Sometimes I struggle to cope. I shout. I manipulate with threats. I behave like a child myself.
Why the hell do I do this? Am I repeating a cycle because I felt unloved as a child by an absent dad? Am I projecting on to my boy, because he’s a boy, and I thought my Dad didn’t love me because I was a girl, that now I have to not treat him like I would have treated a girl?
I do love him. I do. I adore him. He’s funny and smart and affectionate and just so beautiful. But he’s also infuriating, disobedient and attention seeking to the point that I literally hit my head on the wall (only gently mind. I’m not completely crackers just yet)
Is this a normal parent feeling, or am I in need of therapy? I feel I understand exactly where my issues stem from but find it hard to know what to do about them. It’s so much easier to cave into bad behaviour and then resent it than it is to deal with the behaviour in a time consuming but beneficial way. I’m just so tired all the time.
I think this whiny post has come out of a particularly bad day yesterday. We had a home-just-in-case-you-aren’t-better day, and I had to take off work even though I’ve got a thousand things to do. I told RJ that if I kept him home, he’d have to let me do some work. Of course this didn’t happen and he was pestering me constantly all day to play, feed and water him & to go out.
So I was grumpy, hacked off and irritable all at once and shouted at him several times. He whined and tantrumed until I caved for several things, making me feel resentful and angry at myself. I ended up taking him to the park to burn off some energy, and we stopped at the chippy on the way home, where he only ate half his dinner. So of course bedtime came (he’d promised to go to bed well if we went to the chippy) and he kicked off because he was hungry (as usual) and I lost it and yelled at him. He said he wished I was dead. I told him my heart was broken and that I was going to die in the night. I left him upstairs and stormed down.
I ended up looking up “why can’t I stop being mean to my four year old” online and read some other similar accounts which made me feel better. I calmed down and when he snuck down I called him over and we had a cuddle and I apologised to him and said we would both try harder. By that I meant me though.
I also realised that I probably have PMT as well as my thyroid issues not helping with my general energy levels (who is happy when they are tired?)
I feel so guilty all the time. I don’t know what to do though except hope I can get better at this parenting malarkey.
