Hello and welcome to episode number 92. I've titled this episode, I love my child, but sometimes I can't stand him. Kind of a Intense title, but also a thought that perhaps can be relatable, especially for those of you who are parenting a more complex child, because listen, it is easy and somewhat effortless to connect and bond.
With a child who is sweet and calm and affectionate, how do we as parents open ourselves up to connect with a child who's more prickly in nature, more intense, has big explosive meltdowns, says the unthinkable things. I wish you were dead, mom and dad. I wish you were not my parents. Things like that.
How do we open ourselves to love a child who is super, super intense and more challenging in nature? I wanted to tackle this subject because I hadn't done so in the past in my previous season of the podcast. Because honestly, I was a little scared to go here. I was a little trepidatious about talking about a topic that feels really, really taboo.
I mean, which parent admits to not liking their child? But here's the thing, I know I've had thoughts like this before. Because parenting a complex child, and I have several of them is really hard and sometimes can be really painful. And when I've had these thoughts, Oh gosh, I don't want to be around this particular child right now.
I just, Oh my gosh, the thought of picking this child up from preschool right now and being faced with that level of intensity. It's just like, I want to do anything else in life. I've thought thoughts like that before. And I used to be wracked with guilt and shame. What kind of mother thinks thoughts like that?
For more information visit www. FEMA. gov And I didn't talk about it much with other people, except for maybe some private venting sessions with my husband. But here's the thing. When I became a parent coach and when I started working with clients who also had more complex children, highly sensitive children, children with ADHD, children with lots of aggression and explosive meltdowns, I started hearing it from parents who would admit to me through their tears often.
And sometimes they don't like their child, that sometimes they find it really hard to love one of their children or several of their children, their children who are so intense. And I heard this so often, I would tell these parents I was working with. They are not a bad parent for having these thoughts, but this is a common experience.
And I didn't know that myself. I thought that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't a good parent because I had thought these thoughts myself. At times, and I wanted the parents I was working with to know that too. And we shared that common experience in private. And now I thought, why not talk about this more openly with a wider audience and help.
Maybe some of you who also have these thoughts and dealings at time that, Oh my gosh, you love your child, but don't really like them right now, or don't like them a lot of the times, or don't like them at times. So I want to talk about this and start off first by normalizing this experience and acknowledging that yes, sometimes it can be hard to like being around or like interacting with our difficult children.
And there's reasons for that. Sometimes these really challenging children, they emote attitudes that make it harder for them to love. I mean, anybody can love and embrace and enjoy spending time with a sweet, calm, affectionate child. That's easy. When children have these attitudes, man, do they provoke feelings and emotions in the adults taking care of them that are kind of shocking if you're the parent experiencing that, or if you're the teacher or caregiver experiencing that feeling.
Sometimes these children give out these really rough, prickly exteriors and behaviors because they find love and connection too vulnerable. It feels Too uncomfortable for them to be lovable and to endear themselves to others. And it could be because they have a very highly sensitive temperament and they're just defending themselves from that vulnerability.
Or it could because of past hurts that they have experienced, perhaps in response to their unlovable behaviors. And so they are defensive and they resist receiving love and affection. Sometimes children come to believe that they are unlovable. They are bad who would, who would love me? I'm bad.
I'm unlovable. So they subconsciously set themselves up. On a path towards it becoming like a self fulfilling prophecy. I want to invite you, those of you listening to consider what your role might be in this, in this dynamic, in your child's prickly nature, becoming even more prickly. Does your child sense your annoyance and frustration in them?
A lot of the time, do you even tell them about this? Do you say things like, Hey, when you act like this, I don't want to be around you. Or, why do you always have to be so negative? I don't like being around you and your negativity all the time. Why do you always have to ruin it? Every time we go out to a restaurant as a family, next time we're just going to leave you at home.
We don't even want you to come next time. Do you say things like that? Do the caregivers, the teachers, the peers, the siblings of your child say things like this? Are they being bombarded with comments that are starting to impact your child's view of themselves, their sense of self, their self worth, their self esteem, keep in mind that for a very young child, we are planting seeds in these formative years that will kind of build upon the child's sense of their worth and where their self esteem comes from.
So if your child is developing an inner narrative that is. Full of negativity and taking in these criticisms and this, these comments that they're receiving from you or other people in their life, is it starting to make them believe that they are unlovable? And when they start to believe that, does their behavior kind of make that even more of a possibility for them that they will be receiving this kind of feedback that people in their life?
