Friday The 3rd Of September 2010

I love my grand children. I have found in watching my grand daughters and older grand boy, that when say they get into an argument that I often escalate it by .. well escalating it. Like last night, AB and H were playing with their friends E and B .. (abbreviation) every thing was fine until H tried to take over the CD player that AB and E was playing with.

So I naturally get involved as they were getting physical .. and to me .. I made it worse .. do I blame myself .. not totally .. nor them .. we are all just human .. they are limited by their young ages .. 5 and 8 , and I am limited by my .. level of ability as well. Lets face it .. we are not born problem solvers of young children. We would like nothing more than them to behave lovingly towards each other .. but a lass .. sighh

Anyhow .. I have went down this train of thought before on how to handle it .. because often it is not their behavior that bothers me .. it is how I react to them and behave in a manner that to me is negative .. human .. but negative ..

You see, I do not want to get upset at them .. and when I do... I do not feel it is a particularly effective approach to solving the problems at hand.

I was thinking today when AB and I were at the mall .. well the situation is not important or my point here.. she started mis-behaving when we were entering the parking lot .. pulling my hand instead of just walking peacefully as she has been trained to in parking lots .. so I get some what frustrated and mad and keep walking .. as she pulls . .embarrassing to a degree do to a couple of helpful motorists that stopped so we could pass.. god .. always when you do not want an audience ..

.... anyway my point when everything was said and done ..is I chose to get upset .. it is a choice I did not have to make .. SHE IS 5 .. she is going to mis behave ..  the one thing I can truly choose in this is my own behavior .. i can always choose my behavior that I am comfortable with ...