Parenting can be an emotional roller coaster. One minute you may be feeling proud, confident and willing to write a book on your parenting accomplishment. Suddenly, you receive a phone call from the school or a neighbor telling you that your child has been in a fight, stole something from a store, was with some other kids who were bullying, allowed another student to copy an assignment or any number of not-so-positive scenarios. Child development experts will share with you that it’s common for children to go through mood swings (especially during the ages of 12 to 16) that could pull you along on a roller coaster ride that can be exhausting.
Parenting tip: When your child get on the emotional roller coaster, you stay on the ground. Parents need to stay in control of the roller coaster controls and learn how to turn this emotional ride off. Author, Melanie Howard shares some other helpful parenting techniques and helpful hints to keep you on the ground.
When The Parent Has a Temper Tantrum
Each month, my five-year-old son’s kindergarten class compiles a “book of days,” in which the children share their daily home experiences with one another. The next month, the book gets circulated to all the parents. Imagine my chagrin when James brought last month’s book home, and there—between “Mollie and her mom made brownies” and “Jeremy helped his dad take out the trash”—was “James’s mom was angry with him this morning.” My temper, in writing, laminated and distributed for all the world to see.
Worse yet, I realized that almost all our recent mornings had degenerated into Mommy scream-at-hons over seemingly minor matters—dawdling, misplaced gloves, sibling bickering. I felt terrible, and obviously James did, too. How could we break this angry pattern?
