Delayed Response

I don’t know what it is but I have this issue sometimes where my kids will misbehave and if I am distracted or in the middle of something I will let it go or ignore it and then it will creep back up on me and I will explode because I realize how bad it minutes, hours, or even days after-the-fact.

We had this happen recently. A neighbor-friend of mine stopped by to give me something. It was a pleasant surprise. I opened the door and we started chatting, as friends do. My kids took that opportunity to bolt out of the door and start running around outside, barefoot, after they had had baths, and of course without permission. I called them back in to the house a few times but was distracted by wanting to talk to my friend so I didn’t make the effort to go run after them and drag them back home. Finally after a few minutes of them running around, hollering, and ringing my neighbor’s doorbell, I ran after them and basically had to wrangle them back in to the house. I was annoyed more than anything because it was embarrassing to do that in front of my neighbor-friend (she has small children thankfully and seemed understanding, but still) and I had wanted to talk longer but I had to excuse myself to stop them from continuing to run around like wild animals. I got them in the house and gave them a quick scolding. A few minutes later it started brewing. Then when I told my husband about what had happened an hour later I got more heated and upset as I told the story and ended up really getting mad. My husband was upset too, and we ended up grounding the kids to their rooms for the rest of the afternoon. I have no idea if this really worked on the “discipline” end but it made me feel a little bit better. I realize if I had acted on the spot though the impact would’ve been greater. But sometimes in the moment I just don’t “feel it” until it marinates and then it hits me that I am upset and I want to address the kids’ behavior. Also, it may also be that there are only so many things that you can “discipline” in a given day. And if, relatively, it’s not that bad, I won’t choose to go all out about every single little thing.