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Originally Posted by Lauxa  Ah, dancer, I wish I could be as calm as I would like all the time and that my zen would produce the results I desire!
My daughter weighs over 60 pounds and she resists going to time-out by hitting and kicking (although this has been reduced recently since I have introduced the "hitting game" and begun hitting back), prying my hands off, or just sitting down and squirming around impossibly. She is so hard to carry or drag to a time-out, besides which, they have had no effect on the spitting. Maybe this behavior has been caused by past mistakes on my part, but at this point I just have to get her to behave civilly... I think I am more afraid of being too soft than of being too hard at this point... I just want to make sure that the discipline is coming from a place of love and not of anger. I know when I was a teenager I remember thinking that my parents should have been harder on me... I didn't have any chores (and threw huge fits when asked to do anything) and was basically a brat... I never cleaned up after myself which made life difficult for my mother... I even refused to say "thank you" to my grandfather (who cooked us lunch every Sunday) without a huge struggle... so I am afraid if I let her get away with this behavior she will just be a brat. But I must remember also to give her more of my undivided attention, thank you for the reminder.
Manguru, I don't remember ever being told as a child that I was ungrateful. I was told that anger was sinful, but it didn't stop me from being angry. Like I said before, I think it was more of a manipulative behavior. Maybe I learned it from my mother, who would get very frustrated when us kids would misbehave? As if somehow we would sense her frustration and then magically stop... well, that never worked...
As for not getting what I truly wanted, I remember feeling like childhood was just something I had to get through before life could begin. Maybe there is some similarity... a feeling that raising kids is something I have to get through before I can get my life back. But is is something I have to do, and I would like to find some happiness in it.
I feel so exposed typing all this, airing my dirty laundry, please be gentle... |
I can relate to what you are saying. My anger came from a desire to control. If things weren't going my way, I would get angry and try and make them go my way. I had kids at a young age and that only added to the issue.
The less things went my way, the more angry I got. The more angry I got, the less they went my way. It's a vicious cycle based upon fear. And I went all the way to the bottom before I stopped and took a look at what was really going on. If anything, I think it's great that you would come on a public forum and ask for help.
What I came to understand was that I could not change anyone or anything in this world. I can only change myself. The outside world is just a projection of what is inside the heart. Work on the heart and the projection will change automatically.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said it this way,
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We are disturbed not by events, but by the views which we take of them.
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