Leave me alone

Two days ago, I had the most traumatic "time out" incident with Miriam to date.

It is very important to me to raise Miriam to be very aware of how her words and actions affect other people as well as how other people around her may be feeling. For not being quite two, she is very in tune with her own feelings and can identify them easily.

The other day, I was working on a craft project that I have been trying to finish, when Miriam woke up from her nap. Of course Mommy having all kinds of exciting things out on the table where little hands can reach was much too tempting for Miriam. I had her help me with a couple things and gave her some glittery flowers to play with, but that did not appease her. She continued to disobey me. I let each little disobedience slide, knowing that she was having a hard time understanding why she couldn't play with such exciting things. Nana took her over to her chair and sat her on her lap, flipping through photo albums to try and distract her. My mom called me over to look at a picture and as I got close, Miriam held out her hand and said, "No."

I looked at her and said, "Miriam, are you mad at Mommy?"
And she nodded and said, "I wanted more flowers."

I was shocked. Keep in mind that it had been nearly ten minutes since we had had a clash of wills at the craft table and yet she was still upset and was able to identify why. I was actually impressed with her intuitiveness.

Miriam then managed to convince Nana to go in the play room and play with her toys. They played for about 15 minutes and were giggling and having so much fun that I just had to peek in and look. This is where the tough parenting moment begins.......

Just as I peeked my head in and smiled at Miriam, she looked up at me with anger and held out her hand again. She said very clearly, "Leave me alone."

I

Could

Not

Believe

It.

While she has a right to be angry and frustrated and I have even said to her, "It's ok to be angry," I never want my child to hold a grudge and speak to others that way.

So, I asked her to repeat what she said and she did very slowly and with just as much anger as before. It wasn't a LOUD statement. In fact, she spoke it very quietly which tells me even she knew she was crossing a line.

I told her not to say that to Mommy, that it wasn't nice.

She looked down and then up again, raised her little hand at me and repeated it.

I was a little torn as to what to do. Like I said before, it wasn't the fact that she was angry that bothered me. It was the mean way in which she was showing it. We have had this issue before, but never when it affected someone else's feelings. Many times when she is angry, she hits the wall, bites herself or throws things. She has quite a temper. So, we have had many examples of deep breathing in an attempt to show her how better to deal with how angry she is. I know that sounds SOOOOO adult and ridiculous for a two year old, but seriously people......she is so in tune with her feelings and thoughts it continually amazes me. I figured I had better give her tools to deal with being angry rather than have her bite the finger off another kid at the playground.

So there I was....standing in complete and utter shock that my sweet girl had just vehemently told me to 'leave her alone.' But, as other parents know, you have but a split second to decide how you are going to handle it and then you think about later whether it was the right way. ha.

I had her stand up and walked her to her time out chair. I bent down to her level and told her that saying things like, "leave me alone" hurts people's feelings and it isn't nice to say.

I then spent the next two minutes in the kitchen fighting my own tears as my baby girl wailed at the top of her lungs. She had felt instant remorse. I knew she would. Her little tender heart is so affected when other people are hurt. Just the other day, we heard an ambulance and she asked what happened. I explained to her that someone was hurt and that we should always pray when we hear an ambulance. So, we prayed together and then the rest of the day she would randomly say to me, "Someone is hurt, Mommy! Someone is hurt! I'm gonna kiss their boo-boos. That's nice!"

I was really sad for Miriam because I knew how much fun she was having playing with Nana. I HATED to take that away from her. It HURT me to take that away from her.

And it really made me think. How often have I basically said, "Leave me alone!" to God simply because I was angry He didn't answer a prayer in the way I wanted or given me the thing I had asked Him for.

Afterwards, I went to Miriam and had some sweet moments of consoling as she apologized and told me she loved me. Then we went to the play room and played with her toys. She giggled loudly and was a little bit more clingy to me than usual. She definitely doesn't like hurting people's feelings.

I still don't know whether I handled that right or whether I would do anything different.

It was a tough lesson......for both of us.