Yes! It Works!

Finally I was able to do what I set out to do. Agreed that it has only been a couple of days and the sustainability of the strategy is yet to be proven, but I did it nevertheless.  I won’t say I didn’t yell at all but I hardly did and not once for a lousy reason.  What can I say?  It feels good.  Actually, it feels great.  It feels great to know that there is hope. Even for someone like me who had resigned to letting the labels dictate the terms of my life.  But now I know that I can break free.  If only I try. What’s more?  I learnt a lot about my kid over the past couple of days…

1. My stress levels are directly proportionate to her stress levels.  In fact that applies to every emotion.
2. The more I yell, the more she ‘misbehaves‘.  After all she is my daughter.  Rebellion is in her genes.
3. The fewer the rules, the less likely she is to break them (even the ones that aren’t in the ‘rule book’). 
4. The absence of the list of accepted and expected behaviour increases (exponentially) the chances of  those behaviours (that were supposed to be on that list) happening.
5. The less time I spend in front of the computer, the happier (and calmer) she is and, as a result, the happier (and calmer) I am.
6. Most of the times when we yell at her, she has no clue what she did wrong.  That is to say, we over-estimate her awareness of what is nice and what is rude.
7. She loves learning.  This is something I already knew but she still surprises me with the ‘what’.  For instance, I got out of the shower this afternoon only to see her trying to learn software development from her dad!!!
8. She truly believes that everybody in the family listens to her except me and her dad and that something is out of whack here, or as she likes to say, it is ‘backwards’ with us.  She doesn’t quite get why it needs to be different with us. 
9. She hates being by herself except every once in a while.  She would rather sit in the same room as me and be pin drop silent (when I have a migraine or am unwell) than stay in her room and play.  
10. She is the most adorable, loving, caring kid ever…

…and I am the luckiest mother ever. If I believed in God, I would have spent every second of my waking life thanking Him.  But, being an atheist, I’ll have to make do with thanking my husband instead.  After all, he had a small but rather importantish part to play in the making of this adorable little chunk too, right?