Give Up
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- Category: Blog Thursday - Euan
Sometimes as a parent you have to look failure straight in the face, give up and go home. The realisation that your only option left is to give up and hope that tomorrow presents you with some victories.
I often find these scenarios play out when you are trying to juggle a number of different things and then suddenly your child (otherwise known as “the apple of your eye” “the joy in your life” etc) decides that she/he/it would like some attention and before you know it the situation has gotten well out of control.
There we were standing in a queue for a boat trip somewhere in the Lake District. It was near the end of the day. We were all tired, hungry and the place was packed with slow old people. Kids aren’t designed for standing still and patiently waiting for something to happen. It is a scientific impossibility.
The situation started to run away from us when Abi started to get bored and agitated and the only response you can think of is to get agitated back (massive fail) and before we knew it she was screaming because we wouldn’t let go to run free on the jetty. We knew full well that if we could get somewhere quiet, sit down and talk calmly the situation would resolve itself quickly but these options aren’t always available.
The worst part was the spectators. In our queue for the boat we had dozens of old people staring at us and heaping silent disapproval down upon us. At least that’s what it felt like. For all I know they could have been pouring out silent sympathy, but when you are stuck there with a toddler in a rage that would make North Korea look sensible, rational thought goes out the window.
So what awesome parenting advice do I have? Give up. Learn the lessons and next time it will be slightly better. You learn how to respond in a way that produces better behaviour and the child also learns.
Oh, and don’t under any circumstances threaten a granny.
