“Look at what you just did! Why didn’t you wipe your feet first?? Now I have to clean the floors again! Pay attention to what you are doing!”

Umm…Was that me?

Now, I have always tried to be patient and calm with my children, but like the best of us, I get frustrated, impatient, and hurried. I once read a piece of advice to always speak to your children with respect, like you would want someone to speak to you. I have always kept this at heart, but I kept finding myself reaching a point of frustration and impatience that I didn’t know the source of.

Before going raw, I was so out of balance in my emotions and mental attitude that I felt like Jekyl and Hyde. Here was loving Mommy and wife, and without warning out came the gripe monster. After being on and off the raw path a little, I saw the return of the gripe monster every time we went back to SAD food habits. It brought on terrible mood swings, impatience, and irritation. It wasn’t me, but why was I doing those things?

My husband and I have also seen dramatic changes in our son, whose life outlook seemed to be ‘the cup is just plain empty’. Before raw, he was extremely quick tempered and once he got going, you couldn’t stop him. Besides sending him to his room in hopes that he wouldn’t destroy anything while his boiling rage returned to a slow simmer, there was absolutely no talk or discipline that would have any effect. Believe me, we tried!

Now that we follow a raw path, life is so good. Gone are the raging days of hysteria and the tirades of how everything and everyone are against him. If he does something wrong, or if the kids get in an argument…any typical kid thing, he is now able to control his emotions and doesn’t blow everything out of proportion. In short, he is calm and ‘disciplinable’ (if that is even a word!)

  In our home, we have a ‘Don’t be Ugly’ rule. Your words and tone of voice should match your heart. We want our children, and ourselves for that matter, to be beautiful at heart. When we start out being mean, rude, or griping, then that is ugliness. If the gripe monster within fights for attention, I calmly and quickly stop myself, apologize, and start over. This way, my kids see the honesty in me. After all, how can I hold them accountable for something I don’t do myself?

Speaking of accountability, this is it for me! If I ever struggled with raw and ‘fell off the wagon’ before, I can’t now. The devil on my shoulder tempting me to have ‘just one bite’ (yeah, right!) isn’t loud enough any more. The angel on my other shoulder reminding me that I am an example for the same standards I give my kids is my cheerleader. My children are in this with us and I know the benefits for all of us too well to ever go back!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 12:42 pm by Fiona and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.