Someone messaged me the other day saying that she enjoyed reading my #confessions but that she felt bad because clearly she stuffed up way more than I did. Somehow she’d concluded that the frequency with which I’d written my blog matched the frequency of my stuff ups. Oh my goodness beautiful mama. How wrong you are!!!!
So today’s confession is actually about the #confessionsofaparentingexpert themselves.
The reality is that I write my confessions when I have TIME to do so. And if have TIME to write them, it means that there is only a LITTLE bit of shit going down at my place.
You see, I manage to find the time to write a confession when the kids are, overall, travelling well. When you see a #confession, it actually means that for whatever reason, they are doing just fine. They aren’t arguing ridiculously, whinging constantly, refusing to do their chores or their homework, answering back or hitting or pushing (that’s something only my little fellows do). Well, they probably are doing those things but only every now and then.
The flipside is that I don’t have time to write my #confessions when things are FULL-ON at home. And people, that’s when I am creating the material to write about! It’s when I’m stuffing up left right and centre!!!
But that begs the question. Why don’t my kids have these cruisy phases more often or for at least a bit longer?
One reason is that the planets must be aligned during those moments. And we all know that planets only align for fleeting moments at a time.
As much as I’d like to just roll with that, I DO know that there are some other reasons why these moments of harmony don’t last.
Firstly, the kids are actually people. Funny that. And like all people, they have their own internal shifts where they feel on top of things, confident, calm and happy but also stressed, cranky and overwhelmed. They have experiences (both good and not so good) that I am not part of and sometimes know nothing about. I’m sure those of you who have kids in school are pretty used to getting little back when you ask the question, ‘what did you do at school today?’ My favourite responses are ‘nothing’, ‘not much’ or … crickets….
So yeah, they have their own things going on that understandably influence their mood and behaviour.
But the other part of this is that I have a big influence on how they are travelling too. When I’ve got my shit together, our family functions HEAPS better. So when I’m ‘good’, they’re ‘good’. When I’m able to parent from the most patient, compassionate, smartest and reflective part of me, there just aren’t as many meltdowns. If they aren’t travelling well I’m more likely to pick it and far more likely to be the mum they need me to be. And when I’m that person, things are less likely to escalate to arguments, whinging, refusing to do what they need to do, answering back or hitting or pushing.
So when you see a #confession, please realise that it means I’ve come up for air. It’s a little chunk of life where I’ve got time to tell you something I stuffed up during the time I WASN’T writing! Because when you don’t see a #confession for a while it means the house has been in chaos.
So to the lady who messaged me thanking me for my confessions and asking me how it is that I stuff up so little, there it is. Less writing = more stuff ups. Count the days in between people. There are SOOO many of them.
Love Kirst
xx
