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parenting tips

If You Want Respect from your Toddler, You have to Respect Them Too

by Deborah Cruz 2019/02/04

Ever wonder how to get respect from your teen? I remember wondering how to get respect from a toddler. It’s simple really if you want respect from your toddler thru to your teens, you have to respect them too. I know, crazy, right? I’ve been all for treating my kids as little people from the day they were born. I just adjusted as needed, Age appropriate and full honesty has always been my long term parenting style.

Do your children roll their eyes at you? Mine has on occasion. They’ve been doing it since they gained control of their eyeballs and realized that sometimes, as a mom, I’m winging it. Some days, I don’t even have a clue and feel like the poster child for “ParentingFails.”

I definitely don’t feel like I know how to get respect from a toddler.

I don’t get made though. They come by their champion eye-rolling skills naturally. I’ve been known to roll my own eyes quite frequently — an unfortunate habit leftover from my own teen years. But, being the recipient of a serious eye rolling while I’m talking to my children annoys the p*ss out of me. In my book, it’s as disrespectful as walking away when I’m talking to you. It’s the nonverbal expression of: “You’re so annoying. I’m not listening to you!”

READ ALSO: Toddler Selective Hearing Syndrome

I get that it’s the sort of rebellious behavior one might expect from their tween or teen but now, even preschoolers are doing it. I know this is just one of those awesome hormonally fueled ways that my daughters are trying to exert their independence and test my boundaries but I hate it. As a parent, I need to figure out a way to get respect without hurling insults or being intentionally hurtful. We need to be the change we want to see in the world — so, if I don’t want to get eyes rolled at me, I need to first and foremost stop rolling my eyes. To get respect, you have to give respect. Yes, even to toddler and teens and all ages in between.

Maybe your toddler or teen is just unhappy or frustrated and eye rolling is his or her way of expressing that. Maybe it’s not personal at all. Either way, if it’s bothering you, it’s worth being discussed. Don’t get sidetracked by the rudeness and don’t engage in the same behavior. I know it’s difficult to ignore being ignored.

Try these tips to help guide you in how to get respect from a toddler and how to get your teen to stop rolling their eyes at you.

Expect respect

If you accept rudeness, you’ll get it. Parents who refuse to tolerate rude behavior tend to have kids who aren’t rude. Decide what’s most important to you. Let the house rules be known, and then hold your child accountable.

Choose your battles

You can’t punish your tween every time your child misbehaves. If you try, you will spend all of your time frustrated and yelling. Soon, you will drive yourself crazy — and your child will just start tuning you out. Instead, decide what you’re willing to tolerate and what you’re willing to overlook.

Out of bounds

Warn your kids when they are nearing intolerable behavior. For example, I count to three in Spanish, and my daughters know when I get to one, they have crossed a line. This will let you warn them without embarrassing them. It’s a private mom-and-child code that leaves them with some dignity.

Don’t get down on their level

When my girls roll their eyes at me, my instant reaction is to roll mine back — but how is that helpful? It solves nothing, demonstrates just how immature I am and sets a bad example. So, no matter how hard it is, try to take the high road when disciplining your child. Remember, you are an adult — behave like one.

How do you get your child to stop talking back or rolling their eyes? What is your way to get respect from your teen?

2019/02/04 0 comments

cochlear, living with hearing loss, hearing loss, disabilities,mom myth, my kids perfect

Mommy Truisms

Mom Myth #1 Exposed

by Deborah Cruz 2012/10/02

written by Deborah Cruz

Mom Myth that we all want to Believe

Mom Myth #1 ~ My Kids are perfect. No they are not. None of our children are perfect. It is a mom myth.You know some bullshit that other mothers perpetuate so that we are not on to them and know that they are struggling with this mothering gig just as mush as the rest of us. They are. Just pay attention; if you look hard enough, there is spit up on her Kate Spade blouse ( why else do you think she is wearing that crazy print?), she may not be wearing yoga pants but look closely, there is spandex in them there jeans or they may even be designer maternity. Sure that loose falling pony is the sexy in thing, but hers was not on purpose the baby was pulling on it this morning and those stunna shades..OMG, that is the universal code for Mommy didn’t get any sleep last night. Of course, we all want to appear to have all of our Mommy shit together. That is why these mom myths exist at all. We think by pretending that our kids are perfect, that makes us perfect mothers. Logically, if they are winners, we are not losers. There is no such thing as a perfect mother and if there is, that bitch is riding a unicorn high as a kite in a tornado.

We need a support group to support one another, not a panel of Judgy McTired Mamas to point out all of our flaws while desperately trying to hide her own. Let’s call it the We’re not perfect, just human’s doing our best club. Who wants to be the newest member? I am the founder and president.

I’ll go first, My name is Debi and my kids are not perfect, that’s a mom myth and I rebuke it.

I am an official Mom Myth buster.

