Thursday, July 10, 2014

Let's Talk About Frustration

Let's talk for a second. No cute pictures. No hilarious jokes. Just talk. Serious talk, even.

Let's talk about frustration.

Frustration is when your toddler screams and cries for no reason that you can discern. Frustration is when your toddler won't listen even a little bit and there's really not much of anything you can do about it because they're too small for reasoning with. You can talk to them but they don't understand and if they understand then they don't care.

Frustration is a 2 year old on a changing table screaming at the top of their lungs because they want to wear that poopy diaper, wiggling as much as possible, trying to smear a mess everywhere, flip themselves over, throw themselves off of the table.

Frustration is yelling at your 2 year old, being brought to such a state of mind that yelling is the only thing you can think to do. Yelling at them to just stop already. Yelling at them about how much they're frustrating you.

Yelling. At a 2 year old.

Frustration is realizing that yelling won't do any good either. It doesn't even work to make you feel better; it just makes everybody feel worse.

Frustration is realizing that sometimes there's nothing you can do and having to accept it.

Today was a hard day. I'm frustrated. She's napping. I feel guilty for yelling. I feel guilty for feeling so angry at this little child that I blew my top and yelled. I feel bad for putting her down for a nap even though she so badly needs it because it feels like I'm locking her away for being bad when really I'm putting her to bed because she needs to sleep.

I'm frustrated with myself for letting her frustrate me.

2 comments:

  1. Frustration is a part of parenthood. Toddlers are tough because they don't have the language skills to tell you what is bugging them. This to shall pass

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    1. Thank you. I meant to say that before but my toddler distracted me and I forgot to come back to say thank you.

      Thank you. It must be frustrating for her, too. That doesn't make it easier, really but it's good to remember.

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