Am I A Broken Record; a few musings on childhood misbehavior
I think I have a record player, or should I say cd player, implanted in my brain. It causes my voice to repeat things over and over. Does this happen to you too?
I enjoy the tracks where my mouth says things like “I love you”. Things like “we don’t put pillows over the baby’s head”, not so much. When it comes down to it, sometimes I get so tired of repeating the same things over and over, know what I mean?
Things like:
- Stop whining!
- Get off of your brother; He is asking (okay screaming) for you to stop sitting on him.
- Please follow mommy’s directions.
- Will you please stop leaning on me and sit all the way in your chair (at dinner).
- Trowing a fit will not get you what you want.
- Pick up your toys or they will be taken away the next time I come in here and they aren’t picked up.
- We don’t hit in our house, we use our hands to show love.
- Don’t run away from me!
- If you get up from time-out before the timer goes off there will be further consequences.
- Get in your car seat!
- Why are you out of bed?
- Because I asked you to do ________.
- Go to the potty BEFORE any pee-pee gets in your underwear!
I think I might have said all of those things in one day! The trick is to say all of these things in a voice that isn’t angry. And boy does that get hard when I’m tired–or just sick and tired of repeating the same things over annoying behavior. The truth is that I should not be surprised that my children misbehave and don’t do everything they are supposed to do. Shocking, I know. They are kids and they aren’t perfect–just like I am not. But in all honesty, sometimes I wish that they never misbehaved. I have to remind myself that their mistakes are chances for them to grow in their character (mine too) and opportunities for me to show them that I love them despite their misbehavior or bad choices.
Sometimes when the broken record is playing I have flashbacks into my own childhood when my mom would say some of those same things to me. So weird.My hope is that on the days where I am repeating all the “behavior correction” tracks that I can squeeze in the tracks that tell them:
- I love you.
- Let’s have some special play time.
- You are important to me.
- I’m so glad you are mine.
- I love how God made you.
- You are significant.
I once heard that for every criticism you tell a child they need to hear 5 positive things about themselves. That is hard to do some days. I find it too easy to get into the pattern of just correcting behavior and being nitpicky rather than enjoying the day given to me and cherishing the everyday moments with my child. I mean, if I ask one of my kids to put something away and they want to spin in circles instead of walk on the way to putting it away, does it really matter? I’m learning how to let some of those things go so I can spend more time loving on my kids and laughing with them.
What phrases do you find yourself saying over and over again? Is there anything you say now that your parents used to say to you? And tell me your secret about how you speak kindly to your kids when they are whining about wanting to watch TV for the 150th time that day!
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To answer your last question, I find myself singing “You can’t always get what you want” to Lucy, which both distracts her and satisfies my sense of irony.
Ones I say a lot: “Do you WANT to go to timeout?” and “Now it’s Eli’s turn.”
I also say “It’s your choice” or “You have a choice: ______ or _________” about a hundred times a day. (As a teacher, I learned to make the students’ discipline about choices, like if they get punished, it’s because they chose that through their actions. Puts the responsibility on them. We want to do this with our kids, too.) And when Lucy is good, we often say, “You made a GREAT choice!” It’s even a category on her sticker chart (“making good choices”). It sounds funny to us, but I think it’ll be good in the long run.
The good tracks include:
I love you!
You’re so smart/sweet/funny/silly!
Brilliant!
Thank you for sharing with your brother.
Aw, you love your brother very well.
What a pretty girl you are.
Nice post. It’s good to reflect on our broken-recordness; I bet we’d all be shocked to hear the things we repeat if we were being recorded for a day.
We do the choice thing a lot too. You might really love a book called Parenting with Love and Logic. The premise is all about setting your child up to choose for themselves teaching responsibility and consequences through their own actions. It has got some good stuff in it.
Another good track: Wow! You and your brother are playing SO WELL together! Keep it up!
HA! Amelia, a lot of those same things come out of my mouth every day. I think that just happens with boys this age. Sometimes I get exasperated with my inquisitive four year old and exclaim, “Because I said so!” I don’t like it b/c it sounds lame, but after a while I get tired of all those “why?” questions. Another one that comes out of my mouth (at least once a day), “Please don’t do that to your sister.”
Letting things go can be tough, but you’re right, we need to pick and choose our battles with our children or we’ll end up frustrated with them and miss out on some fun.
Our good tracks are similar to Dawn’s, especially the “sharing” one. I love it when our son shares with his sister w/o prompting from us, and I make sure to tell him!