fbpx skip to Main Content
Menu
Future Path Life Coaching
  • HOME
  • ABOUT ME
  • POSITIVE MENTAL FITNESS
  • WORK WITH ME
  • GROUP COACHING
  • BLOG
  • FREE RESOURCES
  • CONTACT ME
  • Search
My Blog

Does your child’s behaviour drive you crazy? 8 reasons why and how you can turn things around. Guest blog by Camilla Miller (Parenting Coach)

  • genfuturepathx
  • Uncategorized
  • 0 Comments

My daughter’s tantrums would push me over the edge and I felt stuck in this never-ending power struggle. Wishing that things could just be simple and calm… Calm that’s what I would wish for.

“If only SHE would JUST listen to me and stop being so naughty I wouldn’t have to shout at her.” I bemoaned to a good friend.

It was so easy to resign myself to my present reality when I didn’t see a way out. Really! is THIS my parenting journey?

Because, when I delved into the REAL issue of what was causing my problems, it’s wasn’t my daughter’s behaviour or lack thereof!

It’s wasn’t my super busy chaotic life, or even a stage I just had to manage.

It’s WAS everything to do with HOW I THOUGHT about the situation.

Interested? Read on.

1. I made my child’s behaviour about me

In the past when my daughter was acting up, Oh my! it would it trigger me, “How dare she talk to ME like that.”

I would question my parenting skills, and jump between feeling as if I had failed as a mum or that she was a bad child.

However, it’s important to remember that your child’s behaviour is NOT a reflection on your parenting. This isn’t a reason to become permissive and let the kids rule the roost. But, the fact of the matter is, you simply can’t control your child’s reactions. 

It’s not personal.

You can ALWAYS decide on YOUR actions and YOUR reactions. How you decide to act is your choice.

Your child doesn’t control your behaviour.

Your child’s behaviour is their choice BUT —HOW you decide to respond to their behaviour is always your choice.

This is where you have control—over yourself, and no one else.

In short! You Choose Your Behaviour, No Matter How Your Child Chooses to Behave

 2. I resigned myself to “Life is hard.”

Parenting a strong-willed, more challenging child is well, more challenging. It left me feeling overwhelmed and as if life was happening to me. Running a hundred miles a minute and I couldn’t keep up. I had thought I had to accept that this was my reality and I’d better get used to it. That life should be hard. I had a more challenging child for goodness’ sake.

And in some ways I was right.  Parenting is relentless and you can’t have a day off. It’s exhausting. And some days you just manage to make it through the day.

However, what we focus on grows.

Focus on what’s NOT going to plan and you miss many of the wonderful moments. – Your son sharing his favourite toy with a friend, the trip to the supermarket that didn’t end in chaos, the bedtime cuddles, cooking your favourite meal that the kids actually eat…

When you focus on the positives you’ll SEE more of the good stuff.

Above all, whenever you feel a sense of overwhelming, take a deep breath and remind yourself:

Life goes on. Better wake up and smell the roses.

3. One difficult situation can dictate the mood of the day

I’d overslept.

The milk carton was empty (I NEED my coffee in the morning to function)

My kids were arguing.

My daughter had an epic tantrum and I really was about to lose it

It was a REALLY stressful morning. This was when I decided to PAUSE, take a deep breath and RESET.

Too often, moments like these dictate the rest of the day. Your child doesn’t do what you ask and is moody towards you, so you’re moody right back.

You forget that you have a choice to let go, and each moment is a time to move on.

Try and shift your focus from “Who said and did what.” to resetting and starting over.

I use to sing the song “Let it go” at the top of my lungs when my kids were younger. That song has a whole new meaning for me now.

Go on give it a try!

4. My Mind was elsewhere

I was driving the kids to school, had a doctor’s appointment, and a client to go to, food shopping and bills to pay…

The kids were messing about in the back of the car and I turned around and snapped at them: “Will you please just be quiet! Aaaarggh!”

My husband was soon to reply. “Hang on! What’s the matter?! They’re just having fun.” And you know what! He was right.

My mind was elsewhere and my own frustrations allowed me to overreact.

Isn’t this the case for most of us?  You’re not present in the moment. Your mind is elsewhere. Planning, thinking, worrying.

When not being present, you miss out on SO much. And you get frustrated AT your kids for simply being kids just because they’re interrupting your thoughts.

This causes you to live on autopilot, and react without thinking.

When we slow down and become present in the moment, we have more choices in our reactions and gain a deeper connection with our children.

5.  Feelings are a choice

Your husband isn’t helping out enough, your toddler isn’t listening, your child is ungrateful and you feel like you do EVERYTHING.

The resentment starts to creep in.

You start competing with your partner about who has less sleep, about who has it more difficult, about which child is more challenging… all the things you have to put up with.

And the funny thing about human nature is that we like to prove ourselves right. It’s something called confirmation bias.

