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The corona also turned me off.

That's what it did to my kids

Chen Katz, a parenting expert, often publishes articles on education and family with us, but the last months of the corona have also affected her, providing her with a new perspective on her family and her maternal role.

Tags

• parenthood

• Children

• Corona

• depression

Chen Katz

Wednesday, 25 November 2020, 07:58

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Have you been there?

Frustrated mother and sad child (Photo: ShutterStock)

In recent weeks I have felt how the corona has overwhelmed me.

In the second closure I was required to be strong, survivable, to deal with everything, all the time.

But as soon as the kids got back into the frames I felt like I was slowly collapsing and starting to get mixed up inside myself.

There has been quite a bit of talk about depression in the past year.

On a significant increase in the consumption of ciprofloxacin, but this is not it.

It's not necessarily depression.

This is just a very difficult time.

A time when each of us was hurt in some way, lost something.

We lost culture, we lost opportunities, we lost close discourse and embrace, we lost freedom, balance, we lost certainty, trips, parties, we lost education, and in some moments we also lost ourselves.

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In those moments when I felt like I was starting to wither, I saw the kids start to wither with me.

Suddenly the evenings became more turbulent, the mornings became harder.

From children who listen, laugh, cooperate I have found three who try to test me, to see how I will react and if I will respond at all.

Very quickly despair began to seep in and with it the shouts, the threatening punishments.

This education I do not like.

This parenting that I promised myself a lot of times not to be in our house.

But there are moments she's there.

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For a while I was just there, trying to accept the situation and remember that they are used to a different, stronger, more tolerant mother who is able to be there for them.

And now I'm not that mom, I'm a little different.

They will not only remember this, they will remember me in so many situations and not just this year, I know that.

I also know to say that they are strong and adaptable and have each other, which is such an important thing.

And mostly they have themselves and everything I learned from them.

When I came back to myself, the family came back to itself

In recent days I have become stronger.

I met more friends, smiled more, practiced more, recovered.

It amazed me to see how this recovery led to a tremendous change in them as well.

How a pinch of my inner calm and patience leads to wonders in my children.

Tommy got up in the morning and stated that today he is doing all his chores fast so he has time to play.

In that second, Yahav jumped out of bed and organized in a second.

We have seen how excited they are by our reinforcements, by the good word.

Automatically help more at home and with their little brother.

That evening I made sure to get back to our regular routine.

I avoided letting things just flow and right after the shower I put out a new book.

We read it together, laughed and I felt how they felt differently, how they were looking for my attention.

But this time from a positive place and not from my tired place and their automatic response.

I explained to them that I would read to them until 20:30 and then go to bed.

Unlike recently, they cooperated and went to bed smiling.

We came back to ourselves.

It really did not require much, just a focused attitude and goodwill of both sides.

Our children are also a mirror.

Mother reads a story to her children (Photo: shutterstock)

These children of ours are a lesson for life, at any age.

They lower and lift, harden and strengthen and mostly require us to re-look inward every day and think about what kind of people we want to be, what kind of children we want to raise and what kind of relationship we want to teach.

They infinitely show us ourselves, and the more we try to deny it, the more it will hit us with stronger intensities.

Our kids need our best version

The corona hardens, shakes and sometimes defeats.

But it is also a tremendous lesson for us and our parenting.

Our children need us there for them to be strong.

They will be able to experience us in difficult places and understand us, but for certain periods, and then they will just look us in the white of the eyes and demand that we go back to being their parents, in the best version we can, because otherwise there will be chaos here.

My children are good and strong and understanding children.

They are just still kids and they need their mom there for them, otherwise they lose the way.

They need me less critical and aggressive, and softer and offers alternatives.

Less punishing and more trusting and teaching to take responsibility for actions.

Less shouting and more talking assertively and consistently.

It's sometimes easy to vent our frustration on them, but then they'll just carry it in our place in the world.

Instead of teaching them how to release anger and breathe.

They need me to take care of myself, of them from the world.

It's not their responsibility to relieve me or give up on me because I'm in a bad place, it's big on them yet.

They need me to take care of me and them so they can stay kids.

And we all mostly need the corona to finish, to be a little quiet.

This too will happen sometime.

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