Hey 👋🏼 been MIA for a bit, life has thrown some curve balls, but I’ve been ebbing to get back at it, so here I am. This one is huge for me, I totally can feel my feelings when I’m dealing with my kids feelings. The tension, the heart rate… my daughter goes from blaming me for everything to hating on herself. She will hit herself in the head with her fist and it literally kills me inside. She has big emotions that she doesn’t know how to deal with and when I try to reason with her, nothing seems to penetrate. Of course, this isn’t a frequent occurance which just makes it even more frustrating for me when it randomly happens. When we talk and she says exaggerated things, I get frustrated because it’s not true. Guh. I am not a super emotional person and I’m sure there is something deeper to uncover there. I am very unsympathetic toward people who get emotional at the drop of a hat. My teenager (my niece) triggers me when she is mad at me for consequences because of her own poor choices which usually results in a lecture from me because I feel mistreated by how she is treating me because of her own choices… this kind of goes along with outcomes. She is a people pleaser and super attached to me. She is incredibly compliant and I know she is covering up what she truly thinks and how she feels which is terrifying because she is nearly 18 and I can just imagine what will happen when she separates from me. Her family drama (her parents and grandparents) are major triggers for me because she (like all kids) just wants a relationship with them and is willing to put up with their inadequacies to have it. I have not withheld my feelings about how they treat her, nor have I withheld how I feel about how she lets them treat her. This sometimes goes well and she converses with me and sometimes it shuts down communication. Silence or a refusal to communicate and talk things out is a trigger for me too and often results in me going on and on and on. Awareness is helping but I want transformation.

I’ve been applying this with my littles, it’s been very successful. We’ve had some fits from my 2 year old, but he’s learning the new way mom is doing things. Still need to work on brainstorming more options.

Both sounds good! Dealing with reactivity in the high stress moments would be very helpful though!

@Miranda Kidd I’m a control freak too, you are not alone! Growing in grace together friend. ❤️

I incorporated these statements more this week. The cleaning up dinner one I tried and then just letting my daughter be done multiple times even though she hardly ate anything. I also used this on my husband and I was surprised how it even worked then. I am looking forward to follow up steps, because inevitably when my children don’t eat adequately they want a snack sometimes as early as 30 minutes after eating. Also, you talked a lot about autonomy in the video, but I’m curious how it works when others can infringe upon our autonomy or when a child is unable to care for themselves so we have to help them do things that they may not want to do…? Looking forward to digging in more. Have learned a lot about setting up clear consequences from the beginning so when children don’t do what they know they are supposed to then they already know the punishment and I just have to stick to it. This is our goal to operate this way but there are always impromptu or challenges that come up unexpectedly.

The truth is, I hover… over everyone. I don’t want to deal with the messes, mistakes, and the extra money it takes to fix things they don’t do right. This is all because it takes more time from me and resources when I’m already depleted in both areas. I analyze before I celebrate success (🤦🏼‍♀️). I feel as though the chores and responsibilities of the home and life are more important that me playing with my kids. I am terrible at resting because I feel like my mind is racing with all there is to do and I can’t sit still… I’m a Martha fighting desperately to be a Mary and a Martha!? I want to do it all and sit at the feet of Jesus. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ Ultimately, I feel as though, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done and times I have sat back to see if I was right… I was… so it’s a battle of always being on everyone’s case or doing it all myself. Guh.