Do you ever do this? You have a bad day and your kid choses that time to be a little beast so you're snapping at them? You're so distressed that you're not even bothering with sentences or two words, it's SIT, EAT, BED, NOW!!!! It doesn't even have to be a bad day, just a crazy situation like an indoor play park where the kids have the run of the place and they're running amok and you're trying to make sure they're not clobbering themselves or other kids. Anyhow, at the end of the day when you're lying in bed taking stock, you feel like a heel because you could have been a little less grumpy or snappy with your kid, not that they weren't being a monkey, but you could have handled yourself better.
Anyhow, today we had a party for the children of the staff at the company Dearest works at. It was great, at a really awesome indoor playground called Kin-R-Gee if you're ever in Richmond Hill. The kids were running wild, having a blast and the parents were able to mingle knowing their little guys were safe and sound. However as I was walking around, I heard the "Glenn, No!" "Adam, Sit!" "Nancy, knock it off!"-actually that was me telling three boys to stop roughly rough-housing. And I thought to myself, it's not just me being a crab, or the kids being horrendous, it's everyone! The kids for their part, shrugged it off and went on their merry way once they listened to their parent direct them.
We all have bad days, and we all have times where our direction or our marching orders aren't wrapped up in love and kisses and age appropriate 5 minute long explainations about why Mommy really doesn't think it's a good idea that you sit on your brother's neck because you might hurt him and he might have to go to the hospital and you wouldn't like that would you? Sometimes it can't be that. Most parents are juggling several things at once, whether it's work/house/kid, kid/kid/kid, kid/dinner/house, kid/insane traffic, kid/sanity. Sometimes we just want to have a conversation with some other adults and you just need your kid to go and run and not kill themselves or someone else for 20 minutes. And sometimes we're just human and get cranky. So we bark at our kids. However I noticed all the kids shrugged off the barking, because like most parents, I'm sure the other 99% of the time, kids get the hugs, the kisses, the 5 minute long explanations, the quality time and attention they need and deserve. So when you're lying in bed worrying about how you've scarred your child because you barked at them today, and you weren't on your normal A game. Don't give it a second thought, because your kids aren't.
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