Category: adult temper

Mommy Needs A Time Out

I am struggling with a way to talk about my day without sounding like a dictionary of clichés, but I really don’t know if that is possible. Or maybe, it isn’t quite possible for my brain to work in a manner that does not rely on clichés to get its point across.

I have talked about my autistic son and our struggles a number of times here, but I haven’t shared much of his sister’s journey. She is not autistic but does struggle with being twice exceptional, or 2E, and being the sister of the child who is different. If you want a refresher on 2E, you can read my post about it with some educational links. She is currently also in therapy to help her deal with anxiety and other coping skills needed to traverse her world as a gifted, asynchronous student. And all that sounds wonderful, today was a dose of the gritty reality.

We have talked about her school day, she seems to have had a good day and is excited because she got to spend money in the “Holiday Shop” at school. Now, this is set up so the students can pick small gifts for their family. She has apparently spent most of the money on gifts for herself. Besides, it isn’t as if she has earned this money, she has to ask us for it. She has eaten, fast food cause it was that kind of day, and has been given a deadline for rest in anticipation of homework time. Every time, I think that will be enough. That speaking to them in a reasonable manner will allay struggles against doing tasks they don’t won’t to do. It felt today as if this technique only works about 10% of the time. Whenever things are going bad, it is hard to see and remember the many good times. The times where you get more cooperation than opposition and more smiles than tears seem light years away, almost as if you have never experienced them. So, it comes time for homework and because I have told her to allow me to get the homework out and bring it to her, she has lost her mind. Screams are heard, bodies are thrown around, pencils go flying and papers are torn. What? Really? Because you can’t get the homework folder, you are now incapable of reading the directions or completing your homework. You need your parents to sit with you, you don’t need to calm down, you aren’t going to your room, you won’t stop screaming at your brother who is only trying to help. Her loving disposition has turned into that of a wet cat cornered in an alley. She is kicking, screaming, and scratching anything or anyone who gets close. She can’t tell help for harm anymore and no rational thoughts are going through her mind.

It always starts so innocuous. We are skipping through the tulips and then BAM! a bull comes out and tramples us under his hooves. That is how it feels. You are doing all the things normally noted to ensure a smooth transition between school and home. Yet, sometimes those techniques don’t do what they are designed to do. She needs more time, but she won’t say that, it is just meltdown over not being allowed to get her homework. Now, you may be thinking, why didn’t you just let her get her own homework. To be honest, I was  executing a plan which included them cleaning up the tasks they were working on while I distributed homework. I had a plan and wasn’t flexible fast enough to head off the meltdown. I don’t always get it right. That is the key. I just don’t get it right every time. We think once we are parents that we will somehow be magically equipped with the right response to every thing that happens. The thousands of parenting books we are told we should read in preparation lulls us into thinking that is all it takes, knowledge of what to do when. Well, the real world doesn’t work like that and not just when it comes to parenting. I am struggling like most parents I know, to get it right. Parent guilt is a thing, especially if you are wholly invested in giving your kids a solid foundation for going out into the world. Which, I must say, I think is every parent until proven otherwise. It helps me sleep at night, true or not. I start off with the calm, low voice. You know, the one designed to force them to listen hard and reassure them you still love them. No matter that they have pulled everything off the shelves in Target, you are here, a never-changing bulwark of love. You constantly redirect the behavior, repeat the requirement, and swallow your tongue when she screams “I don’t care” and throws the pencil for the fifteenth time tonight! Then, by time twenty, you have lost it too. You want to let your inner seven-year old out to play and that seven-year old inside you wants to kick and scream to voice their displeasure and show the kid you can do it too. You can meltdown without a care in the world, and while you are doing it, if you are doing it, it feels freeing and fun. Then immediately you feel disgusted with yourself, at your lack of ability to not let an eight-year old drag you down into the abyss. You scream and then you rein it back in, a desperate attempt to re-exert your control. Frankly, it hardly ever works. The only way to really get control again is to apologize for your behavior and take yourself off to lick your wounds. Basically you have to do all the things you tell the kids they need to do in order to change their behavior. Ugh, it is such a bad feeling when your kids make you eat your words. I take this moment to tell them that Mommy needs a time out, then I run and lock myself in my bedroom in a desperate attempt to keep them from following me.

And that is the lesson you have to learn for yourself. Sometimes, Mommy needs a time out in order to be tuned in to the other important things. Because, honestly, the homework was only the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. She was obviously carrying around feelings about something else that had taken place in her day but couldn’t really articulate that. A meltdown over homework was her cry for help. Me screaming about the definition of “fair” was mine. So, I calmly told them I should take a time out since I was resorting to raising my voice. Then I pushed them out of my room and locked the door and read a book until I could think about opening that door without screaming.

Are We Too Angry?


