Preparation 101 Get A Partner

A couple of months ago I wrote the post Preperation 101 Must Have Thick Skin. This evening was a long one for my family. I thought of the prior post as my seven year old was yelling “I hate You.” and “You are not my mom anymore”. The worst was, “No one loves me.” The funniest was, “You don’t love me, your husband either.” Maybe funny isn’t the right word, but humor is a must or crazyness will follow quickly.

So what caused this outrage? I’m still not sure. Enu has been wanting to have a friend over lately and Mita has a friend over tommorow. As I actually had the phone in my hand to call her friend’s mom when she hit her sister. I told her she would have to wait until next week for a friend to come over since she cannot keep her hands to herself. Of course that made her upset, but I will not tolerate hitting. The blow up happened hours later.

I tried to keep things light and not take things to heart. When she left hate notes for her sisters though I really had to keep away from her for awhile so I wouldn’t lose it. It is hard to have one child hurt another and her sisters were hurt by her letters.

She was in her room stomping around while her sisters and I watched TV and I worked on taking Mita’s braids out. Enu came to the top of the stairs and asked to come down. I told her she was in her room for the rest of the night and she started yelling and talking back again. I just turned the TV back on and we finished our evening.

Did I mention that she slammed the door three times? The last time we had door slamming issues we took the door off the hinges for several weeks. I guess it is coming off again.

Thank goodness Hubby came home and I was able to go over what had happened with Enu with him and we could talk about how I delt with things. We both agreed that things were handled okay and that Enu needed to be left alone to cool down a bit. Mita is sleeping with the other two tonight.

This is a very different approach for us. Normally I wait until she is a bit calmer then hold her and rock her until she falls into me exhausted. Tonight I didn’t feel that I needed to do this. I am very much a “follow your gut” type of parent and I did not feel the urge to hold her. Will I feel different in the morning. Should I have held her close and not let her go? I guess time will tell.

I was so fortunate to have hubby to talk to tonight. Someone to share and bounce ideas off with. He helped me stay calm and keep my focus. When I started to doubt myself he reaffirmed our parenting goals.

If you are planning on adopting an older child it is very important that you and your spouse have the same type of parenting theries. You have to remain unified for your child. Does this mean you always agree? Of course not, but your goals should be the same. If you are a single parent, it is imperative that you have a friend or family member that you can be completely honest and candid with. Someone to help you through the tough times, and there will be tough times unfortunatley. There will be times you don’t handle things the way you probably should and that is just life in general.

I will see what tommorow will bring. Hopefully peace and love.

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