Tapped out
Some days... okay, many days recently... by the end of them, I'm all out of energy and patience. I love my children, but some of them require pretty constant parenting. I'm done in. As in so much in life, it is not the actual task a child is trying to do, it is the emotional component that is so time consuming and exhausting.
Learning fractions isn't so much about doing the math as it is learning to feel frustration.
Doing long division word problems isn't so much about doing the math as it is allowing yourself to make a mistake.
Learning the past tense of verbs isn't so much about learning grammar as it is learning to not escape into your own head whenever something seems too hard.
Coming when your mother calls you is not about obedience but learning that it is safe to come when a parent calls you.
Each of these kinds of scenarios require talking about what is really going on. And then, if there is still time, we can actually get to the task that triggered the boiling over emotions. It's this type of thing on top of the normal tasks of parenthood that are so exhausting to me. I often feel as though I have to be a therapist who is on call twenty four hours a day.
It was a day where I just had nothing left to sit and help H. knit. That particular activity was far beyond whatever teeny tiny reserves of patience and calmness I had left.
Learning fractions isn't so much about doing the math as it is learning to feel frustration.
Doing long division word problems isn't so much about doing the math as it is allowing yourself to make a mistake.
Learning the past tense of verbs isn't so much about learning grammar as it is learning to not escape into your own head whenever something seems too hard.
Coming when your mother calls you is not about obedience but learning that it is safe to come when a parent calls you.
Each of these kinds of scenarios require talking about what is really going on. And then, if there is still time, we can actually get to the task that triggered the boiling over emotions. It's this type of thing on top of the normal tasks of parenthood that are so exhausting to me. I often feel as though I have to be a therapist who is on call twenty four hours a day.
It was a day where I just had nothing left to sit and help H. knit. That particular activity was far beyond whatever teeny tiny reserves of patience and calmness I had left.
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