Tempers Rising

It’s been one of those evenings.   My husband and I have both lost our tempers at the children in not very pretty ways.  Oh, and the dog too.   My husband is currently standing outside saying she’s going to stay outside, “until something comes out of her”.

The dog is growing quickly and has to go to the bathroom a lot, but she also seems in no hurry to do so.   She’s distracted by her seemingly boundless love for the outdoors and so when she goes out, she takes her time, sits down, enjoys the view and isn’t in a real hurry to do anything.   If she has an urgent need she goes right away, but even then, she doesn’t want to come in.   She doesn’t have, “accidents” in the house—they’re deliberate.   She realizes after coming in that she’s got to go and doesn’t mind doing so in the house.   She’s a puppy though and she’s working the system, trying to get her own way.   It’ll work itself out.

The children, on the other hand, are pushing very hard in every direction.   My daughter’s constant answer of, “no!” to options for things or statements of expectations we have for her.   My son is negotiating everything, especially when it isn’t a choice, like, “you must sit in your seat at the restaurant” or, “you have to brush your teeth”.

My husband snapped at both children when we got in from dinner.  I had very strongly corrected my son in the restaurant, quietly but firmly, after giving him the warning that I would do so in front of everyone there, if he insisted on continuing the way he was going.   It’s not okay to pretend to shoot people in the face with an rifle as you walk by them.   He was going to sit in his seat and not bound back and forth at the edge of the table in the way of the service staff and he most definitely wasn’t pretending to jab me in the ribs with his elbow when he didn’t get his way.

This all begs the question, “what have we done wrong?”  I think parents think this a lot when their children aren’t the perfect little angels we hope they’ll be.   Have we allowed things to get to a point by poorly managing discipline and expectations or is this a developmental point and we’ll have two successful children as adults because they’re independent and strong-willed?

The children at least we can rationalize with, explain and have future expectations clearly understood.   The dog, well, that one’s going to take work.   We’re going to have to change our behaviors as owners to get that one fixed I’m pretty sure.  

The Big Boy Update:  We were talking about what to order the other day and thought we might be putting too many things in our order.   When asked, my son said, “Mom, I’m never full.   You know me.  I could eat that whole building."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter spent the night with Nana and Papa last night.   At dinner tonight we asked her about how it went.   She told us about the night and then said, “for breakfast we had banana bread—which was way too healthy."