I Gave Up as a Parent Today, &That's Okay

You may be expecting a long explanation with three to five somewhat decent points on why it's okay to just quit "parenting" for the day.  I'm not going to sit here and feed you unproven points that seem to make sense like "it teaches your kids independence" or "it's a better alternative to discipine". Although, they sound good and they are things that I tell myself, they are not the reason why I gave up today.  

I don't know if it's because of the weather or because Mercury is in retrograde, but my boys have been wrecking my nerves all day.  All. Day.  Discipline, rewards, discipline alternatives, separation, negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement... you name it, I have tried it. And nothing was working today.  I got frustrated, tired, and a bit upset.  So I gave up!

I pulled Noelle to the side, and she played with me or in the corner by herself, I turned the televison up, and I let the boys run wild all afternoon.  They fought, yelled, screamed, ran, played from 12:30pm to 5pm, and they fought with no interference or refereeing from me.  I could see them, so I knew they weren't killing each other, but that's as far as I went.  (I  know a few parents that would put their kids in the room, close the bedroom door, and check on them occasionally.. I can't say I didn't consider doing that a few times.)

Why was it okay for me to let them hash it out?  I will tell you my one good reason for tuning out: they weren't going to listen.  I had been fussing and disciplining since 8am, but they were not even pretending to listen. So for my sanity, I sat back and let them get all that negative energy out.  They howled, yelled, whined, screamed, and cried for a little over 2 hours. (Yes, they hit and pushed a little too.) But afterwards, they were calm. They were still loud, but they were still.  And only one room of the house was destroyed.  

I do not feel bad for allowing them to run around like two crazy ferile beings.  I actually feel pretty good about it!  While ignoring them, I watched TV, journaled, talked and played with Noelle.  I had a whole lot of background noise, but not too much stress.  Instead of doing something useless like wasting my time trying to stop a hurricane, I just prepared for it, and endured it.