Mamas – let me tell you…..it has been a WEEK!
This last little bit in our household has involved a lot of transitions and quite a busy time for all of us. To top it off, my little guy had a two and a half hour doctors appointment this week. TWO AND A HALF HOURS!
Now, I am not great at waiting. To me, once you’re asking me to sit for two hours it may as well be asking me to sit for a year. If I can’t sit “nicely” for that long I had absolutely no expectations that my son would be able to.
So when inevitably AFTER AN HOUR (yes- there was a phone and peppa pig involved but the fact that my kiddo sat for an hour nearly blew my mind!!!) my guy got up and was ready to dance and run and sing I spent ZERO time apologizing to the other people in the waiting room, or the waiting room next door, or the waiting room down the hall and just got up to practice dinosaur steps and our dance moves together.
*Lesson learned: neither of us have any serious dance moves*
Here is the thing friends, if I had the expectation that he was going to sit I probably would have been
😡frustrated
😡stressed and
😡upset
when he insisted we get up and have some fun
And truth be told- that would have been on me for expecting something unreasonable, not on him for doing the exact thing I knew he was going to do. So when we had to get up, it was just fun!
Sometimes we (all of us!) set out slightly unreasonable expectations for our kids, whether we’re thinking about a two hour doctors appointments or how we want our kids mealtime to look.
Expecting kids to sit for 15 minutes for a meal? Reasonable. An hour- not so much.
Expecting kids to participate at mealtime? Reasonable. To finish their entire plate? Not so much.
So today, I challenge you to consider your expectations around mealtime. Instead of focusing on one thing you would love if your FAMILY would change at meal time, consider one expectation that isn’t serving YOU well, and addressing it.
Instead of expecting your kids to finish their vegetables, consider it a success if they put some on their plate.
Instead of getting upset when your child won’t try the salad ask him/her to serve everyone and make sure to say thank you when they load your plate!
As always I want to hear from your successes! Reply to ahuva@armyourselfdietetics.com with what one expectation you were able to reframe was and how it affected your mealtime!
From one Busy Mom to another,
Ahuva
