Struggles of a Mom ...

For some reason, I feel impressed to write about an experience we've encountered this week. I am not proud and it is a time for reflection and learning for all of our family members. Now that this is blatantly at the forefront of my thoughts lately, it is now time for change. Anyway ...
Over the last few weeks when Mr A has come from school, I have noticed a sort of disconnect. He does fabulous at school and loves to be there. He even verbally wishes that it was a school day on his weekends. I thought this was fantastic at first. But, then I noticed that when he came home he was more irritable, not doing what we ask of him and fighting with his brother more. His school is a minimalist school and so I thought the transition of having so much in the house was what was making him extra cranky. The other night when saying good night to him, I began to give Mr A compliments/affirmations and said that he was a good boy. A few seconds later after I had said a few more things Mr A says, "No I'm not."
Pause and rewind with a worried face... "No, you're not what?" I asked him in confusion.
"I don't want to tell you." He replies with a sad face.
"Well, you need to tell me. What do you mean?" I insisted.
"I'm not a good kid." Disappointment filled his face.
As I began to cry, I tried to reassure him that he certainly is a good kid. But he opposed every time.
Mr A started to explain a little bit more, "That's why I have a hard time on my three days off and when I came back from Nana's." When he's at home, he feels like he can't do anything right and is in trouble all of the time.
My heart sank. I made sure he fell asleep as I kept giving him compliments and heard positive things about himself.
I cried myself to sleep after I left his room. How can a family let their kids think poorly of themselves. That was never my intention and I felt like it was all my fault.
We have been a yelling family. Raising your voice to discipline is one thing, but yelling out of anger or impatience is quite another. We have been yelling in these negative ways for far too long. For a 6 year old to have low self-esteem because of the way we have been communicating is heart breaking. It is time for change. We have known for some time that there is too much shouting in our house. You just never think how it will actually effect your kids... until they say something and it is just awful to know that you directly contributed to how your child views himself.
What an eye-opener.
To make a mom feel even worse, a few days later Mr A had come home from school and was getting annoyed with his brother. I could hear them outside. When Mr A came in about something, I tried to give alternative ways to communicate with his brother instead of him just shouting "Stop it" at him. He replies with, "Well, that's all you taught us to do is how to yell and be mean."
Instant dagger through the heart and tears dripping down my face. I apologized for not treating them properly and reacting poorly to situations. We talked about how we all needed to practice being nicer to each other.
What an emotional way to realize a change needs to be made. We have been trying to be more conscious of our tone etc when talking to the kids and more mindful of our own temper.
Being a parent is not easy! Especially when a situation like this arises and it is heart wrenching. Awful attitudes need to be corrected ASAP. We love our kids tremendously and now that our 6 year old has brought this problem to our attention, we have room to be improved upon and be better parents. I mean, we were good parents before, but just yelled a lot... too much. Now we have a reason to be better. To not tear our children down emotionally... to lift them up. Our kids are amazing, I have failed to remind them of that. I will be better. I will not yell.
I guess I have tried to push my kids ahead in the academics and teach them things that aren't as important as I thought. I should have been more focused on character, morals and values. But, coulda woulda shoulda right? From here I have a starting point on where my focus really needs to be... ...
Anyway ... go give your kid a compliment. Praise their goodness... That's what I'm going to go do.

UPDATE 10/22/2016:
We are definitely trying to be more mindful of our tones. I have also been recommended the 5 Love Languages of Children book and have been trying to communicate love in a better way to the boys, a way that will be more beneficial to them. Yelling still occurs, but now that we are so aware of it and its affects, we are coming out of a hole. Climbing out of it is much more difficult than jumping in... but we are happier.

To Be Improved Upon

Hopefully, i can refer to this post later  and reflect on what has improved. 

I love using Mother Goose Time curriculum in my home. We've been using it since September 2014. Everything is included: main materials for crafts/activities/games, a monthly book, lesson plans, alphabet picture cards. Its well worth the money. I adore using MGT at home... although i could be doing it better!

