I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Disciplining your kids is hard.
It requires nuance. You can’t yell all the time, because it loses its effectiveness after a while. You can’t spank ever because you were spanked by your parents when it was acceptable and are now you are totally insane and probably in jail. You need to develop tricks. Time-outs, good cop/bad cop, the Parent Voice, etc.
Most of the time, getting your kids to behave boils down to two strategies: threats and bribes.
No one likes to discuss politics, or religion, or gun control, or any other hot button issue with strangers or acquaintances or extended family.
But as parents, we’re often forced into unpleasant conversations in order to care for our kids, and in 2017, there’s something new I want to know:
“Where do you stand on Trump?”
I have a 7-year-old and an almost 2-year-old. Which means my oldest is mostly past tantrums (one would hope!), and my youngest is just about to make them his primary means of communication. Can’t wait!
Tantrums are tough. You can’t really blame the kid, especially not the young ones who are still learning how to express themselves while also grappling with those pesky emotions. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to figure out how to better handle them, to calm your kid down and keep yourself from losing your shit and/or mind.
Unfortunately, many of the proposed tactics aren’t always possible in the heat of the moment.
Read more about Expert Tips For Tantrums Are Great (In Theory) …
I never thought I’d say this, but thank god for parenting! Sometimes, it can be a respite.
Regardless of where you stand on the Great Pumpkin President, these are some harrowing times. North Korea, neo-Nazis, Harvey Weinstein, geostorms (and also Geostorm). Things are fairly tumultuous.
We’re often told to not sweat the small stuff, but when the world serves as an enormous sauna, sometimes the small stuff is the only way to cool yourself down.
Kids are walking disasters.
This is nothing new. There’s nothing that they can’t/won’t/already have destroy(ed). Every parent already knows this. And we also know that it’s our job to protect them from themselves, as difficult as they can sometimes be, because we know better.
But just because we know better doesn’t always mean that we do better, which is why Mom and Buried and I keep insisting on having taco nights despite the fact that the aftermath looks like the front row of a Gallagher concert.