boss said, “I don’t want to play with you. Right, Miss C?”

I said, “Ms. Boss, she’s really mad right now because of how you’re treating her. She doesn’t want to talk about it. You need to leave her alone.”

Miss C looked at me and stopped crying. It was like she suddenly realized she didn’t have to play out the Boss’s puppet show. She could choose not to engage, and when she knew that the cloud lifted. This is one of the most powerful moments I get to enjoy on the job.

It reminded me of one of my clients whose daughter had gone on to preschool. She was having trouble with a child who was mean and she didn’t want to play with that child. But the teacher told her she had to because of the “we’re all friends here” rule.

I told the mom, “You tell your daughter she never has to play with anyone she doesn’t want to!”

I understand the intention of a rule like that because it’s trying to dictate good behavior, but it isn’t something you can control. It’s like saying “Be nice.” How do you regulate that?

And why would you ever want to force kids to play with someone who is hurting them? I suggested that mom tell her daughter to WALK AWAY, and that it’s OK to tell people exactly how they’re making you feel. You never make a child play with anyone, that’s just crazy talk.

I often try another response with the kids, which is no response at all. We recently had an interesting conversation with a friend who is a psychiatric social worker. She said that sometimes people will physically attack her. I asked all the kids present (there were four – I am never not surrounded by kids) to listen up and hear what her response is.

She said first you try not to respond too much. Then you put up a hand and say, “You’re getting a little too close to me now,” but you have to learn how to stay calm and project strength.

She even said that she’s been hit, and it doesn’t scare her anymore because once it happens, you know what it feels like and you survive. Now that’s tough.

The kids were interested and I was glad we had a chance to talk about survival tactics. Older Son said “I have a good way to deal with bullies. I just look at them and go, ‘Really?’”

We talked about how much easier it is for adults to handle the onslaught than kids. And how even adults have to deal with bullies. It’s pretty cool when you find life lessons in unexpected places.

So, in summation: no response, calm response, be strong, walk away, you don’t have to play with a bully, and you will get through this if you use your head. Just another day at the office.

It was a pretty mellow morning this year. Some nice cards from the boys (Younger’s haiku made me cry) and a lovely huge daisy plant to put on the front steps. For the first time being “a mom” on mother’s day felt a little less meaningful. Not in a bad way, but I think it’s just a natural part of the kids growing up.

As the intensity of caring for them eases up, so does everything else. It all seems nice and smooth lately, and that vibe just continued through the lazy morning. I snuggled with them on the couch and watched MythBusters. Which is pretty much my favorite thing in the whole wide world, so I have NO complaints.

I got to hug my mother-in-law and tell her how much I love her. I talked to my own mom on the phone, who called at the moment I was getting out of the car on the side of the highway, and gave me sympathy for the carsickness I’ve had since I was her little girl. I spent some time with two mom friends and got a bunch of texts from others. As I said, not as exciting as past Mother’s days, but one of the nicest days I’ve had in a while.

We spent the afternoon watching my sister-in-law (also a mom) in Into the Woods, probably one of the most poignant musicals out there for a parent. I remember listening to it quite a bit when I was pregnant with my first, the songs outlining so many life lessons.

I also remember thinking, how am I going to cover all of this with my kid? I dunno, maybe just give him a copy of Into the Woods.

One of the biggest laughs I had yesterday was when Rapunzel confronted her mother, the Witch, telling her, “You locked me in a tower, you blinded my prince, you banished me to the desert…because of you I’ll never be happy!!” (Runs away crying.)

And the witch screamed after her, “I WAS ONLY TRYING TO BE A GOOD MOTHER!!!”

I laughed because all the moms on the sidelines of the game last week had this exact same conversation. It really doesn’t matter what you do as a mom – work, don’t work, spoil them, be strict, do everything the best way you think you possibly can, but you can’t change the fact that everything will always be your fault.

So what it means to be a mother is changing for me as my boys grow up, and just like everything else about being a mom, I have to adjust to that. Still compensating, still shifting, still being as patient as I can while worrying all the time that I’m screwing them up. Ah, motherhood. I hope that all the moms had a fabulous day and got some of the love you deserve.

Between us we know several home day cares in the area that are closing. Maybe more parents are choosing centers. But it might be that for some people the workload is starting to outweigh the rewards. Carol pointed out how sad it is that we’re becoming more and more institutionalized.

It really hit me hard when she said, “It used to be like dropping your kids off at Grandma’s house for the day.”

That just sounded so sweet, and I would love to have that kind of house. It’s getting harder to maintain that family atmosphere with all the requirements we have to meet. I have to admit that I barely skate by as it is, especially since I just started a four-month-old who needs to be held a lot (as all babies do).

