I Can’t Be Angry At My Child ALL The Time

“You must be angry at him ALL the time”. I get this a lot. I can’t be angry at my child ALL the time. The thing about anger is it consumes you. Anger can become a daily habit. It creates an environment that puts your quality of life LAST.

Yelling at your kid all the time – It’s not worth it.

I know what it’s like to have what feels like, the most difficult child in the world. He finds a valid reason for everything he does wrong. Has a strong sense of justice when it comes to my actions as a parent.

I know what it’s like to have a negotiation with a child that ends up more like an interrogation. A small disagreement between two parties that becomes two countries at war. Sometimes during an argument, you realise that you have given over the nuclear codes to your child, you have lost control.

If I have lost control then I’m best to meet him halfway, because yelling and screaming is certainly not going to do the trick.

Yes, I’m saying halfway. Occasionally this is OK.

I’m sick of hearing “consistency is the key, Just say NO”.

I get it – but that same consistency rule chipped away at my relationship with my child. It meant never meeting in the middle. I have a child that is smart enough to see that middle ground is a pretty good place to be, he fights for fairness on a daily basis.

Saying NO all the time, It meant not allowing my child to make choices and suffer the consequences. Forever preventing him from making his own mistakes.

I don’t say yes to everything, but occasionally I let him make a mistake. I casually let him know it will blow up in his face. The risk is on him. I warn him, that’s it. He needs to know his choices have an outcome, good or bad.

I’m a mother of three kids. I have realised not all parenting techniques work the same. I became exhausted trying to have full control in my home, no middle ground ever. I have spent so much time in a hypervigilant state trying to stop my child making bad behavioral choices, it had me run down and sick.

I’m not suggesting anybody quit this consistent no rule in their home. What I am saying is if you have been fighting an uphill battle for months, and you’re still losing, try something else. If you can say “no means no” in your home without unleashing the spawn of satan – your winning, that’s great.

The cycle of arguments has been cut by a good 50% for me. Pushing my buttons until I eventually blow my lid has decreased enormously. I don’t want to be angry at my child all the time, no mother does.

How?

I let my child run free a lot more. I let him make mistakes and see the consequences with his own eyes and feel the burn. Not just hear me nagging about them.

• Left his scooter out, I reminded him two days in a row. It got stolen. I’m not replacing it. He now brings his bike in every day.
• No showering phase, I stopped arguing with him, he got pimples – a lesson in self-care, Mum wasn’t making up pimples or butt chafe. It’s real. It happens.
• Eats all the school snacks, I stopped buying them. The consequence was in my actions, not my angry delivery of words.

The big bad glorious world delivers consequences for MOST things. When “mummy” clearly isn’t in charge of those consequences – my child only has himself to blame.

When arguments are constant my child loses sight of how good it feels to earn my pride. He won’t strive for it any longer. This is just one aspect of my parenting journey, you have to find what works for you.

Motherhood for me has become less about perfection and more about happiness.