Choices....

I really wanted to share something with you that I learnt on my WiggleBums training it has had a dramatic influence on my life this week.

So the story starts last week when my daughter stepped into her power and point blank refused to take a bath and wash her hair when I asked. We’d been camping she was all kinds of grubby and her hair was in one matted dreadlock at the back of her head! I thought, in my wisdom, that the best way to deal with this was to wash her hair and smother it with conditioner to remove the knots. She did not agree and let me know in no uncertain terms that she did not want to bath. I took a breath!  All my heckles were up and I could feel my anger building. We were in a hurry I didn’t have time for an argument. I asked her what she needed so she would be ready to take a bath. She said she was hungry. “Hoorah” I thought, and immediately scrambled down stairs found a cracker and some hummus and brought it back to her. Her response  of “I don’t want that!” sent me into orbit. Luckily my husband saw the escalation and stepped in so I could go to another room and breath deeply before she got it with both barrels.

I calmed down, she apologised and you would of thought that would have been the end of it. But no. Two or three days later she came into the office while I was working bringing me a wooden heart I’d made for her a couple of years earlier, that normally hung from her wardrobe door handle. I had written I love you on it.  She handed it to me and said “ You should have this back I don’t deserve it.” I looked confused. She carried on; “I was really rude to you the other day so I don’t get to have this any more.” It was at that point I realised how much of an effect our argument had had on her.

​She believed that her rudeness had stopped me loving her. I couldn’t believe it. In my adult mind the argument over bath time was nothing. A small blip in an otherwise pleasant day. To her it had removed my love and made her unworthy of it. This is where my training kicked in. I realised I needed to let her know in no uncertain terms that I loved her, every bit of her, even the bits that shouted at me and were grubby and had knots in their hair. I sat her down and tried to explain that just because I was cross it didn’t mean I didn’t love her I just wanted her to have a bath. I explained I loved EVERY bit of her and she responded with. You don’t love the bit that makes my room messy or the bit that got slime on the carpet or the bit that doesn’t like going to bed. She had a huge long list of bits I didn’t love. I felt heart broken that she felt like this. I needed her to see it from my point of view. So I tried again. How was I going to do this without agreeing she could have a messy bedroom and not wash her hair and stay up all night??? 
Then it came to me. Something I’d heard in my training. I do love all the bits of you I said. I just don’t always agree with the choices you make. We all make choices all the time and sometimes your choices and my choices are different but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. With that she seemed satisfied. Retrieved her heart and wondered off singing a greatest showman tune. Later that day she tested me again. As she lay on the floor and refused to get up to go and clean her teeth she asked; “what about this bit do you love this bit?’ I love you I replied just not digging the dirty teeth choice. She smiled got up and went and brushed her teeth. Hopefully I’ve redeemed myself a bit and helped her to understand me a bit better.

Love Tracy WiggleBums/Kids Monmouth x

http://www.wigglebums.uk/monmouth.html

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