Sandra Dodd

Someone on facebook who may or may not be on this list wrote something to which I responded. If that mom is here, there's no reason to confess to having written this, because I think it's the opinion of a moment and not a lasting situation anyway.

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-=-I have to work very very hard and often still fail when it comes to respecting what my kids want to watch on tv sometimes-=-

If your'e working very, very hard and failing to respect, that means you're doing it wrong. You need more information, not more will power. Respecting someone should be about compassion, understanding and love, not about working very, very hard. If you look into what they like about it, and their joy and learning, then you WILL respect it.

-=-I struggle daily with it and sometimes I do accidentally threaten to chuck the tv out the window.-=-

That's not an accident. That's you holding your breath and occasionally relaxing JUST ENOUGH to fake acceptance. It's not acceptance if you're struggling daily. It's resistence. You're not on their team. Their team is having fun, and your team is resenting that and trying to thwart it. Your team doesn't respect their team and pretends that honest reaction is "accident."

http://sandradodd.com/partners/child
http://sandradodd.com/t/learning
http://sandradodd.com/respect/

It's not too late for you to make the small shift from pretending to respect them to turning toward them with love and doing the small, easy work of actually respecting them instead of the "very very hard" work of pretending to.

Sandra