Skip to main content

Thank you, Mommy, for not upsetting me...

She screamed "You're making me very upset!" so loud that it could be heard a mile away.  The person standing across from her wasn't listening to any form of logic.  She just didn't understand.  The frustration and anger was building and building so high that she swore she was going to pop.  Really, how could she not understand the importance of these decisions?  What could she possibly be thinking?  Her priorities were completely wrong and she was going to cause such a huge catastrophe that the Titanic would look tiny.  She kept trying over and over and over again to explain the situation, but it just could not be diffused.  There would be no happy ending to this story.

"Fine, Sweet Pea, you can wear your PJs to the store."

At last this woman understood the complexity of the situation.  Seriously, why would she think that PJs couldn't be worn to the store?  That's ridiculous!  "Thank you, Mommy, for not upsetting me" she kindly told the woman across from her.

Logic - and fashion - to a toddler are not the same as Mama's.  In fact, they're not even close.  Neither are emotional connections to ideas and concepts.  What's emotional to a toddler seems simple to a parent.  Same with what's emotional to a parent.  My daughter was so upset about not being able to wear PJs to the store.  It seems ridiculous, but it's something that she could control, so she asserted herself where she knew I would best give in.  The funny thing is, her attachment to wearing PJs out in public quickly disappeared as I allowed her to do this more and more often.  It was no longer a battle so she had to find something else to control.  I, on the other hand, had more of an emotional attachment to the words my daughter was saying to me - even though I knew she was simply mimicking words that she'd heard me say.  She didn't have the emotional attachment to the phrases. 

Mama's Law learned: What a child is emotionally attached to one day will change; however, you may want to watch the phrases you say around them because they will repeat them in their own version of similar situations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Leadership Mom: SWOT Analysis

In business, leaders often analyze our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats through a SWOT analysis.  So, if we are going to look at our role as moms as being the greatest leadership opportunity to us, let's start with analyzing ourselves and our kids.  Here's the SWOT I developed for my family: Family SWOT Analysis As a doting mother, there are hundreds of strengths that I could put up here for my kids.  Their hugs, kisses, bedtime stories and prayers, the fact that they come to me when they're seeking healing from an injury (physical or emotional), the notes and drawings they make for me, their precious hearts when they try to help me or that they've learned how to use the Keurig to bring me coffee in the morning...I could go on and on. Now, here's the part where we get honest with ourselves.  Yes, we love our kids and we love our family (or, hopefully, most of the time), but we are not perfect.  Nor should we be perfect.  As we analyze oursel

Cybersecurity 101

One of the things that continually amazes me as a parent of young(er) children is their ability to quickly understand technology and its uses.  Not only have my children learned the art of swiping to use different devices, but they've also learned how to access apps, take pictures, answer calls (both phone and Skype), and more.  My children could teach their grandparents a lesson or two on how to use technology. But, as a student of cybersecurity, I have seen a greater need to educate my children - as well as so many others - on the cybersecurity.  This goes beyond posting inappropriate pictures and unfriendly words on social media (although these lessons must also be taught).  This goes into the nature of understanding the benefits and risks of using technology and the privacy lost to it.  The major premise that must be understood in regards to cybersecurity is that information/data is money.  It's value is continually increasing.  We need to secure our information just as w

Why can't they just be friends?

Why can't my kids just be friends?  I must ask myself this question hundreds of times during the week.  I thought that having kids relatively close together was going to be great.  They'd have a playmate and an automatic friend.  However, the truth is that - most of the time - they don't get along.  It's not that they're enemies...it's that they drive each other crazy.  They each want the other one to do what they want to do.  Then, when the other one does what they want, they get mad at them because they wanted to do it themselves. They don't want to share their toys.  Then, they play together only to then get mad and purposefully break the other sibling's toys. They want to get the other one in trouble so that they look like the "good" child and get more rewards.  Then they get upset that the other sibling got them in trouble when they *tattled* on them. At mealtimes, they want to sit where the other one is sitting.  They want the c