Sometimes in the middle of an especially trying week one of your children, who has been especially whiney as of late, will have a very small part of one of his toys broken. This part is not broken in a way that would affect the ability to play with this toy but the reaction to this broken part is equivalent to the reaction you would expect a child to have from seeing a beloved pet gunned down in the streets by an angry drug cartel. (I guess Fido was into some shady business…) You, being the parent of this overly distraught child, takes the toy and fixes it as best you can with what you have on hand. Your child looks at the toy and says, “I guess that’s better than nothing,” in their snottiest, most privileged tone, snatches the toy out of your hand and walks away…
(Before I continue I want to state again that it was a really rough week.)
When the above scenario happened to me not so long ago what I wanted to do to my child was grab him by the scruff of the neck like he was shady Fido up there and be like “LISTEN HERE YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE SHIT, IF IT WASN’T FOR ME AND YOUR MOTHER YOU WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE THAT TOY! YOU WOULDN’T HAVE A PLACE TO KEEP THAT TOY! YOU WOULDN’T HAVE FOOD! OR A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD! FOR FUCK SAKE, YOU WOULDN’T EVEN BE ALIVE!!!!!!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!?!?!? YOU WOULD BE DEAD IF IT WASN’T FOR US!!! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
But that’s not what I did. No, I took a deep breath, reminded him that when someone does something nice for you the proper reaction is to say “thank you” and let him go and play with the toy.
It doesn’t always go this well but my reactions are never as bad as the things that go through my head when I get pushed just a touch too far. I’m really hoping this counts for something because if thoughts could make you a bad parent… Whew!
Dadgitated 
that’s half a karma point. keep up the good work !
Half a point’s better than none!
😆
I think my Karma bank should runeth over by now…
Ha!
That’s a heck of a lot of control there dad. Good job. 🙂
Yep, I’m all that is zen… 😉
Glad to know that I am not the only one relying on those “deep breaths” to keep the thoughts tucked safely in my noggin. To echo CM, good job.
Thanks!
I am so there with you. This morning my 9 year old was doing his passive resistant don’t want to go to school schtick….I was in his room with him trying to find cases for the $65 PS3 games which were on the floor…I told him to go to his drawer and get some socks to which he replied in a VERY disrespectful manner…but you’re standing right there!!!! My first reaction was to literally throw him across the room…which I didn’t…LOL
Oh man have I had THAT urge. And my kids have slight builds so I know I could get some major distance. 😉
The “saying it in your head” technique is a good one, and no, thoughts of throttling don’t make you evil.
Great book about this technique by Naomi Aldort (raising our children raising ourselves) called SALVE (dont ask me exaclty what the acronym stands for…but it’s what you did.)
Pat on back!
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