I’m learning to let go!

kellmar98

5 Nov 2006, at 10:35am

First off my girls refused to take showers last night. So I let it
go....no biggy. My oldest got in the shower this morning without me
asking.

My oldest came down stairs dressed for Church, and she looked
absolutely ridiculous. I told her, her pants were way too short.
She said she wanted to wear them. Now there was a time that I
completely controlled what my kids wore. My daughter is 8, and ever
since she was about 7 she has her own ideas about what she wants to
wear. So I let it go. In the scheme of things who cares if she
goes off to Church in pants that are too short.

Now my youngest said to me that her tummy hurt, and she's not going
to Church. So I stayed home with her, and sent hubby, oldest
daughter, and my Mother on their way to Church. My husband told my
youngest that she is not going outside to play later if she is not
going to Church. I pulled him aside and said "why not?" Really
what is the big deal? She's not running a fever. She probably just
does not want to go to Church, and I don't believe in forcing my
children to go to Church. So I convinced hubby to let that one go.

My Mother is staying with us, because I had knee surgery. She flew
out to take care of the kids while I recovered. I'm fine at this
point. But anyway I know all this stuff is driving her crazy
because she is very traditional in her thinking. It's driving her
nuts that I don't make my kids go to bed. Well my girls go to bed
every night on their own by 10 p.m. I don't see what the big deal
is. My youngest is really good about listening to her body and
getting enough sleep.

So slowly I am learning to let go. My 6 year old has Aspergers, and
Sensory Processing Disorder. Part of Aspergers (atleast for my
daughter) is having a hard time changing from one thing to another
and having severe temper tantrums. So life is hard enough having a
special needs child in the house. She can dig her heals in like
nobody I have ever come across in my lifetime. Getting into a power
struggle with her is just useless, and makes the whole house
miserable. So letting go of things that don't really matter is a
good thing.

Kelly

marji

5 Nov 2006, at 12:33pm

At 10:35 11/5/2006, you wrote:

>My oldest came down stairs dressed for Church, and she looked
>absolutely ridiculous. I told her, her pants were way too short.
>She said she wanted to wear them.

My son, who will be 12 in just a few weeks, loves to wear those pants
with the lower leg portions that he can unzip so that they become
shorts. Lately, he has been wearing them with one leg on and one leg
off (ahem, the mother of necessity, if you know what I mean). But,
he *really* likes wearing them that way! In fact, it's cool with him
to wear one white sock and one black sock (another happy fashion
accident arrived at by the lack of an extant matching pair). Having
said that, he would not be caught dead out in public wearing sweat
pants. Don't ask me why 'cause I don't know, and it doesn't
matter. He feels good with his own, unique look, and that's fine
with me! (Truth is, it caught me up short the first time we were
ready to go and his pants were like that, but I could see he felt so
good about them that way, that I stuffed whatever
'whatever-will-they-think-of-me' thoughts I was beginning to cook up,
and off we went.)

I do know this, though: Every time we choose a path of peace, life
can get exponentially better. So, when we choose to let go of
controlling things like what our kids wear or what time they go to
bed, we embrace a more peaceful, loving life with our
kids. Conversely, choosing power struggles about these things can
drive a wedge between us and our kids and make a peaceful, loving
life just that much more remote. This has been my experience,
anyway, and I wouldn't trade one moment of walking joyfully down the
street with my son feeling good about his one-leg-on-one-leg-off look
for ANYthing! Anyway, his feeling so good about it makes that look
work beautifully!

_.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._

Marji
<http://www.gaiawolf.org/>GaiaWolf
<http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/GaiaWolf/>Join the GaiaWolf Mailing List
<http://myspace.com/gaiawolf>Visit us on MySpace

"The animals of this world exist for their own reasons. They were
not made for humans any more than blacks were made for whites or
women created for men."
~Alice Walker
_.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._.:~`^'~:._

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Kelly Weyd

5 Nov 2006, at 1:16pm

Well said, I like your response.
Kelly

marji <marji@...> wrote:
At 10:35 11/5/2006, you wrote:

>My oldest came down stairs dressed for Church, and she looked
>absolutely ridiculous. I told her, her pants were way too short.
>She said she wanted to wear them.