So I got into my usual funk of comparing myself to other providers and coming up short. Carol told me to stop being hard on myself (she knows this is what I do). She tells me if the kids are happy I’m doing a great job. Well, they’re happy a lot of the time…

But then the very next day a funny thing happened. My after-schooler went to girl scouts, two kids stayed home sick, and another got picked up early with a fever. I was left with just three girls for the afternoon and quickly realized I had a lot of time on my hands.

As we came home from the school pickup (I still had my own son to get, don’t forget about him) I said, “Instead of me making a snack for you guys, how about we bake our own together?” YEAH!!! They ran in the kitchen. “Amy remember when it was Miss A’s birthday and we make cupcakes?” “Remember I got the egg on my hand and I cried?” “Do we still have the halloween holders?” (Cupcake wrappers. Yeah, it’s been a while since we baked.)

And in a strange twist, Older helped us while Younger played video games. It was delightful for me, first to see him bonding with the kids instead of being annoyed at them (his usual state), but also because I don’t think he’s made muffins with me since he was about five years old.

So when I don’t have a four-month-old plus five other kids plus an after-schooler plus my own two kids, I am really damn good. And it’s not that hard.

Today I was down to one at the end of the day with half an hour before her dad came to pick her up. I asked if she would be scared if I vaccuumed. She said yes but I tried it. She covered her ears and watched me. I said, “Do you want to try it?” An old trick to get kids over being scared of the monster.

She jumped at the chance. Of course it’s too heavy for her to push so I took the hose off and showed her how to magically suck up the cracker crumbs and popcorn pieces. She was delighted.

While she sucked up the snack detritus from under the table, I used the dustpan on the hardwood floor. We knelt side by side and she giggled hysterically every time the vaccuum hose sucked up her dress. It suddenly felt a little old-fashioned to me and I thought, this is like grandma’s house.

Until she thought it would be fun to see if the vaccuum would suck up her sock. That thing was whipped off her foot and up the hose faster than I could even blurt out one word in response.

It was kinda funny.

Then it was more like Grandpa’s shop than Grandma’s kitchen, and the boys were back to see me doing surgery on the vaccuum, and then they all played jumprope with the hose (which I had to remove), and Older showed me how they learned about waves in science class by sending jolts of different size and speed down the length of it, and Miss M had a chance to use the screwdriver, and I had to stick my fingers into the bag to fish out the sock. (Gross.)

But we got it straightened out. And the whole scene was something I don’t think you’d see in a center. Hang in there family child care providers – the children of the world need us.

*Possibly the best line I’ve ever written on my blog.*

He’s losing his mind over Mario Super Sluggers and screaming so loud that even Younger Son said, “He needs to take a break.”

He did the same thing last night and we eventually left him to go upstairs and read Harry Potter (yes, thank you Lord, my son is finally reading the books after owning them for three years, because the endless unanswered questions left by the movies drove him to it).

Anyway it’s such a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning. I had to give Older credit because he was up an hour before me and didn’t make a peep so that I could sleep in. Holding that in must have been hard but he did it for his dear old Mum. And for that I have to hold in my urge to tell him to “KNOCK IT OFF!!!!”

I thought we were finally past this phase. He used to do the exact same thing when he was younger, venting his frustration at seemingly impossible video games. Then he finally grew out of it and it was like a cloud lifted.

But now he’s back to it and I think I’ve figured out why: hormones. He’s getting flashes of pre-teen angst, snide comments here and there, running up to his room and hiding. ANYTHING my husband says to him is taken as a personal attack.

Dad: You made a great save.
Older: I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!!!

I knew all of this was coming and I’m not surprised or upset. I’m really quite sympathetic (well he’s my kid, of course I’m on his side). I think part of why I work well with children is because I remember quite vividly what it feels like to grow up. Not the exact details or events, but the VERY BIG FEELINGS that made everything seem like your life was about to end dramatically.

I look at the challenges he’s facing and they’re pretty big for an 11-year-old boy. His team gets crushed every Saturday and Sunday. He’s dealing with a whole new set of fears that have just appeared after a long time of feeling overly confident about the world and his capabilities to handle it. He has a huge burden of homework, some of which he doesn’t understand and no one can seem to explain to him. He wants to feel capable and strong, not confused and emasculated.

Of course none of this compares to my Polish neighbor, who was in a German POW camp at age 11, so we do try to keep it in perspective.

But still, the pain of the screaming. I have a hard time relating to Older’s outbursts because well, first of all the sound makes me want to do horrible things to him. But it’s also not how I handle anger. I hold it all in until I lose it and have to go in the basement and punch the heck out of Nubs. Older vocalizes his pain.

But then I remember, I learned this technique when I was in labor and it really worked. Someone (probably my pregnancy yoga teacher) told me it’s the worst pain of your life, you’re allowed to yell. But do it in a growling way to release it instead of shrieking like a banshee. And it actually did work.

