How to stop yelling at your kids

Pic courtesy of Muhawi001

I've realised lately that all Mums yell at their kids, or have wanted to at some stage.  It's being talked about amongst my friends, at playgroup, in the shop and being blogged about.  I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to yelling.  We often feel infuriated, stressed, rushed, exasperated, frustrated and many other things when our children don't behave the way we want them to, when they flat out ignore us, defy our requests, make unreasonable demands, take far too long to put a pair of shoes on.....  I've noticed something funny though.  My Toddler Cuggle is so often a well behaved little angel on a Friday.  

Fridays are the only day of the week I don't have hard and fast plans.  No strict schedule, no 'hurry up', 'quickly', 'we're going to be late', 'where have your shoes gone?'.  Fridays are protected with my life as a No Rules Day.  Sometimes we have baking days so we have something warm from the oven for our morning and afternoon tea, sometimes we stay in our jarmies and allow the TV to go on for extended Wiggles watching; sometimes we go to the park or we make play dates or Toddler just runs around in the back yard while I potter around hanging washing and just doing normal things.    Sometimes we have to run errands, but whatever we do I keep it casual and I try to make my little girl the focus.  I ask her what she wants to do/wear/eat and take the attitude that it doesn't matter how long anything takes.  These are the days where I really appreciate my child's budding personality, her jokes, her quirks, her ability to be so sweet and considerate.  I get lots of spontaneous cuggles and kisses that are usually only reserved for Daddy.  (He's the stereotypical fun one). 

I know I'm among the lucky ones to have the luxury of an entire day like this most weeks and I'm sure things won't be so easy once the 2nd one arrives in August.  It wouldn't be reasonable to allow 'no rules' days too often either, our kids might end up with rotten teeth or square eyes.  We'd be late for work, they'd be late for kindy or school and everyone would be cranky from not being fed on time and not being able to find anything in a very messy house.  

The moral of the story though - if we can find a little bit of time here and there to focus on the child/children and not on the clock, we might all feel a bit calmer and happier, and less like a psycho-mother like I do sometimes.

Not that I'm any expert but this Dr Cuggle also recommends a damn good cuppa tea when all else fails.  : )