When you've been upset with your children....

[Earlybird]

Do you snap out of it quickly and get over it, or do you stay in a mood for a bit?

I tend to stay in a bad mood-particularly if I have been really angry-until the guilt kicks in and then I feel terrible and try too hard to make things better!!!

In betweeny............

Depends on the magnitude of the error.

If it is just an unthinking comment or action, over and done with.

If like today,when DS(4) was getting progressively ruder, and I was ignoring it, but he then cranked it up to..................I am closing this door, so I don't have to listen to you. Fairly inoccuous (sp) but the tone and the delivery were full of attitude.

So time out,on the step, hugs and kisses alround afterwards, but 30 minutes later he pushed his luck so I brought up the fact that he had had stairs time out.

A little later, we were snuggled watching Wallace and Gromit and totally unprovoked he said, I was rude to you today.

I said yes, you were, but what made you say that ???

Well you did tell me again later that you were not happy.

So in essence if I had let it pass, with just the first chat he wouldn't have known how rude he had been, because I tied in to a later little chat he remembered.

Hope this makes sense.

As they are getting older I try not to let it pass so quickly as they both think the word sorry is like a magic wand - say it and everything's back to before. Now dd is 5 yo she is quite reflective on why mummy may have been cross today and we talk about it. Sometimes though I think she pitys me and just pretends to understand.

I certainly let dd know if she's doing something wrong/pushing things too far. But, it takes me quite a long time to actually get angry with dd, so when I do, it's hard to let go of it quickly. Of course when I stay angry/upset for awhile, like chipkid, I feel mean, which then makes me feel guilty....but think it's important for dd to know that her words/actions have the power to upset others.

Sometimes think I'd be better off to react strongly earlier (rather than letting it build), so that perhaps we can avoid escalation to a major incident. I've always been told that patience is a virtue, but with a young child perhaps being patient just means that their testing for boundaries continues/intensifies....so being very patient really isn't always the best thing.