Nowadays if I stub my toe (or slice my hand with a knife, which I did last week while cutting the cantaloupe and yelling at a day care kid to stop hitting someone), the rumble comes up from my gut and actually eases the pain, or at least takes my mind off it.

So I have to accept for a while that this is Older’s outlet. I know it will pass because it has before (and then God knows what he’ll use to soothe the pain).

It seems that my banshee finally won the level so he’s calm for the moment. But I know he’ll be back.

Then I start to daydream. I could actually get something accomplished before the soccer games begin. I start going through the list of projects in my head. I could tidy up the basement. Dig out their summer clothes. Dust? Then Younger asks me if he can have a bath with “the squishy stuff.”

We got this stuff as a gift:

Damn you Squishy Baff people! You are liars! Liars all!!!

And – I have to admit it – I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Totally up our alley – weird, messy, something that changes into something freaky when you add water. I couldn’t wait to get the boys in the tub and try it. So I said yes, and up we went.

It was really cool, and weird, and all those things we thought it would be. Younger loved it. Older sat in it for a few minutes, then suddenly realized it was creepy and had to get out immediately. Younger stretched out and enjoyed a nice hot squishy bath all to himself.

Now, the instructions said to simply add the magic dissolving powder and it would – well, magically dissolve.

Are you at all shocked to hear that it didn’t dissolve ONE BIT?! Well maybe the three square inches where Younger dumped it, though it said “sprinkle evenly” so I stirred it REALLY well, but maybe that just wasn’t enough. Perhaps that was our fatal mistake.

The tub was quite filled with squishy stuff that was clearly not magically dissolving and had no intention of doing so.

So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I went and got a strainer from the kitchen.

I swished it through the water and it came out completely FULL of stuff, without making a dent in what was still in the tub. It was quite heavy and I had to hold it for about a minute to drain the water out. Wasn’t sure what to do with it (pour in on newspaper? Into a plastic bag?) but once I felt the weight of it I thought the garbage can might be the best idea. Turns out, it was.

After about twenty minutes and eight strainerfuls, I asked Older to go get me another strainer. No sense doing this with one hand. I got quite a good little system going, sweep, strain, switch hands, dump, sweep, etc.

At some point during the bailing I realized that this stuff had been in the cracks of my kids’ bodies. I threw up a little in my mouth, then made a mental note to throw the strainers away as soon as I was done.

After another 40 minutes, the tub was pretty much empty. And my garbage can was full.

Oh sure, it just magically dissolves.

And that’s a big can, it’s not your average little bathroom mini-can (not in this house). I knew darn well if I tried to pick up the bag the thing would explode all over the floor, so I grabbed the can to haul it down to the trashcan outside. And I pulled a muscle in my back. Wet Squishy Baff is heavy.

And I was running late for preparing the boys’ pre-game snack.

So, in short, that’s why nothing ever gets done in my house. I suppose I jinxed myself by even thinking for a moment that something could possibly get done. And why I never have time to do anything, and why I’m always busy, and giving all my friends lame excuses for never being able to go out and have fun or get anything accomplished.

Friends, don’t be like me. Don’t be the cool fun mom who lets anything happen in her house, mess be damned. Don’t let your kids play with chemicals because you think it will be a cool educational experience. Just don’t do it.

And oh yeah. I have to run to the kitchen store to buy some new strainers.

One of the most popular posts on this blog has always been Don’t Feel Bad When Your Crying Baby Makes You Crazy. This is clearly a universal problem: people really do struggle when a baby is crying.

The reader, a man, said how much he loves his one-year-old daughter and that she rarely cries, but when she does, he gets so angry that he has to leave the room and punch furniture. He is afraid that he will scare and possibly hurt her with his anger.

First I want to reassure him that he’s doing the right thing. Go away, get rid of your anger, and come back when you can deal with the child. It’s far more upsetting for them to see you lose it in front of them or, clearly, to take your anger out on them. Your anger makes the moment more intense. The goal is to remain calm, and therefore calm the baby.

This is the hardest challenge of parenting – this is where you really have to dig deep, and I’m not just being facetious. You have to grow and change, which is really hard. You have to push yourself to find a place where you can be calm even when all hell is breaking loose around you.

If you lose control of your anger you can very easily hurt a little one, and it is terrifying for parents to think they have this capacity. Because no one talks about anger when it comes to little ones. We see the rosy pictures and the quiet moments and the joy joy joy we’re supposed to be feeling, when really we’re exhausted, emotional, scared, and sometimes just can’t handle the drastic (and irreversible) life changes we’ve just been through. Babies open up a whole new world we can’t possibly understand until we’re there, at 3AM with a screaming child, and we’ve got a major presentation at 9:00.

First let’s try to explain why all of this is happening. We get so noticeably upset by our baby’s cry because it is designed by nature to get your blood pumping – to get you to respond to its distress. It’s a survival instinct that we’re both physically wired for and there’s nothing we can do to change it.

