I look at the sweet faces of my two kids and I can’t believe that they are mine.  They are my little blessings from God.   They are watching me and learning from me.  I teach them how to handle their feelings, their wants, and needs.   I show them what respect looks like and what forgiveness is.   They learn from me the beautiful things about grace.  My actions matter.

I have yelled at my kids for yelling at each other.  Or I have yelled at them for yelling at me.  This makes no sense.  But it happens.

When I yell at the kids they don’t seem to hear what I’m saying.  They keep on doing the same thing and they have learned nothing.

It breaks my heart at the end of the day when one of them tells me that I hurt their feelings when I yelled at them.  Or they will ask me if I’m still angry at them.  The stab in the heart for me is when they ask me if  I love them.

They have no idea why I yelled at them when I ask them.

Children learn by our actions.  My son and daughter sound like me when they are in conflict with each other.  Sometimes it sounds very respectful and other times it sounds very angry.

We have discussions about conflict management.  My words mean nothing if I don’t show them by example.

Following is a post from Ryan who gently reminds me to stay calm in the storm.  Ryan does a great job writing on this topic.  Please check out his post that is fully published over at Tanya’s blog – God’s Character.

Following is the introduction.

Enjoy

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Calm Amid the Chaos by Ryan

Sometimes you reach a point of frustration when your kids seem to push every button imaginable and you just want to explode in a flurry of unrestrained frustration to “let it all out!” But you know that that is wrong and you are caught at the crossroads of what to do. You react out of frustration. Then  moments later you feel horrible for your behavior.

Has that ever happened to you? It has happened to me too many times. To many times I have let myself get frustrated and upset because of situations.

How do I stay calm in a state like that?

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