What We Do To Our Kids

Today's theme is the title of this post "what we do to our kids" and I should add the word inadvertently to the end of that phrase. Johnnie is still coughing and spitting up phlegm every now and again. I know I showed him a breathing exercise last night but of course he is still not able to fully control his body. Heck not very many people do. I taught him that exercise hoping that he would learn to slow down and breathe and when he does, the coughing actually does stop. Of course more often than not he will give in to the urge to cough which is his body's attempt to get rid of the stuff inside. Combine that with other factors and then you have a disaster in the making. This morning, that was watching getting him to eat instead of watch videos (totally my fault) and when it was time to go and he was just halfway done with his plate, I practically made him wolf his food down. And so it should not have been a surprise that when we made it through the gate and towards his class line, he would cough so hard that he vomitted all over his mask. This after I pulled him to the side and practically yelled at him to stop coughing. yeah, that was effective alright. It only made his coughing worse. And I thought he was going to cry even. At the moment, my ego had simply taken over and gotten impatient and irritated. How does that make sense that I would get angry at Johnnie because he wouldn't stop coughing? In retrospect, I was the stupid one. I should have just held him and gotten him to slow down and breathe even slower. He was reaching for my hand the second he sensed I was angry. Instead I pushed him into coughing more which lead to him throwing up all over his mask. We were already in the school yard. What to do? I had him clean up in the kids bathroom and then we ran back to my car and I cleaned him up some more with the towels in the trunk. He had thrown up all over the front of his shirt but there was no time to go home and change now. He will just have to go to school as is. His teacher was just letting his class in when we got there and I just asked her to give him another mask. We talked about his persistent coughing and I thought Johnnie was going to cry. I did that. I am SO SORRY Johnnie. You're going to be ok. Hey, aren't I supposed to be the one that is learning how to heal with energy? Why have I not tried that harder? Isn't this a good learning opportunity about healing others? Instead I let ego take over. I went home feeling badly. I SHOULD. But I had no time to dwell on it. I had to go to the FRB today, first with a meeting about the new Alternative work week plan and then of course the meeting with Erica about Penelope. I put in a full day's work at the FRB, and stayed there for lunch (ate some pancit and pork Filipino style). On the drive home I thought about Johnnie and how I was going to make it up to him for acting so badly this morning. My opportunity would come later with Lisa. I picked him up early and we went to Lisa's office as per usual Wednesday. She was supposed to pick up Silvia and Cecille and Gayane at the airport but we had time to still do Spanish class at her office as usual and then go to dinner afterwards. Johnnie asked to go to Maria's and to my surprise, Lisa said it was ok. It was on our drive there that Lisa got a memory trigger about how her mom used the word LOSER with her. I am sure her mom did not intend that. But she used the word just the same and it stuck. Hence a week ago when Lisa was having another one of her meltdowns, she was yelling about how much of a LOSER she was, same way she would do when she's having a meltdown in front of me. She would use that word all the time. Now she is having an A-HA moment about where it came from. Ahh the things we do to our kids that we don't intend to just by using words. ANd for me this morning, using our actions. I told Johnnie later on that what I did was not right and that I was sorry. He acknowledged it. Hopefully it does NOT stick. Johnnie gets really emotional when either Lisa or I get in a bad, yelling mood. I should KNOW that. And I have to work on it and work on it and work on it. At least tonight he got dinner with his mom and dad and we ate at Maria's and we had a perfectly pleasant meal. If only Lisa didn't blow it by bugging me about making driving errors on the drive back to her car. She did manage to diffuse me because I think she realized that she hit a trigger on my part. Awareness is the key to everything. And the sincere desire to change for the better. We do inadvertent things with our kids, when instead, we simply need to make sure they know we love them more than anything. As I do Johnnie. As I'm sure Lisa does too. The work is reminding them of that too. Every time we can.