NOT Perfect - and that's OK

"Don't focus on getting him to do what you think he should do. Trust that he's a thinking being. Trust he can make thoughtful decisions. He won't right now necessarily make the best decisions. He's trying things out, seeing what happens. He may be pushing his eyes as far as he can right now to test his limits." ~Joyce Fetteroll

This is specifically regarding eye strain in a kid who is playing a lot of video games, but the part I bolded is an addition to the "Trust her" idea that was in my last post. That concept hadn't been spelled out before. Reading it made me realize I need to remind myself that it's OK for Zoe to make "less than ideal" choices right now. I still find myself "perfectionizing" her a LOT, and that's not helpful for allowing her to learn to make mindful choices. She needs to be able to make her own choices, and to see the natural results.

In this same line of thought, Zoe said something yesterday that wasn't EXACTLY right, so I was telling her what the "correct" thing was, and she said to me, "Mom, can't you just let me be right sometimes?"  Ouch. So I apologized and I'm gonna try to stop "correcting" things that I think aren't exactly right. Then I wondered if MY parents ever let me be "right" about things like that, and I don't know if they did, but that would explain why I seem to always want to be right and have a focus on being precise about things. Or it could just be my personality. 

I'm WAY TOO judgmental of the things that Zoe says, but I'm gonna stop doing this. I'm going to focus on NOT correcting EVERYTHING all the time. I know that it would irritate me if Cheo did this same thing to me, and I would feel frustrated and like he thought I was dumb. I might even stop sharing things with him, for fear that he would just "correct" me. 

Yuck. I don't want to make Zoe feel that way, ever.

Update on Yelling: Now that I'm not initiating the yelling (most of the time), I've found some great tools to employ in my interactions with Zoe when SHE starts yelling. First, I try to keep top-of-mind that she is yelling because *I* modeled that behavior to her. This helps me to have empathy and not take the yelling personally. Then, I tell her that I'm not going to stay in the same room with her if she's yelling at me, and when she's ready to talk, I'll be in another room.

I've found that if I stay in the same room with her, often I end up getting angry and yelling back at her, or I continue to antagonize her (cuz I can't seem to keep my mouth shut), and she gets angrier and angrier. NOT yelling is still pretty new to me, so I had to find a way to remove myself from the situation. If I leave the room (calmly), and let her know that I'm available to her when she's ready, we both can calm down and we can then address what's made her upset (or not, because sometimes she just wants to not talk about it - and that's usually when she already understands the situation and just doesn't want to get beat down by talk). I'm learning to respect that request, which has made our relationship MUCH better.

She's really smart and perceptive. She gets it - and if she doesn't, it's because she's not ready to yet. :)