In Babies and more We have commented on several occasions that the screams also leave a mark on the children's personality, which also affects them (and I also say because people believe that only cheeks affect) and that they are the reflection of our failure as parents and educators in that moment. The shouts are the sign that we must improve and look for other strategies to raise our children and face those moments when we feel overwhelmed.
The fact is that, even knowing it, many parents have ended up by shout more than we would have wished, as I explained a few days ago, so, to try to remedy it, you can join the orange rhino challenge.
We all have a model to look at
We all know some mother or father who boasts great patience and an enviable way of treating children that makes us think that "I would like to be like him", "what patience you have" or "I would have already put four bellows ".
There are those who have someone known as a reference and there are those who even have Caillou's mother, who, as I have said before, has an infinite patience to find the child in the kitchen with everything on the floor without losing his composure. I have mine too, the Armando of a couple of years ago, my "I" from the past, to which I have to return to have more patience and shout less.
For this I have to become aware again in not doing it, I have to be clear that my children are children to lower my expectations and my requirements a little, and that I have to create less personal obligations, so as not to live almost drowned all day, paying for it with the children, who are the ones who least deserve it.
In Babies and moreEducation without shouting is possible if you propose: eight keys to educate your children without shoutingThat it is not so much, eye, that I have not changed so much, it is only that before I did not scream, and now I have done it on occasion. I can't count them, maybe 5, maybe 10, but those times have been more than I would have wanted, because my wish is not to scream. I mean, just shout at them once, I will have shouted once more at what I want and I think I should do it.
The Orange Rhino Challenge
Surely you will ask: And what does all this have to do with an orange rhinoceros? Well, the orange rhinoceros is the name of a website created by an American mother with four children of 6, 5 and 3 years and one of 21 months, who does not work and is with them. One day he considered trying to do better at realize that at home he yelled at them when he didn't know how to deal with problems, but that in the street he didn't do it to avoid the comments of strangers.
He thought it was absurd to worry about what strangers would say and that what he really had to worry about was what his children thought of her, because they were the ones who really cared about him, and decided challenge yourself to be 365 days without yelling at them.
In Babies and more, do shouts harm children? A biological responseHow to challenge:
- Be clear that there is a problem in the relationship with your children and feel the need to change, as well as the desire to do so by putting effort.
- Set a realistic goal, one that we know we will be able to meet, and then if there is a need to create new challenges. It doesn't have to be a whole year, it can be a week, ten days, a month ...
- Comment with people, with your partner, with your parents, with friends, with internet acquaintances. It is the way to assume that you start the challenge and feel obligated to fulfill it.
- Join the Facebook group The challenge of the orange rhinoceros, where you can find support from other fathers and mothers who are also doing it and where you can also provide support to other parents, explaining strategies or relief.
- Try to meet you a little, making a shout diary in which to write down when you shout, to whom, why, and little by little to know what are the situations in which you lose your temper. So you can anticipate, anticipate those moments and act before the stressful situation occurs.
- Practice a little at the beginning, screaming, but not at them. The American mother explains that at first she was screaming everywhere, but not her children (in the closets, in the bathroom, inside the vases, in the shoes). He managed not to direct the shouts towards them. Then he shouted for simple noises or roars, which he used to vent. So until he managed to control the urge to scream.
- Be clear about your motto, and repeat it if necessary: "I can't always control my children's actions, but I can always control my reaction".
In Babies and more, is it hard for you to be patient with your children? A mother shares a trick to practice positive parentingWhy don't i sign up
I encourage you to sign up for the challenge, if this is going to help you scream less at your children, if you are going to get along better, if you are going to face them less, if you are going to lower your expectations towards them and you are going to demand less, and by this I mean understand that for being children they commit many unintended failures and to be clear that no matter how much we explain things to them, they will not always be able to make the decisions that we consider correct.
I don't sign up because I know myself. Just set a goal, just feel the obligation to do so, with a date, to lose interest (as I was studying English on my own doing lessons and exercises daily and at the time I signed up for a course and I had obligatory exercises I felt like doing them). The motivation comes from me, it is I who want to change, I know I can do it, because as I said above, I was already like that, so, although it sounds like the typical "calm, I control", I know I can do it for myself. I just have to look for the patient Armando inside me and make him sprout again doing everything mentioned in the previous paragraph (shout less or nothing, change my expectations for them, be less demanding, see them again as children, etc.).
In the end it doesn't matter how you do it, whether on your own or taking part in the challenge. The beneficiaries are you and your children, who deserve and need understanding parents, patients and dialogues. They will have time to meet less tolerant and more disrespectful people in life. Then they will know how to deal with them or, at the very least, be clear that they do not deserve to be treated that way, or so I hope.