Or alternatively, is your child developing an inner narrative? That is full of a positive view of themselves that maybe even despite the fact that they have a really intense temperament, that they are prone towards a negative negativity bias, that they are prone towards big meltdowns and aggression, and saying really hurtful things when they are in a mode of attack because they are so emotionally stirred up that they become very dysregulated.
Even if they have that kind of temperament. Are they still being able to believe that they are good and worthy of love and acceptance without the need to prove themselves or work for it? Are they believing that, yeah, they may have some bad moments. They may have some moments when they don't live up to their best version of themselves, but that doesn't make them a bad person.
That they believe that even though they have a hard time, that they are acceptable as they are. That they're not a disappointment to their parents or others around them for being who they are. This big feeling, highly sensitive person, do they believe they still are acceptable in the eyes of their parents, their caregivers, their peers, their siblings.
If you're kind of thinking, Hmm, yeah, my kid is probably skewing on the side of believing that. They are bad that they are not worthy of love and acceptance. I might need to do some work here. You're not alone. And I'm here to help you learning first to take care of yourself as the parent. As I talk about in my 3d parent approach, there are four parts.
The first part is. grounded parenting. So the first part of the model has to do with you and the work that you might need to do to be able to step up to the task at hand, which is parenting this intense, complex child. So that might mean that you need to learn how to process your parental grief, so you can move past resentment and towards acceptance of your child.
So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to learn to process your parental grief. That means you need to first forgive yourself for having these feelings and for having this disconnect from your child, forgive yourself. I want to normalize this experience and invite you to experience the grief as part of the process necessary in accepting this challenge of parenting your complex child.
None of us. As parents imagine this as our reality, none of us envisioned parenting a child this difficult. So we need to find and feel our sadness around what is and let go of the disappointment of not getting what we hoped for what we wanted. You know, we didn't. Get to choose her child out of a child catalog.
If we had, we would have chosen the one who perhaps was not so spicy, so difficult. So, we need to kind of acknowledge here that there is a grief is warranted here. When we recognize that, oh my gosh, this is really challenging. And I need to let go of how I thought I was going to be parenting a child that was more easier in temperament.
And recognize that I need to let go of that vision because that is not the reality. And I need to get over my disappointment at not having an easier child.
And we need to learn to adjust to what is. And that might mean that we also need to grieve the adjustments that we need to make when we are needing to attune to the needs of our child. Our child who has some temperament. Or some challenges that make it difficult for them to participate in things that maybe you wish you could.
So yeah, you do have to experience the grief surrounding having to opt out of activities or events or playdates. That you wish you could participate in knowing that they are maybe going to be too much for your child, so you need to say no, that also requires some grief. It's okay to feel sad about what you're missing out on, but you also need to keep this grief work and you're processing the sadness surrounding what it is to be parenting a child this complex and difficult and opting out of the activities and.
Events that you wish you could say yes to. You need to keep this grief work away from your child. Do not expose them to this. You need to do this work in private or perhaps find a trusted adult to process with your spouse, your partner, a friend, perhaps a parenting coach or a therapist. The next thing that you need to do to be able to move past your resentments and towards acceptance is to let go of comparisons.
When you're comparing your child to other children, either in your own household, or perhaps other children that you observe or the children of your friends, you are focused on comparison, which is going to lead you right towards resentment. Because what I learned over time and through some great sages who've taught me about emotion, I'm thinking right now, especially of Dr.
Brene Brown, I've already mentioned in, on the podcast. Her wonderful book, Atlas of the Heart, she gave me some knowledge, expanded my understanding of resentment, where it comes from, especially when she connected it to envy. And I want to read you a quote of hers right now. She defines resentment as resentment is the feeling of frustration, judgment, anger, better than and or hidden envy related to perceived unfairness or injustice.
It's an emotion that we often experience. When expectations let us down because they were based on things we can't control. Okay, so parents, one of the things we cannot control is who your child is. Yes, they may share 50 percent of your DNA if this is your child genetically. But we can't control much else.
We can only control ourselves. And what we need to do in controlling ourselves is learn to set aside comparisons and envy, because that is leading us right towards resenting our child. And when we're stuck in a mindset, which is based around feeling like, I wish my child was easier. I wish this child is as easy as their brother, then we're going to be having expectations that are going to continue to let us down because we can't control who our child is.
