None of us are perfect parents – parenting can be tough on the best of days, and then there are days when it seems your little treasure is on a mission to make you lose your damn mind. All in one day she might wake up at 4.30 a.m. ready to start the day then dump her cereal all over the floor (on purpose), repeatedly tease her brother so that he’s crying all morning, pour her water all over the kitchen floor then stomp in it yelling “jump in muddy puddles!” (bloody Peppa Pig) before reaching up to pull a glass dish on the floor which then smashes to smithereens. Little treasure’s mother might then lose her cool (to put it politely) and yell “get out! Just get out of the kitchen!” Yes, I had one of those days just a couple of weeks ago.
We are all going to have those days because we are human, so we shouldn’t spend too long beating ourselves up about it. What we should do though is remember to repair.
We are all going to have those days because we are human, so we shouldn’t spend too long beating ourselves up about it. What we should do though is remember to repair. Attachment Theory states that when a person loses his/her cool with a child this ruptures the relationship (to varying degrees) and that it is critical that we then repair the relationship by discussing what happened and making sure that the child understands that “even though mummy yelled, I still love you”. This discussion doesn’t have to be long and drawn-out, especially with a younger child, just a simple “mummy shouldn’t have yelled like that. I am sorry for yelling and
I love you”.
While my parents were incredible and loving parents, this was something they did not do because they were raised with a disciplinarian approach and felt that apologizing to a child gives the child too much power or diminishes the discipline, therefore silently condoning negative behaviors. But this is flawed thinking and always left me feeling ashamed and unsure if I was still loved after I had been “naughty”. Ultimately, children want to please the adults around them, so when they are acting out there’s usually a reason behind the behavior (ex: she is tired or wanting your attention because you have been distracted by the million things going on in your head) other than just misbehaving for the sake of it. So, when the little person in your life is pushing all your buttons and you react in a way that June Cleaver wouldn’t (ha ha!), always remember to repair with your child.
