The first couple weeks of summer were difficult for me. My kids were fighting with each other, aggressively competing for my attention and my vocal (read loud) toddler, who was potty training and missing his naps, wasn’t having it being shuttled along. I was pretty discouraged and filled with a lot of negative self talk and anxiety. Summer was short this year so as I began to reflect on it, we were already halfway through summer and already thinking about school starting up again. I don’t have any parenting advice, strategies for getting your kids to get along better or toddler sleep tips that would have helped me through my first month of summer. But one thing I do know for sure is that overanalyzing my problems and replaying every parenting mistake I have ever made that has led me to this point, is not the solution. Shaming myself into thinking that if I only had the right routine or a better system in place, that then somehow all my parenting problems would go away, is simply not true. It’s also not true that if my kids fight and cry, I am doing everything wrong or that they are out of control. In reality, I believe those first few weeks were difficult because going from being in school or from being at home without all the siblings, to all being home together is a big change, maybe a bigger change than I anticipated. None of them could articulate that, but change is hard, even when the change is a welcomed break from school. What I believe I needed more in those first few weeks was grace and patience while everyone got reacquainted with being home together. This wouldn’t have stopped the fighting or tears but may have given me more strength to deal with it. With school starting, I am anticipating another difficult few weeks with big adjustments for everyone. I hope this time around not to blame myself and allow my thoughts to spiral out of control every time someone has a meltdown or doesn’t want to talk. Rather, I hope to accept my kids’ adjustments back to school with grace and patience, however good or bad a particular day or even hour might be. Grace and patience certainly aren’t going to prevent toddler meltdowns and tired kids, but hopefully they will help me embrace the adjustments and challenges of going back to school in stride with grace and love.
Annalisa