We can't control that our child doesn't have a more easygoing temperament. Like other kids do. And so when we're focusing and feeling like, man, I got the short end of the stick here, we're going to be focused on the resentments and we are going to have a harder time connecting to our child and adapting to the child that we actually do have when we're thinking about things like, gosh, why are other people's child?
Why is that child so loving and sweet? Why is my child so unaffectionate? Why is my child so explosive? We are comparing our child and giving into resentment. Gosh, I really wanted to have a child who loved sports like I do because I wanted to connect on the soccer field and I want my kid to join the soccer team.
That's what I envisioned. And my kid can't handle competitive sports because You know, she gets so frustrated. She doesn't listen to the coaches. She has these massive meltdowns. You're embarrassing to me. She gets too aggressive with teammates. She loses her temper. So she can't participate in team sports.
Like I wanted her to, man, when you're thinking things like that, that's so relatable and so valid, but you know what has nothing to do with your child. It has to do with your expectations. And this version of who you imagined your child to be. So process the grief around that, again, away from your child and get over comparing your child to other kids who can do the things you wish they could do.
You've got to get away from being stuck in comparison because it's going to hinder your ability to accept and grow. And it will be leading away from instead of towards building a secure attachment and bond with your child. The more you are thinking about the child that you do not have, and comparing your children, your child who is maybe more intense to other children, the less you're going to feel drawn towards them, and they will sense this, and they will feel it as rejection.
And abandonment
moving on, if I haven't already depressed you enough, I'm going to move on here and talk about what you can do to grow your acceptance instead of your resentment. So I'm going to give you help here. If you're like, man, I've done that a lot, and I even said it to my child, I have your tips following right now.
You need to embrace your child's uniqueness. You need to recognize that this is not about you. This is about your child, your dreams about your child and who you hope they were. That was a childlike fantasy. You've got to let that go. You have an opportunity here to grow yourself up because you are stuck in fantasy, much like children are when you've been fantasizing about this child and who they were going to be.
Let it go and grow yourself up along with your child. The more you focus on getting to know the child you have, the more you'll see unique gifts that your child has. So you really need to get to know your child and explore and investigate who they are. Get curious about your child and let go of the expectations that you had that were not fair in the first place.
Remember that your child has many positive attributes. So find them, elevate them, tell your child about what you see in them, because this will really, really help you grow the sense of gratitude about the child that you have. Create along those lines, a gratitude practice in parenting your child, commit yourself to reflect upon daily, the lovable parts about your child.
And if you're finding it really difficult, you may want to take an extra step. Sometimes parents who are really struggling to find. Things about their child that they like right now, I encourage them to go into their child's room when they are sleeping, there is nothing more lovable than the face of your sleeping child, even if your child is no longer itty bitty, even if your child is 8, 10, 12, when you look at that peaceful, sweet, sleeping child, and you sit there and you just look at them and you remember, That adorable sweet child inside those loving caring feelings will fill you up and you need a lot of that those caring feelings when you're parenting a complex child.
And don't forget to pause every now and then and reflect upon the victories and the celebrations that are there I promise you, they are when you have a complex intense child you don't really get a lot of relief, but you have made progress. Thanks. So pause every now and then and reflect back on how it was six months ago, a year ago.
Are you still dealing with the same challenges that you were then or have things in some ways gotten a little better? Yes, maybe there are some new challenges, but have things that you were struggling with then resolved somewhat or gotten a little bit less frequent? You need to be able to focus on those so that you can make these shifts.
Also, remind yourself. That the actions and words and behaviors that you're seeing on the outside of your child are reflecting what your child is feeling on the inside. So that is where I'm going to shift to now because that's important to keep in mind. So that you can, you yourself, your parent can find your mixed feelings and regain or grow your compassion, your patience and your empathy for your child.
You need to remember that your child who is frustrated, who is explosive, Who's aggressive. It's a child who is struggling inside. This is not purposeful. They don't want to feel this way just as much as you don't want them to be behaving this way. They don't want to feel this way either. If they could do better than they are right now, believe me, they would, but their behaviors are acting out exactly how they're feeling right now.
And they're showing you what they are capable of right now. And yes, it may not be in line with your hopes and expectations for them at this moment. But remember that your child is struggling. This is not personal. They're not trying to make your life difficult. You need to make that shift away from believing your child is intentionally trying to give you a hard time and recognize that no, your child is having a hard time.
