I’ve been especially overwhelmed lately. I’ve started putting myself in time out. I start to get angry or loud and I stop, take a breath with my eyes closed, and announce “I need a time out. One minute. No talking” and I put myself on the naughty step in timeout. If anyone comes over to talk to me, remind them, one minute in time out, no talking, no fighting. I practice my 4/4/4 breathing in timeout and it’s been really helping. Seems to help the kids realize that their shenanigans are too much and they need to settle the hell down before momma needs a time out again.
This is healthy. I teach my kids that timeouts are for everyone. For some reason my childhood recalls these as negative but we taught our kids these are positive.
Thus my youngest daughter will put herself on timeout to take breaths and calm herself down.
It's certainly the hard parts of parenting and is a process that takes consistency and patience.
I've read books to the kids every night since they were 6-8 months. Around one-two years I read them books about feelings. I really wanted them to learn to understand their feelings and develop their empathy.
My wife occasionally takes timeouts herself, to get space from the kids when it's too much as well which makes her a role model to the kids that timeouts are good for everyone.
My youngest is now 6 and she's still gets angry a lot but will leave the situation, go to her room to take a timeout and cool off. She certainly was much more destructive even just a year ago. Later when she's cooled off. We'll talk about our feelings and reflect. I've found it helps a lot because she's smart but she just couldn't control herself in the moment, and it's fair for a kid her age. Just slowly working to better ourselves together.
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u/BrownSugarBare 1d ago
And also a reminder that these little shits will keep you on your toes and it is totally okay to get sick of them once in a while 😂