There is an invisible hump located somewhere between the ages of 5 and 7 and the divide is great. As many of you are aware, I have two wonderful little girls, Bella, who is 7 and Gabi, who is 5. They are wonderful, amazing and bright and all that other rainbows and sunshine shit that parents are supposed to say about their children but lately they are becoming increasingly more and more of a pain in my ass. I believe they are wonderful and beautiful because they are mine and I see all they do through Mommy goggles but I also get the privilege and the only right to know and call them out as being assholes on occasion.Yes, I said it, my kids are a pain in my ass.

I know that it’s not politically correct to say that and damn it, I still love them with all the fierceness of a mama bear in drag but it had to be said. They are not perfect, neither am I, they have an asshole streak in them the size of Texas and I just don’t have the patience I need to deal with it on some days. Yes, I am perfectly aware that assholery and asshatery are both genetic and they have probably inherited it from their father or myself, or probably from both. I blame the Big Guy.

This is what has happened. Bella,the 7 year-old, has decided to never tell a lie… to her sister….unless it suits her situation. To the rest of us at home, she has become a down right exaggerating guru. This kid is the Pecos Bill of our house. She doesn’t necessarily lie so much as stretch the truth. I do not like lies. I loathe them and despise liars. It’s a trust thing and if I can’t believe what you say, your word means nothing and that just doesn’t work for me. I can’t have kids who think lying is ok. It’s not. We are working on it. She’s getting better at differentiating between what is real and what is not. She’s on the path of the straight and narrow now, especially when it is most inconvenient.

All that being said, Bella is at the age of reason. Damn you reason. Her little sister is still in that wide-eyed, life is magical phase. Bella and her new found honesty has been a real buzz kill lately.You know those little white lies that we all tell our children, ” oh yes, honey, that is the most beautiful elephant mommy has ever seen drawn!” when what it really looks like is a Picasso and it’s anybody;s guess what it might truly be. It’s all eyeballs and assholes. Well, Bella will come in right behind me and say something like this, ” Ugghh, Gabs, I can’t really even tell what that is!” Sometimes the truth is a little mean and sometimes my kids are pains in the ass and all the time, I love them so damn much that I just don’t care. I don’t need to adhere to some mom myth, I just need to love my children unconditionally…. and pray that Bella figures out that sometimes you can be generous with the truth to spare people’s feelings but I can’t explain that to a 7-year-old.

Do you perpetuate the mom myth or do you simply do your best and not worry about what other people think of your parenting?

Mom Myth #1 Busted Wide Open

photo credit: ^riza^ via photopin cc

2012/10/02 3 comments

Parenting

Things I could have learned from my Id

by Deborah Cruz 2010/03/26

written by Deborah Cruz

Wow! There is nothing like our children to put the entire world into perspective. As I am running around like a chicken with my head chopped off, trying to find shoes and coats, finish the laundry (the never ending laundry), pay bills online, make phone calls /return phone calls, return emails and texts, make sure my kids are fed and clean and everywhere they are suppose to be on time and a laundry list of other daily chores (just like all the rest of you Mommies) it hits me, Stop! Take a breath! I am spending so much of my time lately trying to organize and plan life, that I am afraid that I am missing out on and not enjoying life. I find myself filling my days with things that I have to do and very little , if any, of what I want to do. This is making me uptight and grouchy, and defeating the purpose of all of the planning. After all, the planning is to maximize the quality of my daughters’ childhoods not to make them remember their childhoods as ” Remember how uptight and crazy Mom was?” What brought about this revelation, you ask? My brilliant little 2 year old. I ask in complete desperation, ” Gabs, please help Mommy clean up your room, honey.” Her response, “No Mommy! Me no want to!!!!”” Please?” “NO.ME NO WANT TO!!!!!!” (Basically, look woman I told you once..I don’t want to). Then it dawned on me..Me no want to either!! So, why not let the laundry wait a few hours and go have some fun with my girls. They are only this age now..NEVER again. I can’t rewind time like a video cassette. I’m hitting the reset button (oh yeah, once again. Apparently, in my life, it is a button I will be hitting quite frequently. Now, if I could only find that damn EASY button they keep talking about!)

This week we had an impromptu meeting downtown Chicago. Normally, I am in and out of downtown. The traffic frustrates me, the kids get bored and scream and cry; it really becomes an enormous headache.This time I said, hey we’re going to make it an adventure and have some effin fun. After our appointment, we cranked up the volume on the Yo Gabba Gabba CD, started cruising around downtown until we saw some place that we wanted to stop. To the bean we went! I’ve been wanting to hit Millennium park for some time now and an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is presented itself. The girls, me and my lovely “NManny” for the week ( my 19 year old brother, who my daughters absolutely adore & so do I , for him coming out to help me while Daddy is on business) explored all the facets of any art and design that the park had to offer. It was a spontaneous, lovely day in the park…which are always the best. Cheers to many more days of living life while smelling the lilacs versus only planting while multitasking 20 other things, and never truly having the opportunity to be happy or let those around you be happy. I need to start relinquishing some control and going with the flow, because the flow is where I live and no matter what I do…the flow is going to keep on flowing!

2010/03/26 0 comments