Today my kids were fighting a lot. Bickery, annoying, stupid fighting. Everything was annoying to everyone, all day.
As a parent, these days are frustrating. We want peace. We want to see the kids laughing and having fun. We want everyone to get along.
After a few hours of this behavior, we finally separated the kids from each other. We were able to find different activities everyone agreed to. It was interesting to me that this was the most difficult task of the day; we could not seem to get the kids to agree on walking away from each other and doing something else. We obviously needed space, but the kids didn’t see it that way. Not at first.
Finally, I got LM1 alone. With his alone time, he enjoyed time in the pool and asked if we could play his favorite music: Imagine Dragons.
“Can we play the volume really loud? Please?”
His puppy eyes nearly begged.
I realized how frustrating it is to be a kid sometimes. Kids don’t always know how they feel or what they want or what to do with themselves. Even if they say what they want, how many times do we say yes?
“Ok,” I said. I blasted his favorite music and watched him rock out, air guitar and lip syncing his favorite songs. I got to sit back and watch him find his peace. His whole body relaxed because he got what he needed and could finally let loose.
As a result, I found my own peace in the day. What a blessing. What a fortunate coincidence that my peace should have everything to do with my son’s.
What brought you peace today? Share the peace!
4 the Love of Peace 