Deb Lewis

5 Nov 2006, at 3:20pm

***...he would not be caught dead out in public wearing sweat
pants. ***

Dylan stopped wearing sweatpants in public when he started carrying stuff
with him. Sweat pants pockets are unreliable - things can slide out when
one sits down. When he started carrying a pocket knife, leatherman,
flashlight, (in case of sudden darkness<g>) pocket watch, wallet, he
stopped wearing sweatpants out of the house. <g>

Deb Lewis

Rachel Skaggs

6 Nov 2006, at 9:11am

Marji, your post reminded me of my boys! They don't care and have never cared about matching socks. According to their reasoning, the socks are on their feet because if they don't wear them their shoes hurt their feet. ~Their reasoning not mine~ Well yesterday we were headed out the door to a 4-h meeting. I looked down at my 7 yr old son, and he had on his dad's socks, one brown wool sock and one regular white knee sock. As you can imagine, that looked very funny with the heel clear up on his leg! :-) But very cute. I was thinking back to a time several yrs ago. I was taking one of my other sons to a dr appmnt. He had a red sock on and a black sock on. One was the "slipper" type sock the other just a reg sock. I turned around, took him home and made him change socks. We started out again, without me looking at the socks, but him saying he'd changed them. Got down the road, I glanced over and he had on one short white sock and one long white sock. It should have
been obvious to me then that the sock issue just didn't matter to him. Needless to say I've come a long way since then!

Rachel

---------------------------------
Sponsored Link

Talk more and pay less. Vonage can save you up to $300 a year on your phone bill. Sign up now.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Julie v.

6 Nov 2006, at 10:09am

Kelly,

Doesn't it feel so good to just let go? My ds (4.5) was so easy going until he turned 3, and
that's when we started with the traditional parenting tactics, which he totally resisted.
Since embracing radical unschooling approx. 8 mos. ago our house is so much more
peaceful. My dh and I were just talking about letting go with our ds last night and how
much ds is learning by making his own decisions. For about 6 months ds wore all of his
clothes backwards (including underwear), and occasionally I would slip up (worried about
what someone might say) and tell him "you need to turn your shorts around, because
we're going to the store, ect...", and he resisted and resisted, and finally I just let it go. As
far as sleeping and eating are concerned, we want him to listen to his body and no one
else (including us), and we have had conversations with him about listening to his body.
Sometimes he falls asleep at 8:00, and sometimes not until 11:00, but consistently sleeps
approx. 10 hours either way. Also the whole bath/shower thing, before embracing
unschooling we were having major power struggles with him to take a bath if it had been a
week since he had one. For awhile I think he was testing us, going 2 weeks or more in
between bathing, relishing his new found freedom, and now he consistently takes a bath
twice a week, and he requests it, not us.

There is just much more peace on so many levels with unschooling, it's just re-training
ourselves as parents I think to go against society and listen to our children, because they
know what's best for themselves, not us.

Julie

--- In [email protected], "kellmar98" <kellmar98@...> wrote:
>
> First off my girls refused to take showers last night. So I let it
> go....no biggy. My oldest got in the shower this morning without me
> asking.
>
> My oldest came down stairs dressed for Church, and she looked
> absolutely ridiculous. I told her, her pants were way too short.
> She said she wanted to wear them. Now there was a time that I
> completely controlled what my kids wore. My daughter is 8, and ever
> since she was about 7 she has her own ideas about what she wants to
> wear. So I let it go. In the scheme of things who cares if she
> goes off to Church in pants that are too short.
>
> Now my youngest said to me that her tummy hurt, and she's not going
> to Church. So I stayed home with her, and sent hubby, oldest
> daughter, and my Mother on their way to Church. My husband told my
> youngest that she is not going outside to play later if she is not
> going to Church. I pulled him aside and said "why not?" Really
> what is the big deal? She's not running a fever. She probably just
> does not want to go to Church, and I don't believe in forcing my
> children to go to Church. So I convinced hubby to let that one go.
>
> My Mother is staying with us, because I had knee surgery. She flew
> out to take care of the kids while I recovered. I'm fine at this
> point. But anyway I know all this stuff is driving her crazy
> because she is very traditional in her thinking. It's driving her
> nuts that I don't make my kids go to bed. Well my girls go to bed
> every night on their own by 10 p.m. I don't see what the big deal
> is. My youngest is really good about listening to her body and
> getting enough sleep.
>
> So slowly I am learning to let go. My 6 year old has Aspergers, and
> Sensory Processing Disorder. Part of Aspergers (atleast for my
> daughter) is having a hard time changing from one thing to another
> and having severe temper tantrums. So life is hard enough having a
> special needs child in the house. She can dig her heals in like
> nobody I have ever come across in my lifetime. Getting into a power
> struggle with her is just useless, and makes the whole house
> miserable. So letting go of things that don't really matter is a
> good thing.
>
> Kelly
>

