Mindful parenting, a real life story…
Tonight it’s just me & the kids while my husband’s on nightshift, we are grateful for his sacrifice & the life it affords us, and once again the duress of the “single-parent” vibe it can leave me in yields diamonds for my blog (although it’s been a while again (:#).
So I’m cooking dinner & both kids are in the bathroom after being asked to take on the shower routine, i.e. take turns, one after the other, enacting the mantra “get in, get washed, get out, get dried, get dressed” which also involves sorting out the clothes they have been wearing into the wash etc., all of which sounds simple enough and is brilliant in theory.
I can hear their laughter & kafuffles from the kitchen so I go in to check on them. We have clothes from a-hole to breakfast strewn across the bathroom floor, with both kids in the shower, my oldest (9) under the running water washing her hair, my youngest (7) sitting in the bathtub with the plug in catching shampoo foam, playing.
Do I…
A) lose my shit because there’s a hella mess and they didn’t do what I specifically asked? (which was actually my first thought because in that split second my world started falling apart as I’m certain it’s going to make my night harder & dammit it’s what I asked!)
OR
B) Practice Mindfulness, stop, breathe, get present & think for a second about all the times I’ve asked them to get along & be nice to one another & instead calmly tell them it’s nice to see them enjoying themselves together, change up the directive to suit what has ACTUALLY transpired, and walk calmly out the door?
The answer is B. My life did not fall apart because my kids didn’t do exactly what I asked them to do in the way I asked them to do it, but it got done nevertheless. We can add a notch in the “positive sibling relations” belt, my sanity is intact with no new guilt to add to the pile, and all is actually well. 🙏
