In summary, after periods of calm, clashes with Ella begin again, slowly building over time to culminate in one massive blow-up. At which point, my husband and I say: "That's it! Things are going to change around here." And so we put in place new routines and rules, and things calm down again ... for a while. Of course, there are other factors, like tiredness and lack of adherence to routine, that contribute to this picture, but I'm not good enough in Excel to do more than a two axis graph.
Strangely, I feel a bit better just knowing that this is the way our lives run these days. But it has also given me some ideas about how to better manage these cycles. I won't pretend that I can make the ups-and-downs disappear, but maybe I can help smooth out some of the jagged peaks (think rolling hills instead of mountains), decrease the height of those big hills, and stretch out the calm periods.
If only all parenting challenges could be solved with Excel! To be charted next: unexplained crying fits of a one-year-old.
One of the tricks, I find, is anticipating when a storm is going to hit. That way, you can bring your umbrella. Study the elements that will bring a storm on so you can prevent it from happening even before it does. I find that with my little storm-monger, sometimes if I call her out before it happens, it makes her aware, so she self-polices and stops a tempest before it starts.
ReplyDeleteExample: Sunday mornings for us tend to be lazier. Well, lazy for her as I will let her do something like watch cartoons while having her breakfast. In the past, this would often end up with her cranky and mopey, not wanting to turn off the TV when it was time to get up and go do something less brainsogging. So before she even hits the couch, I tell her that the only way I'm going to even let her watch anything is if she is reasonable about it. We set the limit to X numbers of shows and agree on a plan for after that. Then, only then, do I let her do her thing. I think that way, she feels like she has some say in it and she knows what to expect. Usually, this works.