She Left Behind the “Bad Mom” Feeling
The cars crashed into each other and boys seemed to be getting louder instead of quieter while Melanie was trying to cook dinner. Two years ago, Melanie would have been frustrated escalating to yelling or spanking. At that time, she told her parent educator, Sara, that she felt she was a bad mom and didn’t feel she had the patience so she yelled and, sometimes, spanked her boys.
Melanie has been working with Sara a parent educator at Family & Childcare Resources of N.E.W. for two years learning about healthy child development and where her children are in their development. Sara brings activities and resources to help Melanie help her children reach their full potential. Sara also told her about a technique to focus on the positive when she was feeling frustrated with her children.
So when the cars were crashing into each other and they did not respond when she asked them to stop instead of yelling at them and taking their cars away, which would lead to a fight, Melanie reacted differently.
She walked over to them, knelt down to their level, looked them in the eye and said, “It looks like you guys are having fun together, but I was wondering if you would please play with the cars in the bedroom.”
They said, “sure mom,” and were off to play in the bedroom.
“It worked,” she said. Melanie was so excited to see the technique working. She says she has noticed the children behaving better and listening to her when she stays calm. “I don’t feel like a bad mom anymore.”
*Mother’s name was changed to protect her privacy