When I'm talking about mixed feelings, that is something I've talked about in a previous episode recently. In fact, on episode 86, parenting with direction, I talked about this. path towards emotional maturity and emotional well being. And one of those steps has to do with the ability to mix feelings. It follows the previous steps towards emotional maturity.
And this is the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld. I always like to make sure I name where this came from. And the ability to mix emotions is something that happens once you reach that stage of development. And you have mastered all the previous steps. So expressing, naming, feeling, and then mixing your emotions.
So that's the ability to hold on to contrasting or conflicting feelings at the same time. Well, this can be hard for us parents too. Sometimes we lose our ability to mix our feelings. We get so frustrated, so angry that we forget for a period of time that we actually love our child. And so we say harsh words.
We become very uncaring towards our child because in that moment of frustration, we've lost our mix and all our feeling is one emotion like anger, frustration, resentment. When I keep on bringing up, we've lost our ability to be patient and compassionate and have empathy, which requires mixed feelings and we've lost it.
So we sometimes need to grow our capability mixing of our emotions. When we're parenting this particular child. So the tips I just went over a little bit ago about growing our appreciation of our child, who they are, growing our loving and caring feelings towards them by practicing some gratitude and celebrating the victories and also filling ourselves up with caring feelings, perhaps watching your child sleep.
That is necessary to be able to mix your feelings. If you're so overcome with frustration and you're not feeling a lot of loving, caring feelings towards your child, you're not going to be able to resist the urge, the impulse to react and attack. And we got to stop doing that because it is only going to keep our children stuck in these problematic behaviors longer.
So to be able to better mix our feelings, we need to do a gut check. And when it comes to our children, if we have more than one child, Or if we have one child, if we're doing a gut check and saying, Hmm, am I feeling really like drawn towards spending time with this child? Am I feeling drawn towards, you know, spending time with them and making memories with them and connecting with them?
Or do I feel like, Oh, the more they're on their own doing their own thing, the better because I don't really want to spend time with them because I find them to be so frustrating right now. That is a opportunity for you to be able to recognize those thoughts and feelings. And to dig down and find it within yourself to show up more than ever before.
Because if you're feeling this way about your child, that's an indication to you that you need to focus on your child, that child the most, you need to put extra effort into seeking them out and connecting with them and taking the lead in. Nurturing your relationship, your attachment with that child. You need to take extra efforts to do things like build in special time where you spend more time connecting with them.
Listen to more ideas on how you can continue to foster deep connection. They go back to episode number 87, parenting with deep connection. I've given you loads of ideas, but you need to put in those efforts in that way with this child. You need to visibly so your child can see it. delight in your child's presence.
When you have a really prickly difficult child, it might be hard to feel delight in their presence. You probably have defenses up. Oh gosh, what are they going to do now? Oh gosh, what's coming at me now? Oh no, I'm just waiting, you know, like a ticking time bomb to, for them to explode. You're not really delighting in their presence, are you?
So you need to first Visibly show delight in your child's presence, even if you're having to work it a bit and maybe fake it a little bit, you need to go ahead and find that ability. The authentic feelings will follow, I promise you, because I've done this myself, and I have suggested this for many of the parents I get to work with, that they just turn towards their child when they come into the room, the first time they've seen them, at the end of the day, and they get a twinkle in their eye.
And a smile, and they make that child feel so welcome and so invited into their presence. When you do this, your child will have change. Your child will retract some of those quills of that porcupine exterior and become softer. And your relationship will improve. And your feelings towards your child, the caring feelings, will grow.
So give that a try. Another thing that you can do to grow your compassion, your patience, your empathy, and be able to accept this charge you've been given to parent this child is to practice discipline with dignity. This will help. Discipline with dignity, I went into with much more depth in episode 88 and 89 of the bootcamp episodes.
But just to talk about this specifically as it relates to this topic, you need to be making informed choices tailored to your child's unique needs. That means that, yeah, we've already processed the grief that sometimes you have to say no to certain activities, gatherings, et cetera. So now you need to actually make decisions that are keeping your child's needs in mind.
So making conscientious decisions about what activities are going to be. Appropriately challenging for your child, but not overwhelming to your child. What activities, what gatherings, what school environment, what extracurriculars your child is going to be best matched with. You need to make informed choices, thinking about your child's needs, and get rid of that resentment around needing to make decisions that might not be your first choice.
