Let Them Be Little

When your kids do something that they shouldn't do, such as drawing on the wall with permanent marker or squirting the entire tube of toothpaste on the floor... It drives us crazy. A lot of us get overwhelmed and flip out and sometimes lose our cool. I've done it. I admit I've lost it and yelled and put my kids in their room with the door closed because I couldn't even look at them after what they did. I'm not a perfect mom. 

Afterwards I felt really bad for yelling and apologized and explained what they did was bad but mommy was bad too. And we all do things we shouldn't do. 

I've been trying a more gentle approach lately. And thanks to Facebook I've found easy ways to clean up these crazy messes without a hassle. 

Rather than yelling and getting worked up over things, don't react at all or laugh. Even when they know better, maybe they did it because they had to do it. 

Messes can be cleaned up. Broken items can be replaced. Our children have feelings. Why yell at them when we can embrace their mistakes and help them learn from them? Why do we expect our kids to grow up so fast and be these "perfect little adults" when we ourselves make the same mistakes even as adults. We drop and break things. We make messes. We make mistakes. We are just as human as they are. We deserve respect from them, but we also need to show them respect. You earn respect just as they do. 

My two year old has an obsession with drawing. It's his favorite thing to do. And when I'm not paying attention he will draw on the wall or whatever he can get to. So their bedroom (he shares with his older brother) has crayon drawings on the wall. And I'm ok with it. It's their room. They're not hurt by it. And it can be covered one day. I told him it's not ok and explained to him about taking care of his things. He hasn't done it since. 

Although one day he got ahold of a permanent marker and drew on my living room wall. This wasn't ok. And I made sure to talk to him and show him what he did wasn't ok and that's not how we treat other peoples belongings. Thankfully it came off with some scrubbing with toothpaste. But so far he hasn't drawn on our wall again. 

Life is too short to be upset about kids being kids. Embrace them. Love them. Teach them right from wrong and about respect. But let them be little. Don't push them to grow up too fast.  Choose your battles. Is it worth yelling at them? Hug them tight and talk to them the way you'd like to be talked to. Kids listen more to gentle talk. :)