Waterpark excitement

The kids went to a local water park today during Day camp. They were quite excited and exhausted when they came home. After resting a little, Owen had his first soccer practice tonight. E took both the kids and worked with B on her soccer skills in the field nearby. When E came home he was very upset. I wasn't sure what went wrong, but he asked me to help because he was furious.

As it turned out, the kids had a huge fight before getting into the car. Owen had been goofing off at practice and E was quite embarrassed and angry. I tried to talk to E about not judging Owen's actions and trying not to be influenced by the ideas of 'society'. Didn't really fly. Usually Owen doesn't want anything to do with 'respectful living' conversations. After soccer practice things were no different. Later, after dinner, E commented to the children that he thought everyone should take showers because they all were pretty stinky. Well, the kids aren't real fond of showers. So now we had opened a new can of worms. Unfortunately we temporarily fell back into our old controlling ways and tried to force the kids to take showers. Well, naturally, they started messing around and making us more angry.

I asked them to take a break in their rooms. I explained to E that we had tried to control them. He agreed to try to be less judgmental and even voluntarily apologized to the kids for his stinky comments (pun intended :-)) So I asked the kids to come talk to us. I explained to the kids for the millionth time that I was trying to be respectful. I had a talk with Owen about what his actions say about himself and our family. When he messes around and is disrespectful to a coach, other people assume that we are not very good parents. I explained how his misbehavior is embarrassing for us. I reiterated that if he didn't want to play soccer, I was just fine with that. However, if he was going to be on the team, they deserved his respect and effort.

I asked both the kids if they thought there was anything more that I could do for them to make their lives better. I asked them if they thought I tried my best to be respectful of them and their needs. I asked them if I was asking too much of them to be respectful of others. They seem to have gotten my point, at least for now. I'm so proud that I handled the entire conversation calmly and non judgmentally.

After that we decided to broach the topic of bathing. After a long discussion about health and bacteria, they willingly, joyfully took quick showers and collapsed into bed. All is quiet now. I know I will need to have this conversation over and over again with them. The key is to be patient and eventually things will get easier. That's a hard thing to remember when you're frustrated and tired of repeating yourself. It is moments like these that give me hope. I think I'm going to make an effort to read my own posts more often so I can celebrate my successes again. If I can keep my attitude positive, everything else will fall into place.