I know better. But I still have those moments with my 5-year old. For instance, she sometimes plays with her food and resists eating what is on her plate. I am usually very patient but there are days when I lose it.
And immediately after, I feel a huge sense of remorse and guilt. So I make it up to her, and explain to her why I got upset, and what I really meant, and after an additional 10 minutes spent undoing that moment’s damage, we move on.
I have often wondered why I get angry at all and here is what I have learnt.
When I see my daughter resisting her food, I subconsciously extrapolate this act of hers far into her future. So while my daughter is playing with her food, I am creating an image of her as a fussy eater through school and college. I am already worrying about her future calorific intake and how I will be judged as a parent. While she is innocently playing with her fork, I am shifting blame and guilt in my mind and making up a set of strategies to “fix this forever”. And all my imagined failures as a parent and anxieties of the future make me explode. All this while my child is desultorily flicking the peas on her plate.
This was a startling revelation, and as I spoke about this with other moms, I realised that this is exactly the reason that most of us moms get angry with our children.
- We predict (and worse, assign) characteristics for our children based on their momentary behaviours. Eg: Child disliking parathas at dinner is interpreted as her being a very fussy eater.
- We subconsciously judge the “predicted behaviour” of the child and react to that behaviour now. For example, when our children say rude things to us, we immediately worry that our children will become brusque and arrogant teenagers and feel the need to set that right immediately.
Our children live in the NOW. But we don’t. We constantly think and worry about the future in ways that we don’t even realise.
So the next time your child’s behaviour gets your back up, ask yourself this:
Am I most worried that this behaviour will become a habit in the future?
If the answer is yes, drink some water, calm down and tell yourself to forget about the future. Get back to the moment and look at that gorgeous child of yours who is reveling in the NOW. And then, you can calmly deal with what is in front of you. In that moment.