marji

6 Nov 2006, at 10:31am

At 09:11 11/6/2006, you wrote:

>According to their reasoning, the socks are on their feet because if
>they don't wear them their shoes hurt their feet. ~Their reasoning not mine~

I gotta tell ya, that makes perfect sense to me, even though I have a
hard time letting go of wearing two completely different socks myself
(I *have* done it, though).

>Well yesterday we were headed out the door to a 4-h meeting. I
>looked down at my 7 yr old son, and he had on his dad's socks, one
>brown wool sock and one regular white knee sock. As you can
>imagine, that looked very funny with the heel clear up on his leg!
>:-) But very cute.

Liam's done that, too! My challenge is resisting the urge to grab
him and squish him!! I can't *always* resist, but he's very
forgiving when I'm overcome!

> I was thinking back to a time several yrs ago. I was taking one
> of my other sons to a dr appmnt. He had a red sock on and a black
> sock on. One was the "slipper" type sock the other just a reg
> sock. I turned around, took him home and made him change
> socks. We started out again, without me looking at the socks, but
> him saying he'd changed them. Got down the road, I glanced over
> and he had on one short white sock and one long white sock. It should have
> been obvious to me then that the sock issue just didn't matter to
> him. Needless to say I've come a long way since then!

That's really glorious, Rachel! I'm sure your kids really appreciate
you for it!

Marji

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Deb

6 Nov 2006, at 2:33pm

Had to lol a bit at this...my DS has 3 pairs of Crocs shoes (red,
yellow, and blue) and wears them at will in various combos - if he's a
Anakin Skywalker, he'll wear blue on the right foot and red on the
left; Darth Vader however is the reverse (red is Sith, blue is Jedi).
If he's a fire Pokemon, it's red and yellow. If it's a rainy day, all
blue. If it's a lovely sunny day, all yellow. And so on. Each day,
each time he puts them on, is a unique event and gets a specifically
chosen combination. The great thing about the Crocs is that he can
wear any combo and they still are the same height/size (unlike wearing
a sandal and a sneaker which often feels off balance).

--Deb

Kelly Weyd

6 Nov 2006, at 3:37pm

Gotta love those crocs! My kids wear them, but I myself am an even bigger fan of the crocs. I have feet problems, and oh, the crocs are just so comfortable I have not had any feet problems since I started wearing them.
Kelly

Deb <soggyboysmom@...> wrote:
Had to lol a bit at this...my DS has 3 pairs of Crocs shoes (red,
yellow, and blue) and wears them at will in various combos - if he's a
Anakin Skywalker, he'll wear blue on the right foot and red on the
left; Darth Vader however is the reverse (red is Sith, blue is Jedi).
If he's a fire Pokemon, it's red and yellow. If it's a rainy day, all
blue. If it's a lovely sunny day, all yellow. And so on. Each day,
each time he puts them on, is a unique event and gets a specifically
chosen combination. The great thing about the Crocs is that he can
wear any combo and they still are the same height/size (unlike wearing
a sandal and a sneaker which often feels off balance).

--Deb

---------------------------------
Sponsored Link

Talk more and pay less. Vonage can save you up to $300 a year on your phone bill. Sign up now.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

riasplace3

7 Nov 2006, at 12:10am

--- In [email protected], "Deb" <soggyboysmom@...>
wrote:

> Had to lol a bit at this...my DS has 3 pairs of Crocs shoes (red,
> yellow, and blue) and wears them at will in various combos
> --Deb

LOL
My dd got two pairs for her b-day tonight...I was eyeing them,
thinking of how great they're going to look when I mix them up and
wear them with a (unmatched) pair of my striped knee socks!
Ria