[Starchild3]

My 4 yr old had a fever and sore throat so I took her to the doctor. My kids being sick automatically triggers my anxiety. They had us wait over a half hour and my 19 month old was getting irritable and my 4 yr old was crying because she didn't feel well. My 4 yr old wouldn't cooperate with anything and I was getting frustrated. Then the nurse asked if I coud take her throat culture to the hospital. I lost it! I was not going to drag my poor children into the hospital to drop off a damn culture. She gave me a prescription already so what do I care about a culture. I spanked my 4 yr old when she wouldn't take her tylenol and just threw the medicine in the trash. The doctor could tell I was on the edge and asked me to take some deep breaths. I immediately just asked for my check out sheet and left. I was so enraged I had to get out of there. I told the receptionist to not give my 4yr old stickers because she acted so badly. I was getting stared at by everyone in the office. Now that I'm calmed down I wish I could have done things different. I'm so embarassed to go back. Luckily I have an appt with my Pdoc today. I need something to help my anxiety stat! Thanks for listening

[Ygrec23]

Kids can drive you nuts, Starchild. And doctors' offices aren't soothing havens of relaxation either. But I'm sure anyone in there with kids understood and sympathized, as well as the staff. I mean if you work in a pediatrician's office what do you see and hear all day? Don't take it out on yourself. You deserve better than that! With a 19-month old and a 4 year old you're a front-line mama working on battle fatigue! Take care of yourself. I know you'll take care of the kids!

[Open Eyes]

(((((Starchild3))))
Dont worry about not handling that situation perfectly and you had every reason to feel stressed, and the fact that the doctor noticed it was simply because he has most likely seen that before.

As far as your young children are concerned, well one didn't feel well and to be honest these children simply do not have the ability to maintain an attention span for much longer than 1/2 hour. Just keep in mind Star3 that you honestly didn't expect to have that long wait and after all lets face it children can get on ones nerves.

A lesson, always have an emergencey activity kit that offers different activities for the children to be able to change from one activity to the other. Your a young mother and you just have to learn how to be more prepared for these occassions. I made sure that I knew my daughters different interests and I did carry a big bag with me that contained certain activites that I would pick up here and there. I never let my daughter play with my stash so to speak until we were in a situation were I needed it. That occurance was one example but being in a car in a traffic jam is another. Even a trip to the grocery store has items were I could present my daughter with a simple fun activity while I could concentrate on shopping and standing in line.

Structure is the key with children, they love structure and they love to know there is always something to do when there is nothing to do. And as they grow up it imprints them to find ways to entertain themselves and not just sit and say, I have nothing to do and dont know, I am bored etc. Ofcourse in my stash I always had a new box of crayons and coloring books, I always had little books I could read and little candies for rewards. And some things can be bought at the grocery store or dollar stores or private visits to the toy stores when your children are not around.

And there are times when parents need to cook dinner and children need to be kept busy so keep activities for that too. Most of all you must understand that children truely have short attention spans and once they get bored they will begin to bug you and annoy you. It isn't just you, I can't even count the times I had to talk to parents and help them understand that children just don't have the capacity to be patient, we actually have to teach them that and provide things to help them get from one period to the next when they are ready to leave one activity and bound off to another. The brain of a young child is simply just forming the ability to learn and pay attention so it just doesn't have the capacity to be like your brain at all yet. Patience my friend, patience and learn to put in structure, will make life soooo much easier for you. Your not alone, all parents have to learn this.

Oh, and by the way, your reactions towards certain situations are imprints. If you get upset and angry, guess what, you just taught them that behavior, kind of tricky with these little ones.
So plan, lots of planning makes a big difference.
Open Eyes

[Open Eyes]

Starchild3,
When I was a young mother I had a lot challenges and many things to be anxious about. And one of the things that I did was develope a structure in my childs daily routine. I had a daily plan for her that started in the morning with quiet TV time then maybe an activity and then lunch and then a few activities in the afternoon then dinner then bath and ALWAYS TIME TO SIT AND READ WITH MY CHILD.

