Kat's Arbitrary Thought Processes

For the last three weeks, I’ve noticed one constant theme to this show. Communication between the parents. It seems almost always, once the parents have their own relationship straight, the kids fall into place. Admittedly, the relationships on that show are at their breaking point. That is why they called the show. While my relationship with my dear hubby is great, I don’t know a single couple that couldn’t use a little more communication.

While my communication with my dh is not something I wish to air in such a public manner… I will discuss yelling. I grew up in a home with lots of yelling. To be honest, my own mom is half deaf, so some of the raised voices came just because of her own hearing problems. But I always swore I wouldn’t be a “screamer” as Mark Lowry calls them. Mark said they would ignore his mom until she reached that pitch, you know the one that makes garage doors all over the neighbor hood fly open! *S* As funny as it is, it’s true too. I’ve seen it in my own kids. When I’m having a bad day, I can yell and yell, and it’s not until I’ve reached the edge that they snap to.

Pastor Burcham (http://www.firstbaptistum.com/) said, “You’ll never prove strength to anyone by yelling. Watch your mouth.” In my effort to end the screaming and yelling in our house, I’m employing one of the techniques I saw on Nanny911. I’ve been teaching my kids to “use your words.” It works great with my dd2. Often I can stop a fit simply by saying, “use your words!” She will calm right down and tell me what her problem is, and we will work together calmly to fix it. It’s helped my own problem with yelling also. Because if I don’t have to yell to be heard over the kids, I don’t have to yell. Even bedtimes have become much easier on the ears. Simply by telling my DD2 that if she started screaming, I’ll take her dolly away, then following through on it if she does yell. It’s much less stressful on me, and much easier on everyone’s ears.

That doesn’t mean they get away with not obeying. We’ve found that a “Bad Chair” works best for our munchkins. Along with this, I’ve put some of my FLYlady training into place. I have a timer just for the bad chair. DS4 gets 2 minutes, DD2 gets 1 minute, no matter what. When the time is up, if they are still crying and screaming, they get another 1-2 minutes. It is working well for us. I share this info in the hopes that will help someone else also.

I don’t want to be the Angry mother. It brings to mind the words of Pastor Burcham (http://www.firstbaptistum.com/) from a few months back. He said, “Angry people are miserable. And everyone around them is miserable.” It also reminds me of the verse in James…

This you know, my beloved brethren But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;

for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

James 1:19-20 NASB

So communication is the key. When I get wrapped up in the computer, or whatever else I am doing, I am not communicating well with my kids. They get frustrated, and I get angry. But when I take the time to communicate with my kids and my husband, I can prevent so much screaming and yelling and hurt feelings.