That’s a nice picture courtesy of the internet. Some kids happily smiling at the camera. Maybe they are long time friends, maybe they just met today at the pool and are having fun. Their parents are sitting on the pool deck excited to have some me time while the kids play. They are ecstatic to have invested in those swim lessons so they don’t have to spend all their time in the pool holding hands with a kid bent on drowning them in their fear of being left alone in all that water! These parents keep a watchful eye on the kids trying to ensure that the play doesn’t get too rough, but inevitably some minor infraction starts a bout of rough play and he said she said. Anyone who spends anytime with children knows that even the best of friends fall victim to an inability to solve disagreements peacefully. Play time can be interrupted by the least thing when dealing with people who are all feeling with little experience in working out differences with words not designed to hurt as much as they feel hurt by what is happening. This has happened often while out wth my kids, both with friends of years and friends of minutes. I keep an eye on my kids but I don’t hover and when my kids do something wrong, or handle disappointment in a bad way, there are consequences and a teaching moment about how better to handle it and why. But sometimes you get parents who aren’t as understanding of the kid tussle as some. We all come to the defense of our young, I think it is hard wired into most of us. I like to believe that many of us try to understand that our young are learning and testing the rules and aren’t always on the side of right in an argument and deal with this in a loving and teaching way. Yet I have seen the videos of parents acting worse than the kids on their children’s behalf. They are spouting angry words and threatening posture in defense of their children and I have always thought that this isn’t the best example of how to handle conflict, disagreements, or frustration. All things we have to learn when living in a society and all our children have to show them the way, is us. I never really had to put this into action, and then a fun time at the pool resulted in security and police called on my 9 year old son and I had to pray hard and dig deep to back my words with actions that matched.

It was our second day at the hotel’s family pool. It was a bit more crowded than the day before but the kids love the water and it is a great way for them to burn energy. The staff provided towels, popsicles for the kids and water toys. The most popular had been a very large beach ball that was making the rounds. Kids would periodically monopolize it, and had spent time explaining that my kids were not allowed to fight over this ball, it was for everyone. NO, not everyone would share well, but they WERE expected to at all times. There was also the inevitable games of let’s dunk each other in the pool. I always talk to my kids about respecting who wants to play the dunk game and who doesn’t, always ask and always respect a no. So, there had been dunking, and tussling over the ball. I had taken time to remind both kids of expectations about the ball and pool games. Reminding them to respect others and not be too rough in the pool, it is easy for games to go too far in the water. All of a sudden there is a man yelling “Whose kid is this?” 




We look up and realize, hey, that is our kid. Our kids get out of the water and come to us, the man is following our son yelling at him about hitting children and finally his son and he has had enough! I’m shocked. Why are you yelling at my kid? What happened? I just looked up and saw nothing amiss, what is going on? Now I must say, in our marriage I am definitely the hot headed one, liable to jump to conclusions faster that a speeding bullet while my husband calmly takes it all in and then shuts me down with a few well spoken sentences. Yet, I have nothing but defensive mama inside me and mute shock on the outside. Thank goodness my husband was there, who calmly tells the man to talk to him, this is his son. He yells about my son punching his and that we better stay because he is pressing charges! Now, my son is 9 but looks younger as he is tall and thin and barely weighs 50 pounds soaking wet! I look over and I see the man at the information hut, his son is holding something to his nose and he looks pretty solid from where I am standing. He has my son by 10-15 pounds and probably a couple of years. We immediately ask our son what happened. He says they were tussling about the beach ball, then they started pushing each other, the boy hit him and he hit back. He says “I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Dear Lord, I am sure you didn’t but in my head I am like, looks like you got in a very lucky shot, now what is this man going to do. These are kids, they were rough with each other and got hurt, I am not sure this requires the police. I look around to see if anyone else saw anything, no one says they did, they just keep saying they were playing and seems like they got out of hand, it happens and shrugging their shoulders in confusion. I was confused too, where was the ‘hey, the kids got into it, please talk to your son’ parenting I was used too? This man was irate, he kept walking back and trying to confront us, he kept making demands and trying to discipline and frighten my son (he was succeeding) without going through us, his parents. We try to calmly speak to the other father, he wants no parts of it, he is just pacing across the way like a large angry cat, think lion, while we try to reassure our son. This went on for almost two hours while we gave statements to security, were told my son couldn’t get back in the pool, waited for the sheriff’s deputy to arrive, had the police talk to our son, were told the man wanted an official report, then finally have the other father come over with the deputy and shake my husband’s hand and explain he was sorry and upset about his son, but there would be no report or other action. While this wild wait was happening, many people came up to our family to offer support, to ask to speak to our son and reassure him that he was not a bad person, mistakes happen when you are playing. To share their own stories of being kids and fighting with friends only to be friends again 10 minutes later. That other father showed me some of the bad that can happen when we don’t take the time to think about our actions and reactions, many others at the pool reminded that we haven’t all become too angry to care about others we don’t know, haven’t lost the memory of being a carefree kid trying to learn how to navigate the world, haven’t stopped being kind when being aloof is easier. I don’t know that other father, will probably never see him again, though he retains the right to seek us out over the incident, but while I was angered, shocked and hurt over his treatment of the situation and my child, I am trying to remember that most parents defend first and it often works in their favor. He saw his child hit, then bleeding and reacted. It probably wasn’t his finest hour, haven’t we all been less than we should in a situation? I endeavor to not be too angry, what about you?