Life is 1% what happens and 99% how you react to it.

[merpk]

Read this wonderful line (thanks, sunmountain ) on another forum and thought it was just like the coolest most wonderful thing to keep in the forefront of my seriously creaking GD-obsessively-struggling brain.

Very, very, very, hugely helpful. All right, okay, well, now that it's 3:30 a.m. and the kids are asleep, it certainly seems like it will be helpful ... will let you mamas know what happens at 7 a.m. when they're waking up and fighting over who gets to use the blue spoon at breakfast ... : :LOL

[kama'aina mama]

Just wondering where I should get it tattooed so Dh will see it often. You are right. I swear almost every conflict with my child is somehow of my own making. I tend to discount her personhood when I am in a hurry.

Be sure to tell us about the blue spoon. Seriously.

[mamaduck]

Hey, it reminds me of something I read in a parenting book -- something to the effect, "Parents should not be judged by their children's behavior, but by their reaction to that behavior." I think that was Crystal Lutten.

Is hard to stay in control though, huh?

I just finished reading "Lib. Parents, Lib. Children." There was a lot I loved, some I disagreed with, and plenty that got me thinking and working through some things. (I need to start some threads!) One concept I found helpful was the idea of "anger without insult." The idea that it is fine to express our anger around our children, and even okay to yell, so long as we are simply expressing feelings and not insulting, name calling, or labelling our children. It made some sense -- and it is "liberating" to shout "I feel angry about this!" to my children instead of something like say, maybe -- "You little brat, don't you ever do anything right?" Or more common, "What is wrong with you????"

It is the same sort of "reaction" I work with my children to produce rather than hitting or kicking. I think we all "need" to react in a way that communicates our strong feelings. Its just the skill of honing our reaction to be constructive and non-injurous that is the hard part.