How Mom Keeps Her Cool... Most Of The Time

When my kids were little, I used to lose my mind with frustration.  I don’t have the garden variety type of kids.  Mine take extra patience and I think that I wasn’t always forthcoming in that area.

 I remember picking those precious little pumpkins up at their after-school program when they were in elementary school.  I would always have one dawdling and one pulling on me ready to go or begging for something.  I always had my super-calm and patient Mom persona going.  The director, whom I loved and adored, would always comment on my great ability to stay loving and patient.  I always felt guilty and would shake my head, because I knew it wasn’t true. 

Along the road, I learned a few tricks.  Getting upset doesn’t help anyone.  My daughter is like a brick in the morning and has a hard time getting up and moving.  My happy-go-lucky son has turned 13 and his body is requiring more sleep.  He wakes up, but you can bet he is going to be in a foul mood.  I could lose my temper trying to get them moving, but it isn’t going to make them move any faster.  It is just going to cause drama and slow the morning process down to an even slower crawl.  Sometimes you have to take a deep breath and work with them, rather than against them.

In our family, we have a saying… “taking a break.”   This means one or more family members need to cool off, before proceeding with any conversation.  It is easy to look at my kids and husband and know when they need to “take a break.”  It can be harder to look inside myself.  My son has even set up a special place in his closet for cooling off.  He doesn’t need it very often, but I will say that during the months that he was approaching 13, he used it often.   Turning 13 can be hard, and bring lots of emotions with it.

We are also trying to learn about the tone in our voice.  We have tried to coach Jonathan into hearing himself when he talks.  He uses a tone that indicates that he is mad or frustrated, but gets defensive when you point it out to him.  On the other hand, we’ve learned that he has very sensitive ears.  I have to be careful how I approach him or how I am having a conversation with him.  He perceives frustration if my voice gets louder.  He doesn’t listen to how I’m talking – just how loud.  He also perceives my voice to be louder than it really is.  Now, there are often times that I also use a frustrated or sarcastic tone in voice – not just what Jonathan is misreading as frustrated.  Thankfully, I have a family that is honest and will call me out on it when my voice slips into sarcastic, frustrated or defensive mode.  I usually don’t realize that I have used that tone or didn’t mean it.  Sometimes, after being called out, I completely realize it.  For instance, my daughter and I were running late and I sarcastically said, “well, we are so late that we don’t have to worry about that school zone this morning.”  She felt like I was just inserting the knife and twisting it after she already felt bad or had consequences for being late. 

The biggest thing that I’ve learned about losing my cool is to just apologize.  If I catch myself losing my cool or if my kids have pointed out that I could have used a kinder tone, I will apologize.  If I can’t admit when I make mistake, how will they ever learn to admit and fix their own mistakes.

And, don't forget to pray... always!  You can never pray, too much.  Trust me.

Now, please don’t think that I’ve figured out how to stay cool and keep from losing my mind all of the time.  I am raising teenagers, after all.  The Fortenberry’s work well with a schedule, and anything that changes that schedule can increase my stress.  Running late, if Fred is out of town or at a meeting, traveling and visiting other families all increase the pressure I feel.  If I am not careful, I can start biting heads off. 

Luckily, I have gotten pretty good about keeping my cool.  Teenagers are beautiful creatures.  They can take patience, but they are so precious and worth every bit of gray hair that they’ve given me.