Sari and I had a rub one morning a while back.
We were running late on our mission to get out of the door for school so I was trying to move her along. I told her to get a hat on (because she already had her coat and shoes on). Then when she walked past me in the kitchen on the way to get her hat in the front room on the way out the door, I stopped her to help make sure her backpack was ready.
Sari didn’t like the switch from getting a hat to getting her backpack contents checked.
She was huffing and puffing during the backpack survey. We noticed her water bottle wasn’t in there so I got one and started filling it with water and I noticed she was just standing there. So I snapped at her to go get her hat.
Sari got frustrated with that, too!
I think the jerking back and forth frustrates Sari. I also probably unreasonably expect Sari to be able to multi-task and think like I do. This was our conversation on the ride to school. Sari was expressing that she doesn’t know what I’m thinking and can’t figure out what I want her to do if I’m not nice and slow and kind about it.
Realizing the error of my ways, I apologized for jerking her back and forth between things and expecting her to think like I do. Whenever I move out the door too quickly and try to drive Sari to leave in short order, it short circuits her composure.
So whenever we’re short on time, I try to drive her out the door slowly and methodically without adding in more than one thing at a time. This is frustrating for me because we could move out the door so much faster and efficiently if she just did all the things I told her to do at once, but that’s unreasonable for a 7-year old. So the frustration is my problem, not my daughter’s. I need to keep my frustration to myself and not pass that off on my daughter.