Every week I went to the library and took out several books to last me the week. I also had my own books and I also joined a book club for children and a new book came every month. And my daughter had her favorite book that we had to read every night and I will never forget it, "Panda Bear's Paintbox" and it was a little book about a panda bear that got paints for his birthday and he learned about colors and how mix them to make different colors and he painted a big picture with his paints.

But that was our time, where we cuddled and read new stories before bed and my daughter would relax and calm down for sleep. As time went on she would sit for more stories and what I was doing was building her attention span and more importantly her comprehension skills. And my daughter had dislexia and that reading made a big difference in not only her life but mine.

Now Starchild3 I can look back and realize that by my doing that structure and adding that part of the day where my daughter and I had that special reading time, it was relaxing me too. Because when we are stressed and we use the frontal part of or brains, it helps to really over ride the areas of the brain that present stress and we learn to just relax. And by the way you can structure that with your baby too. I started that cuddle time when my child was a baby and never stopped. And you can time it so that you put that baby to bed early while your older child watches a video and then it is her time. And all that time of structure and quiet time, you are also getting that benefit too.

I can't even begin to tell you how much that made a difference in my life because at that time my husband was always working and he was a binge alcoholic. So I had lots of reasons to be stressed but that structure helped not only my children but me as well. And I did that for years with my child and that night time became a time that she also was able to deal with stress on her own and took to reading herself and every now and then she would ask me to tuck her in and I would always know she had a little bit of troubles that she needed to share and I was close with her always.

In school her comprehension skills were always off the charts and though she had dislexia I could help her work around that because she had good comprehension skills and when we studied spelling and reading and other subjects, when it came time to memorize many things we memorized and learned by creating little stories around whatever we had to learn and remember, even spelling which she could not do.

My daughter is now 27 and still reads before bed or whenever she is stressed and she has no problem creating structure in her life, in fact she is excellent at training animals because she presents each animal with structure and they all learn her structures and they are all happy and well behaved animals. And my daughter does really well at work because she can structure her day and get things accomplished and at the same time lower her stress levels.

So I don't mean to write a novel here, but your a young mother and you have anxiety issues. So I know that if you can figure out how to achieve structure with your children, you will also greatly benefit yourself. The structure will have a base and the books will change but your whole family will be happy, and your life will be much better for you.

At first it will take time to establish and the time may not be very long. I often sang and acted out the stories too and as some of the books got to be longer, I found I loved reading childrens books and I have to say, I had my favorites too. And that time was our time and if my daughter had to have a baby sitter or be with my inlaws I was able to give them her structure and it always worked out well.

We don't have our children for as long as we think, the years go much quicker than we realize.
So that time that is aloted becomes a strong base for a closeness that can be so very precious in so many ways.

Open Eyes

[Starchild3]

Thank you!! My pdoc said similar things. In fact he helped me with that conversation more than my last 4 sessions with my tdoc. I am going to try really hard to follow these guidelines. I know it will be a work in progress to re-teach myself how to react and follow routines but I know it will be worth it

[Open Eyes]

Your welcome Starchild3, your just a young mother and you just need to find structure that works, it will come. Children are very challenging but you can do it and help yourself too. We are in tough times right now so there is stress, but you only go this way once try to enjoy it, these are your little wonders and you can figure this out. As I said that bag of emergency activities can truely be a life saver in so many ways.
Open Eyes

Hello, Starchild3. I shall keep you in my thoughts.

Have you hugged your four year old today?

[Starchild3]

Originally Posted by TheByzantine

Hello, Starchild3. I shall keep you in my thoughts.

Have you hugged your four year old today?

I have and everyone is doing much better. She got lots of snuggles last night. My pediatrician called me last night to see how she and I were doing. I apologized and she said I was fine, and that it was a very stressful situation. Made me feel a little better.