As I have learned over the last year or so, that means lots of complaining... It's too hot outside. It's too cold outside. Homework takes FOREVER. I have NOTHING TO WEAR. All my friends have phones...
I could go on and on, but I bet you get the gist.
Due to the high volume of complaints that are in circulation throughout my house, we have been talking a lot about why complaining isn't good. About how it can make you negative, only focusing on what you don't like. About how, in turn, you only see the bad in the world and it can lead to a very negative outlook on life.
Recently, in an effort to try and combat the onslaught of complaints, hubs and I sat down to discuss ideas on how to battle. There were lots of ideas but all seemed shitty.
- battle fire with fire (complaints get responded to with complaints)...we decided this would form a vicious cycle.
- ignore any complaining that found it's way out of the tweens mouth...well, sometimes she has a right to complain.
- make her list three positive things every time we caught her complaining...well, I guess I'm just not Mary Poppins because thought of this made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
Only one idea seemed reasonable enough to try:
- give her complaint cards. The idea here being that she starts the day with a certain number of complaint cards. She can use them however she sees fit, but when she's out...she's out. Hopefully this would make her think twice about complaining. Is this complaint really worth it...
I'm sure you get the idea.
At first this seemed like a great tactic to try. Although I wasn't sure what would happen when she ran out of cards and continued to complain, my hope was that at least it would make her more aware. But the more I started to think, the more I started to worry.
We all complain, right? Some complaints are totally valid. I'm often a sounding board for my hubs when he gets home from work, and he does the same for me. What is that other than complaining? What about all the times I groan from the fridge, "Hey, who put the milk carton back empty?".
The more I thought about it the more I realized how complaining is part of my normal, day to day, life. I complain when I can't find something I am excited to wear, when plans I make fall through, or when I have to do dishes (or laundry) for what seems like the zillionth time that day. I have been known to complain when someone ate the last apple, or used the last roll of paper towels and didn't let me know. I complain about the cold, and sometimes the heat. In fact, I just complained (albeit only in my head) about getting interrupted for about the 20th time while writing this blog post. The list is endless. I could summarize it by saying this: I realized that I have been known to complain when I breathe.
So after a bit of self-realization that my daughter may in fact be following in my footsteps I started to wonder what it would be like if someone gave me five complaint cards for the day and told me that was all I got.
I doubt it would be pretty (and I'm pretty sure there would be complaining from yours truly).
In the end, we decided to nix the complaint cards idea - I mean if mom can't get her shit under control, I can't very well expect tween to. We had (yet another) good long talk about what it means to complain, and how some things are worth complaining about while other aren't...at all. Things seem to have gotten better (for now), but I'm sure we will cross this bridge again.
It turns out that focusing on the positive and not letting complaining get out of control is probably something that we all need to work on. Because, we really are SO lucky.
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