Do You Feel Like You Are Trying To Empty The Ocean With A Spoon?

I don’t know if you’ve heard that Coldplay song Up and Up, but one of the lines in it says:

lying in the gutter, aiming for the moon
trying to empty out the ocean with a spoon

I have probably listened to this song a thousand times.

It helped me get through this summer.

I struggled really badly this summer. And I didn’t really have much to complain about. Not relative to previous summers.

I mean, our financial situation had improved drastically. Nobody was injured or required surgery.

But I was completely overwhelmed.

And as a result, I really  dropped the ball in the parenting department.

The kids were not exactly behaving the way I would have liked them to.

And I just didn’t have the energy to do anything about it.

I was operating at the survival level.

Just keep everyone alive.

So the kids weren’t listening to me, they weren’t cooperating, they were often rude and disrespectful and they were pushing every goddamned button in my body.

In the parenting department, I was definitely trying to empty the ocean with a spoon.

I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I was feeling completely hopeless.

Once school started, things were a little better, but the kids were still driving to me to the point of exasperation before they even got on the bus.

And so I did something I had been wanting to do for a very long time.

I registered for a Positive Discipline class. There was a six week course being offered as a research study, so it was free. Six, two-hour classes, once a week.

If you don’t know much about it, then you may not fully understand what it is.

When I signed up for this class, I asked my husband to go with me.

He has never been on the PD bandwagon because he also did not know much about it.

He heard the words positive discipline and just rolled his eyes.

He told me that although he was totally against it, he’d attend the first class.

But after that, he was out.

After we left our first class, my husband said, “I really liked it. It wasn’t boring. I’ll definitely go next week.”

Yes!

He realized in two hours what it’s all about.

And what it isn’t about.

It’s not about punishment. It’s also not about permissiveness.

It’s not about rewards or praise or pampering or punitive time-outs, and it’s not about taking away privileges as punishment.

What is it about then?

What the heck is left if you aren’t putting your kids in a time out or taking stuff away from them but you also aren’t giving them rewards???

I can’t really sum it up in one blog post.

Because because the course was life changing for me. And my kids.

And hopefully for my husband.

It changed the relationship I have with my kids.

It is slowly changing the relationship they have with each other.

And I believe that, eventually, it could potentially improve my marriage.

If you’ve been around here a while, you know that I’m not a push over. I’m not a wuss. I have expectations for my kids. They make their own lunches and fold their own laundry pay for their cell phone and are independent and responsible.

So I am not going to subscribe to any philosophy where my kids can do whatever the they want and where I want to make sure that life is unicorns and rainbows for them all the time.

But what I’ve been doing isn’t working.

Feeling like I was trying to empty out the ocean with a fucking spoon left me angry and short-tempered and resentful almost all the time.

Changing my way of speaking and my overall parenting approach had immediate affects on my kids’ behavior.

In a good way.

Two of the things that really had me feeling like I was emptying the Pacific with a ladel is the number of times I asked my kids to do the same forking thing over and over and over again and the fact that as soon as I left the room, they started doing things they knew they weren’t supposed to do or they intentionally started bugging the crap out of each other until they were inevitably beating the crap out of each other.

It was infuriating and it was exhausting.

And one of the biggest things I learned is that you can be a Telling Parent, or you can be an Asking Parent.

One encourages kids to take responsibility for their stuff so you don’t have to repeatedly nag them.

And one doesn’t.

Take a look.

I copied those examples right out of the Positive Discipline workbook.

For ten years I’ve been a Telling Parent. Constantly telling the kids what to do. Over and over and over. And wanting to strangle them when they don’t do it.

I know you may look at that  Asking Parent column and think those are a little cheesy.

I mean, “what do you need to do so your teeth are squeaky clean?” is not anything I EVER would have said five years ago.

But let me tell you something.

Up until I changed my approach, my mornings had not been running very smoothly.

At all.

Number 6 in particular would get so distracted, and I had to remind him approximately 150 times to brush his teeth or get his socks or get his shoes or….

I must have been asking him an average of ten times a morning if he had brushed his teeth.

For real.

And so instead of saying “Did you brush your teeth?” on a continuous loop and getting louder and more annoyed with each repetition, I changed it to,

“What else do you need to do to be ready for school?”

And I SWEAR TO GOD, I only had to ask that question one time for him to brush his teeth.

ONE TIME!

His answer every day has been, ” OH YEAH MOMMY! I HAVE TO BRUSH MY TEETH!”

And he ran right the heck up the stairs and into the bathroom.

If your kids are giving you a run for your money and you are constantly engaging in power struggles, think about how you are communicating with them.

You may be doing more telling than asking.

(And note that you are not asking your kids if they want to do something.)

Give it a try.

And if you forget, it’s okay.

Use it as a learning experience, and try again.

I am confident you’ll be (pleasantly) surprised by what happens.

 

If you are struggling with getting your kids to help out and contribute at home, I can help you.