[Radosny Matka]

mamamansa

Took the kids to the pool this afternoon and had several successes. Last week in the lockeroom, the kids would not stay out of the lockers. I was going batty. Today, we walked into the lockeroom and I said, "boys, eyes on me. We are not going to play with the lockers today. Lockers are not toys. We are going to go over to this bench and leave the lockers alone." And they did!

This wasn't to one of my kids...but at the kiddie pool, there was another child who kept splashing N. No parent came to stop him, and in looking around, I could see an obvious parent. N kept moving away from this boy, but didn't say much. I went over to the other boy and said, "hey honey, see that little boys face? It looks like this (and I made a scrunched face). That face is saying, I don't like getting splashed. Thank you." The other boy moved onto something else.

In the big pool, I P and N were jumping n. P would get so upset with it was N's turn, and I was getting frustrated and him whining and pulling away. I said something like, stop fussing or we are leaving. Then I stopped, took a deep breath and realized that he wasn't trying to make me miserable, he was just excited and impatient - typical for a 3 year old. So I said instead, "it's so hard to wait our turn." It didn't stop the whining and impatience, but it changed my perception, and I could handle it without feeling frustrated.