You need to also, though, balance your complex child's needs with the entire family's needs. Perhaps you have one child who's especially intense and sensitive in nature, but then you have other children too. So you do need to balance the needs of the entire family. So sometimes that might mean that you're making different choices for different children in the family.
Sometimes that might mean that you're needing to think through how to set up a particular child's needs. Experience up for the greatest degree of success when like you might have opted out if it was just them, but the entire family has maybe a need or desire to do something. So you just might need to make some decisions to try and set the child who might struggle up for more success.
A quick example of that so you know what I'm talking about, maybe your child, maybe your family really wants to go to a concert, but you know that your child really is sensitive to loud sounds. But you all want to go and you don't want to leave the child behind with a babysitter because They're going to feel left behind.
That'd be a bummer. Maybe your child is a lot younger. That would be okay, but your child's old enough to feel left out and not a part of something. So instead, we're going to figure out what we can do. So this will be the most successful for the child. Are we going to bring some Headphones to deaden the sound.
So it's not too overwhelming. Are we going to bring some fidgets, some activities and things for that child to be able to do if they have a hard time staying at an activity as long as maybe other family members want to. What are you doing to set up that child for more success so you can keep a balance between that child's individual needs and the needs of the rest of the family.
You also need to keep in mind the power of retroactive discipline, and that's a component of Discipline with Dignity, again, that I went into on episode 89 of the podcast. Retroactive discipline is very, very handy when it comes to parenting a complex child, particularly the strategy of the circle back conversations.
This is where you have the opportunity to go back and repair. Anything that maybe you need to take responsibility to when you're having a hard time and your kid knows it going back and making repair to relationship is so important. Also being able to address problematic behavior with your child, but in a way that doesn't make them feel shamed or blamed for having a hard time.
So we can talk about best intentions of your child that they couldn't live up to in that moment in time. So important to have those. Moments to reflect so that you just don't leave all these bad feelings laying out there when your child has these really intense outbursts. You do want to go back and address them when your child is saying things like, I wish you would die.
I hate you. Or even more colorful things. You want to go back and address those things and let your child not carry around the burden of shame. You want to go back and say, gosh, you know, I know you were really angry earlier. I know you didn't mean those things. I want you to let you know that I didn't believe it for one second.
I understood that you were having a really, really hard time. That's so important because then your child feels relieved of that guilt and shame and they won't start building their view of themselves with that thought that, Oh my gosh, I'm a terrible person who says terrible things.
need to learn to make space for your child's intense emotions and accept them without Judgment. Accept them and validate them. Doesn't mean that you agree with them. It just means that you accept they're going to happen and that you don't judge a child for having these big emotions that sometimes need to come out.
Your child has a right to feel upset. Your child has a right to feel negative or express negative thoughts. Your child has a right to react the way they do when they're still trying to figure out how to regulate their emotions. and become a more adaptive, resilient human being. So build a family culture, create a family culture, where children know that making mistakes is acceptable.
It's okay to fail. It's okay to not live up to your good intentions. Create a family culture of acceptance and the ability to repair when we do make mistakes. I want to also stress the importance of consistency. It's really important that parents, particularly of these complex kids, have caregivers and parents that are on the same page.
If one parent is open to listening and validating emotions and the other one has no time for it, it's punishing them. This child is dealing with this degree of inconsistency, which is really, really going to feed their problematic behaviors. So get on the same page. You cannot also individually bounce back and forth.
One day you're open to listening, the next day you're lashing out. Figure out how you can process your own grief, your own challenges around regulating your own emotions around your child's frustrating behaviors so that you can stay consistent in the way in which you're responding to them.
And that segues nicely into the next idea, which is to build resilience within yourself to parent your child. It takes a lot of work and exercise. You didn't know coming out of the gate that your child was going to be more intense and complex. Now you do. So now you need to be building your ability to adapt to these circumstances.
I talked about this concept of the traffic circle, another one of the brilliant teachings of Dr. Gordon Neufeld. He talks about the frustration traffic circle, and I talked about it on episode 89, dignity and discipline. I talk about traffic circling, even turning it into something that you do well, you yourself as a parent, have your own traffic circle of.
adapting to the circumstances you find yourself in. You're going to be taking many traps or trips yourself around the traffic circle. The first thing that you're going to do when your child frustrates you is you're going to want to control and change them. That's the first exit of the traffic circle analogy.