I find myself too lazy/tired to properly prepare lessons, which is a poor excuse i know. I dont have proper ingredients on hand for the recipe cards, so those rarely get done. I dont have an effect system for delivery of lessons. (We mostly just do the activities spontaneously throughout the day. Sometimes that works but sometimes it doesnt. The attention span or cooperation of the boys varies from day to day. Sometimes its a struggle for all of us to do anything.) My "learning junk" area is a disaster and cluttered with too much stuff... its the office where i keep all of our learning materials and MGT stuff... it all gets referred to as "learning junk". Its an organized mess that definitely needs help and maybe thats a reason why i have hard time preparing? I dont know.

Anyway...

As far as the materials included...

*The Welcome Kit: the garden theme is bright and cheerful. A few months in of doing MGT, i realized the main items were quickly going to be destroyed so... i got them laminated. The counting garden, birdhouse, map, alphabet flip charts... all of it laminated. :-) its helped tremendously since the whole set up has changed location in my home several times.

*Monthly Focuses: the friendship feathers, shapes, color birds, sight words, letter flowers... all get laminated as well. These are a great visual reminder of what we have learned and currently learning. I dont utilize the friendship feathers well enough... or at all. They are great values to be reminded of but, im having a hard time incorporating them into our days. I put the word and letter flowers in a tissue box "pot" and i rarely use them. They just sit there, which is too bad. Its a fun visual to learn the letters & words. I just need to take a few minutes each day to pull the out. It doeant sound that hard.

*Planning Journal: its a great tool if you have multiple children and need more to plan for. I however, dont like it. I dont want to cross reference between the two books. It has a blank calendar, notes section and outline of the days activities.

*Teacher Guide: Amazing. I like having all the activities and lesson ideas in one spot. Its simple to understand and read quickly. As I've said before, i dont take enough time to prepare our days. I just read and go. Something i need to put more time into so the kids get the most out of it. However, there are a lot of open-ended questions. I am constantly looking for more information on topics so my oldest can learn a bit more. 

*Daily Packs: i love having everything packaged by day. Materials for activities & crafts, daily picture w/ question.... so nice.

*Recipe & Science Cards: like ive mentioned, i usually dont have ingredients on hand to do the recipes. These rarely get used but i love them. I need to make these a priority in our lessons because i know the boys are missing out on a lot.

*Alphabet Cards w/ pictures: we have the letters we've learned so far on the wall. Its an easy reference to recall the letters done so far. I like the pictures on them too. These we get laminated so they will last longer.

*Monthly Book: I love that a reading book that coincides with the theme of the month is included. Several activities are based around the book too, so the story can be used all month. Our favorite book has been Jurassic Jam. The boys were singing beats randomly at the store or the park.

Ive tried the Toy Box a few times. It was great. I loved the themed toys. But unrealistic for our family. I only have two boys, not a preschool with multiple children. They weren't getting used well enough. Now i do like to find a few things like a puzzle and stickers that coincides with the theme. Puzzles we do all of time and stickers we use on the crafts.

Ive also tried the Dance n Beats dvd. The boys hated it the first week, so it was mostly me doing the dances while they laughed at me. I hastily returned the other months i had it ordered for... then my oldest kept talking about it and doing his favorite moves from the dvd. So, we will be trying it again. I love how the guide book has additional activities to do too.

I also like to find visuals of some kind that go along with the theme. Its fun to use my creativity to make a special "bulletin board". For Rainforest Adventure i made a tree labelled with the layers and pictures of animals. For Weather All Around Us i made different trees for the seasons. I have several posters to put up as well. My house looks like a preschool and i love it... my husband doesnt seem mind either.

Well, i have a lot to improve upon with this curriculum. Im not a very good blogger either, so that can improve too. I mostly need to take more time to prepare and gather materials... planning ahead... its always been difficult for me. AND i have to remember to make it fun for the kids instead of trying to be a controlling teacher! My kids aren't in school yet. We just need to have fun. MGT keeps us away from the television when we do it and that i appreciate.

We love Mother Goose Time. Its a fantastic program, even if you dont utilize it 100%. I want to make it better for my boys... hopefully it will get easier.

Oh wait... easy being a parent, teacher, cook, maid, chauffeur... of two active young boys...? Right. Lol.

Sent from my Galaxy S®III