I like to be accountable.
I have the audacity to offer thoughts and ideas about life, emotional health, and spiritual growth, so I think I better be accountable. I decided to take a few ideas I pondered in the past year and see how I'm doing with them.
Today I want to look at Mindful Parenting.
In Feb. 2011 I wrote about me having a conniption fit ignited by getting my kids ready for school and trying to get out the door in the morning, on top of hundreds of repeat plays of Les Miz on the CD player. At that time, the song Bad Moon Rising happened to come up on 103.3 and it was like getting a bucket of groovy water thrown over my head and I was able to put life in perspective and realize that with a little mindful planning and less rushing for me and the kids, we could all have a happier morning.
In essence, I suggested that we could all be more mindful parents. So how did I do with this? Better! I think I made vast improvements, and here's what I did different, and I think I can summarize it in three words: I gave up.
Yes, I think I gave up a little this year. I admitted defeat in some aspects of parenting.
It's not as bad as it sounds...let me explain. I grew up with a pretty traditional parenting style - authoritarian. Not like beat your butt authoritarian, but "I'm the adult and you do it because I say you will do it" authoritarian. Without setting out to have an existential battle, I ended out this way because of my not really realizing that my own parenting style is, essentially not that. I wanted it to be that. It worked for me as a kid! But, I am too goofy a person and too much of a touchy-feely social worker to truly make that work. I've spanked my kids a total of 3 times and I tried for a 4th, but I started giggling, looking at my son's tushy trying to run away from me.
I also realized that the tension between these two parts of me - the voice that said, 'Katy, you should discipline like your mom and dad, this is what they expect or because you see so and so parenting that way" and the voice that said, "Katy, you can do it a different way and it's still legitimate"- that tension was making me kind of unhappy, not to mention confusing my kids. It made me think of that old comedy video, Bill Cosby, Himself. As a parent, I think of the clip, where he says, "My wife was a beautiful woman until we had children and now her face is permanently like this" and he makes this totally strained face with veins popping out of the neck. I am pretty sure I looked like that a lot of the time and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I didn't have to be like that.
So I gave up. Even my mom noticed. Our whole extended family went on vacation this year and my kids were acting up and I was talking to them very calmly away from the dinner table. I returned to the dinner table, looked over at my mom and said, "I've given up." She said, "Yes, you have."
But, it's actually working better. Our household is more humorous, less angry, and I think my kids are 'getting it" better. Maybe because they are not getting mixed messages from me about expectations and what will happen when they are in trouble. Maybe because they are getting older, too.
I still get mad, of course. But now, I think about it more...I slow down. I even yelled, "Dammit - I'm tired of this!" the other day, but ( this is true!) I thought, 'hmmm...saying dammit will really get the little buggers attention'. My kids think rough words and cussing are like cardinal sins, so it's totally eye-popping for them for me to cuss. Also, it gave me a little humor too, dammit.
So, that's an update on mindful parenting from my end...somebody said that nothing dies harder than a bad idea, and I feel like we have some ideas about our parenting or what parents are supposed to be and it's okay to let them go.
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