And you need to learn that that's not the answer. I can't control or change my child. My child is who they are. And they're having difficulty with something because they get to. They get to have a hard time with something. And I've got to let go of the idea that I can change my child or control them and that will make it go away.
So what I need to do is I need to move towards accepting and adapting to my child so that I can continue to be a resilient parent and raising them. What I don't want to do is what many children do when they don't want to adapt to the futilities in life, which is they lash out. They bypass adaptation and instead they go into attack mode.
I want to call myself out on when I am. Getting into that mode myself when I'm losing my mix and I start lashing out at my child. I'm in a mode of attack. I've thought I've maybe tried to change circumstances all day long and I've tried to make things work for my kid all day long and I've had it. I spent the whole day trying to change circumstances for my child versus having the door to change clothes for my child and accepting that they're going to have some big emotions around it.
And because I'm doing that, I've lost my mix. I've lost my ability to adapt and I've gone into lash out, angry attack mode. So you need to recognize that and recognize that what you need to do is reroute yourself around this traffic circle. This imagine traffic circle of accepting and adapting the frustration.
And sometimes it is once again, a time and time again, gosh, I'm parenting a really complex child. That is what you need to adapt and accept. I am parenting a child with ADHD. That is what you need to adapt and accept. So take as many trips around your own traffic circle of frustration until you get to a place of acceptance of your child
and give yourself grace. You're human. You get to make mistakes to go easy on yourself and repair within yourself or give yourself, but also remind yourself that you have it. You have it within yourself to grow, to learn, to be able to stop making the same mistakes over and over again, and to commit to parenting your child, patience and compassion and empathy, empathy.
Remember that the path towards your own adaptation and your own resilience follows acceptance and acceptance of who your child is, is the core of all of this. You also need to cultivate your resilience by taking care of yourself, your physical and your emotional needs. What do you need to do to restore the energy necessary to build back up your resources, your internal resources to be able to be up to the task at hand?
It may require you seeking some support. Perhaps you need to seek out some professional advice. Or community support. So professional advice through coaching. Maybe through 3D parent coaching. Through perhaps working with a therapist. You also could get support, professional support and community support by joining some type of an organization, virtual or in person.
I have the 3D Parent Village full of parents who support each other in this common experience. Much like what I'm talking about today. Find groups like that, or join 3D Parent Village, they're open for membership. There's also Facebook groups that you can find that are free. And sometimes they are made up of parents who have the same kind of challenges that your children do.
So they have similar experiences. Finding that support can be really helpful in you being able to build your resilience in parenting your child. You can also reach out to find neighborhood groups, local groups, if you prefer in person versus virtual. Sometimes those can be found through co op or school communities or like I said, there can be Facebook groups if you like doing it virtually.
I have actually a free private group, the 3D Parent Lounge. You can join there, connect with other parents who want to talk about the challenges they're facing. Getting support is so helpful in building your resilience. So in conclusion, I wanted to express my encouragement for all of you parents who are facing the challenges experienced by parenting your complex children.
It is challenging, but you also, I know, are up to this. So you have to kind of do some internal work on yourself. And then learn how to embrace the challenges that come so that you don't feel much experience of I can't stand being around my child. And instead, you can practice more loving acceptance.
That's so important for your child. And their development as well as your relationship with your child. I want to leave you today with affirming mantra, something that I wrote that I want to kind of give to you. So if you're not driving and you're listening to this on your own, I want this just to kind of wash over you and to listen and take this in as your own affirmation.
So close your eyes if it's possible and you're not driving and listen. Today.
I am setting an intention to parent with warmth and strength. I will not avoid setting a limit, negotiate, debate, give in, or give a yes. When I need to give a no, I accept that my kids may have tantrums. And meltdowns over the limits I am generously going to set, I will anticipate push back, but I will not let that trigger me or lead me to a tantrum of my own.
I will remember that my children are young and sensitive and sometimes their behaviors are a reminder of that. And these moments, I will remember that they are not trying to give me a hard time. They are having a hard time. I will not transfer my anger or frustration onto my kids. I will not blame my kids for the difficult feelings I may have about being their parent and how hard it is for me right now.
I will remind myself that I only get one shot to raise each of my children and I am committing to give them the best parenting I can because they deserve nothing less.
Thank you so much for listening today to the 3D Parent Podcast.
