Parenting Transformation Journey – Page 16

I have a dilemma. I made a business commitment with a deadline for this morning, and I am a couple hours behind schedule.

But I have six kids at home and each one of them have been taking turns needing my help. So even taking a minute to add to my journey is not really staying on task, but this is how it looks sometimes. I'm consciously choosing to take a moment and assess what's going on, and how I'm responding to it.

(New interruption just in: Sarah brought her pet rat to me and placed it on my shoulder. I'm just going to keep typing.)

With each interruption, I've been trying to stay calm. But it's so hard when there's deadlines and stress. But I'm trying. While my words have been calm, I'm sure they could see it in my eyes (my very wide eyes) that I was frustrated.

Two more interruptions just now.

Okay, I don't think this is going to work. I don't have time to document this if I want to meet my business commitment.

Another interruption just now.

Before I sign off, I do want to at least share this:

One daughter earned an extra chore about 20 minutes ago, and was not accepting it calmly. I stayed calm though... so I'm going to call it a small victory. Rather than telling her she earned yet another chore for not accepting it calmly, I asked if she would like to go calm down somewhere before we talk about it. She said, "YES! But I DON'T want to TALK ABOUT IT!!!" Then she disappeared down the hall and I said (I think she could still hear me, not sure, but I think so...), "If you can calm down, then we won't need to."

Perhaps I'm supposed to talk to her about it... I think Nicholeen would say yes, because anything resembling time out is for the purpose of preparing to talk calmly - not to just ignore the problem and hope it goes away.

But in this incident I plan to not bring it up again, unless perhaps my daughter and I are having a tender moment in the future and we can talk about it objectively - after the emotion has passed. For now, I feel like she needs to know that she is permitted to have some time to cool off without the expectation that she's going to be on the spot about it later.

Well, that's interesting, she just came skipping in to ask me an unrelated question. Seems like she's over it... I will talk to her about what happened a little later. I'm consciously choosing to delay this discussion so I can wrap up this post, get back to business, and finish up what I promised I'd do.

If you disagree with anything I’m doing, then before leaving your comments, all I ask is that you please first watch this BBC episode so you can see where this is going. They say that in the middle of a life-saving surgery it can appear as though there has been a murder in the room. It might get a little messy in the middle, but I do believe and trust in the end result. Each of my posts – standing alone – will not provide the big picture… but the episode does. Enjoy!

_________________

•  To discover how to start choosing more effectively now, read The Jackrabbit Factor (FREE!) 
•  If you want more step-by-step guidance on creating the life you really want, join me in the Mindset Mastery program.
•  If you want my help overcoming that giant obstacle right in front of you, learn more and sign up for Genius Bootcamp.