But I also think that today we have immense pressure to never let our babies cry. All the gurus tell us to do everything we can to soothe our baby and stop the crying right away. But sometimes you simply can’t. And as the reader described, he then feels guilty because he can’t stop her crying and because his own emotional reaction feels out of control. Then the whole situation escalates quickly.

Sometimes being forced to stop crying is not the best thing for a child. Babies feel stress too, and they need a way to let it out. When we run in and force them to calm down we’re saying don’t cry – it’s not good for you. That emotion you have is bad and we need to stop it. A baby feels what they feel, they can’t analyze it.

Put her in a safe place and walk away. You both need a timeout, and that’s OK (and sometimes the safest thing to do). In fact I will often tell my day care kids, “Amy needs a timeout!” and run and hide in the kitchen. We can only take care of our kids if we take care of ourselves first. (This rule applies forever, at any age, in all situations.)

A little bit of crying has never hurt or permanently scarred a baby. It lets them deal with their own big emotions and learn how to self-soothe. There are times in life when Mom and Dad simply don’t know how to stop the pain. We can’t always fix everything, and it’s OK for a child to feel sad. Crying is a release.

Let’s face it, we are not a culture that deals well with ugly emotions. We don’t know what to do with our anger so we bottle it up until it explodes at the wrong time. It scares us, and that’s a healthy thing, but that also leads us to hide it away. When we’re sad we try everything to stop the crying, to hold that feeling in, rather than letting it out. Sometimes your body just can’t do that, even though we try to put our societal norms on it and say we’re too civilized for this ugliness. It’s not true. We need to be able to face it and then let it go, and teach our kids how to do that as well.

Therefore, I would like to introduce you to my friend Nubs. The boys named him that because he doesn’t have arms (or maybe something dirty but I chose not to delve any further). When we got him I thought it would be a hoot – but basically a joke – that I would be able to take my anger out on him. One day I half-heartedly punched his face. In a few minutes my hands hurt so badly that I had to go back to the store and get sparring gloves. When I’m not punching Nubs, I pat him on the head and thank him for taking my abuse, because honestly, there are some days when he saves our lives.

One of the most important things I do with my day care kids is teaching them how to deal with anger. There are many books out there on the topic, and one of their favorites is If You’re Angry and You Know It. I developed a song chart they can pick from and we sing, “If you’re angry and you know it growl it out!” Grrrrrrr, with lots of roars and gritted teeth from the crowd.

The reader asks if he should seek professional help and I would say I don’t think you’re at that point right now. The baby’s cries will get less intense as she gets older (and in case they don’t, remember that the best thing you can do with a tantrum is WALK AWAY – ignore it and don’t feed it, whatever you do).

But I’m glad that you realize that if it doesn’t get better, and you find yourself raging at your child, that you will need to ask for help. You are on the right track, and you’ve tapped into something very strong – the way our kids can push our buttons until we rage. As they grow it might not be crying, but other very sneaky ways they know to get us going.

It’s OK to show our kids that we’re angry. It’s an honest emotion and sometimes they push us to it. They have a part in the dance and need to learn why misbehaving is wrong. It’s part of growing up, and parents teaching their kids right from wrong.

Still I had the hardest time with this because of those messages – life is beautiful, never ugly, our children are precious, never let anything scar or hurt them, and NEVER tell them “No.” My son was a wild three-year-old and I battled him. One day I screamed so loud that it scared even me. I called my friend Pam and cried. I told her I don’t know what I’m doing but I know it’s wrong. I’m afraid I hurt my child.

She said, “Amy, what is he doing right now?” I looked out the window and said, “He’s running up and down the driveway with his Power Rangers cape on.” Pam asked, “Did you crush his spirit?” I had to admit that I didn’t. And what a relief that was. And accept the knowledge that our kids are far more resilient than we give them credit for. I waited until I collected myself and went and gave him a big hug. But I remembered that the next time he was getting me upset, I would let him know before I became a screaming monster.

I’m not much of a yeller now. I’m direct and honest, and address issues before they get out of control. I’m firm but loving. It’s been the hardest process of my life to learn how to handle my emotions, and the kids, and their emotions, in a healthy and productive way.

There is a quote that comes to mind every time I feel my anger rising at my kids. When I remember that they are the most precious and important thing in my life, and that I am the God of their world. That my response is literally going to shape their lives and teach them the emotional strength for how to get through the toughest times:

“Your defining act of love for your child will not be the 2:00 AM feedings, the sleepless, fretful night spent beside him in the hospital, or the second job you took to pay for college. Your zenith will occur in the face of a withering blast of frightening rage from your child, in allowing no rage from yourself in response. Your finest moment may well be your darkest. And you will be a parent.” (Michael J. Bradley)