So you go about your day pointing out “YOU SEE! You see… THIS IS WHY I’m feeling like this. I HAVE PROOF. This is why my life is hard.

The truth was, a few years ago this was me. I played the victim of life and circumstance and give permission to let my circumstances dictate my life.

When you lose your power, you give it to others and leave it to them to change your emotions and reactions.

We think that our feelings are caused by our circumstances or by another person. But that’s not true.

It’s how you THINK about what’s happening that causes you to feel an emotion.

6.  Reality and expectations don’t match

Before becoming a parent, I’m sure you had an idea of what life would look like. The kind of parent you wanted to be, the kind of child you would have, the family life, holidays you’d take…… See where I’m going with this? We have it all mapped out in our head before it’s even happened.

There is a disconnect whenever there’s a gap between our expectations and reality. We mourn the loss of what never was.

A client of mine paid for a lovely city break for his family. He had it all planned out, sightseeing, museum visits, long lazy dinners. However, reality kicked in and his kids complained about the boring historic site visits and his daughter refused to go out for dinner.

His expectations didn’t match his reality and the city break was a disaster, one spent arguing and greatly stressed out.

It’s at times like these that you need to take a pause and recognise you’re off the path, even in tough moments like these, it’s easy to focus on the gap rather than where you are. By becoming grateful for what you have at the moment we open up to new possibilities to be happy.

7.  Control is an illusion

I thought my job as a parent was to control my children’s behaviour, by controlling them! Oh my! this leads to endless power struggles and WAY TOO much shouting…

Whenever there is coercion there will be pushback.

Control is an illusion. The fact of the matter is you just can’t control another person. You can only control your own thoughts and reactions.

Influence YES! Control NO!

Stuck in endless power struggles and stress can make you lose sight of what your true job as a parent is.

Your job is to love your child, not control them. The rest will follow..

It’s liberating to realise that when you let go of control over your children, you actually get more of what you want. And willingly.

8.  Lighten up!

My husband stood in the kitchen, “You’re not fun anymore!” he retorted.

‘What?” I replied, somewhat taken aback.

“Everything is just so blah..”

And you know what! He has a point.

Life’s so fast, it’s easy to be ben so focused on what’s not working, your never-ending to-do list, the issues we have with our children.

You forget to have fun, laugh, dance around the kitchen like a crazy person, shift the mood…

Above all, you miss the small things that make life so important.

I want to invite you to become aware and of how little changes in your thinking that can have a huge impact on your life.

As always, I would love to hear from you.

X Camilla

Hi! I’m Camilla, a Language of Listening® parent coach, and I support parents just like you to transform family life with the magic of Language of Listening® To get more support click here to get my FREE parenting into class. It’s the missing step in parenting.

What’s the difference in this way of parenting?
Here’s my brand new FREE downloadable that shows the difference between traditional parenting and Language of Listening® model.  Click here.

Share This

  • Facebook

genfuturepathx

Related Posts

6 ways to progress in your personal and professional development, just like cleaning the kitchen

This is not my kitchen...but I wish it was! How do you manage your kitchen?…

I talked her through a panic attack. How positive mental fitness helped one friend.

It was 6 months ago and I was at work. A friend, let’s call her…

5 ways to boss the summer holidays like a pro!

Barricane Beach - Woolacombe, Devon The summer holidays are in sight. That’s good, but it…

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts
  • 6 ways to progress in your personal and professional development, just like cleaning the kitchen
  • I talked her through a panic attack. How positive mental fitness helped one friend.
  • 5 ways to boss the summer holidays like a pro!
  • Sometimes you do just need to STOP
  • 5 ways to introduce punctuation into your life, leading to calm, laser focused action
Archives
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
Categories
  • General
  • Some Advice
  • Supermum Article
  • Uncategorized
  • previous post: To recognise World Breastfeeding Week 2019 here’s some snippets of my story of breastfeeding my premature baby
  • next post: 12 ways to leave work where it belongs – at work!
Get in touch for a Mum to Mum no obligation chat
Get in Touch
Testimonial
  • Bridget, Kidlington

    I started my journey with Jackie struggling with some quite embedded self-confidence and self-belief issues – I was also working in a hectic job with some complex relationships to navigate, whilst trying to look after a family and their needs. The whole world changed quite dramatically midway through our journey (pandemic), and, at a time where things could have spiralled further out of control, Jackie helped me to prioritise what is important, to reflect on and learn from past experiences, and to take energy and confidence from the positives. Her calm and composed nature enabled some good, rational discussions, and she guided me towards reaching my own conclusions about how to address things, in a way that is personalised for me.

Copyright FuturePathLifeCoaching - All Rights Reserved
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Cookie Policy
  • Facebook
  • HOME
  • ABOUT ME
  • POSITIVE MENTAL FITNESS
  • WORK WITH ME
  • GROUP COACHING
  • BLOG
  • FREE RESOURCES
  • CONTACT ME
Back To Top