Stop the Screaming and take a step back

Yesterday I was reminded of many good lessons about life and dealing with people from my five year old daughter.

When arriving home I heard a lot of screaming coming from upstairs.  Thankfully this is not the norm in my house, thus it was a bit worrisome.  Walking into our twin’s room I saw why my wife was not extremely happy (understatement), and I think I may have even gone purple with rage when I saw what she was screaming about. My oldest daughter (never done this before) had decided to draw with a marker all over the new furniture which we had bought a week ago. With my blood boiling I went in search for my daughter, and found her in her room. This is when thankfully my control set in.  I was able to calm myself down before I did anything I would regret, and remember a few lessons I have learnt over the years.

Lessons Remembered:

·         People do ‘stupid things’ all the time ---count to 10 before reacting

·         Calm yourself prior to deciding how you are going to deal with the situation

·         Mistakes are made ---It is not the end of the world

·         Mistakes can be fixed

·         Make sure lessons are learnt, thus preventing the same mistakes repeating themselves

·         Follow through with the lesson (it may need to be reinforced)

·         Conversations are better than being spoken ‘at’.

·         When ‘teaching or giving someone advice’ let them get to the answer and do not just give it to them.

·         Make sure to put everything into perspective and take a step back

Later in the evening our daughter asked my wife, “Do you want to live in a crying house or fine house?” “If you want to live in a fine house then stop yelling.”  After being taken back a little by this question, it reminded us that as a human being you control the situation and environment that you would like to live and work in.

If my wife and I had carried on screaming and did not take a step back, the lessons learnt may have been none. 

Thankfully peace is back in our home. After doing some research online and a lot of scrubbing we were able to get the marker off the furniture. My daughter has learnt a lesson, our twins have learnt a lesson and I’ve been reminded of many lessons learnt.

“Raising children uses every bit of your being – your heart, your time, your patience, your foresight, your intuition to protect them, and you have to use all of this while trying to figure out how to discipline them.” Nicole Ari Parker