I'm worried

Try counseling.

You are spending a lot of time at home and it you feel disappointed with yourself when you loose your cool. I think you could try monitoring when you angry and jot that down in a notebook. Instead of spanking your kids you could take a deep breath and slowly count in your head until you are calm. You could visualize being at a beach and your counting is every wave that is in your mind splashing over you. You are a perfectionist but your children are young and haven't learned as you a you yet. You could write a list of everything your children do that annoys you. Then you could have a reward chart, like your 6 year old has tidied her bedroom so she gets a gold star on her chart and your 3 year old had put her toys back in their box so she gets a gold star for her chart. When your children have three stars the get a treat like a trip to the park, a picnic outdoors or an afternoon of making something special from their craft box. Every so often you could take your children out for a day to celebrate and happy atmosphere in your home. Over the next year your house could become a more of a happy place everyday until it is perfect. Your children would be grateful and you could be really very happy indeed. Good luck.

It is good that you know that you have a problem. First you must understand that you are human and there is no human which is prefect. So stop using that word 'I am a prefectionist'. Now regarding to your children. You should remember that they are kids and will do childish thing and what you should do is prevent them from doing things that will hurt them. Children should always has their childhood. This is what keep alot of adult happy believe it. Now assess your situation. Is it that you used to work and now that you are at home everyday you are becoming annoyed. O.k. take a little time out for yourself. Let hubby know that you would like to breeze out. This don't have to be expensive. Do you have relatives who will look at the kids for you. So that you both can go some where just to be by yourself. Or you can ask hubby to stay with the kids like every other friday/sunday where you can just be by yourself. Even though I don't have any children I have always been around them and I know that they are taxing to the body but try and remember that what ever you doing around them negatively will affect them in their growing years. Merry Christmas and A Prosperous New Year Kerry

Try to work with your perfectionist way a little bit. Start to allow some imperfections in your everyday life. I suppose that everything is shipshape and your daily routine is as regular as clockwork. Of course this is not bad at all...but you have to be always standby and that may cause tension for you and weariness for the others. So try to relax and give your children the possibility to arrange a full day instead of you. You may be surprised to see that ,more or less, things still going your way and that you only have to do some small changes in order to make a huge improvement. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain:)

Vsraovsr, The first thing I want to say is thank you for being so honest about how you are feeling and how you are acting. It takes a lot of courage to admit things like that. The first thing I want to ask is...was your mother like this with you? Was she also a perfectionist that demanded you be perfect? People are not perfect. And little children need to explore, make messes, and be loud. They love their parents very much and usually without a good reason. But as your little children get older they are going to start to resent the way you treat them. I suggest talking to your husband about it more. Tell him you need help and change. You need to walk away from your children when they do something petty to upset you. Maybe, after you have calmed down you could speak to them about why you were upset about something. I hope you find the help you need. I also have a 3 and 6 year old so I know how trying things can be at times. But please please look at your children first before you get upset about something. Good Luck

First of all, try to not be as much of a perfectionist. I know it is hard because I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist too. If you will let go of some of the small things in life, you will be able to see more of the job around you. As for losing your cool, this happens to most people. You should try to develop some type of system that will calm you down. Try walking away from the situation and then coming back and talking to your kids about what went wrong. This should also cut down on your use of spanking and yelling at them. I will not question your discipline techniques, but I must say that science has found some very disturbing emotional effects on children who were spanked too much. I hope that I could help you out a bit and just remember to take a step back, take a breath and think about the situation before you act.

Remember three things: 1. Your kids are separate individuals, they are not your mirror reflections 2. Your kids are like soft clay…mould them to be strong adults and not parrots, always doing somebody’s else’s bidding. 3. Remember your own childhood. Being a perfectionist and expecting the same from your kids is the worse you can do to them. Discipline is something totally different, let them learn from their own mistakes. Be them to guide them but never rebuke them all the time.

Do something to remind you of your 'promise' whenever you're ticked. Like, count to ten before saying something. Perhaps drink a glass of cold water and keep the water in your mouth without gulping it in until your head cools down. Perhaps you could post posters around to remind you. Or teach your kids to say something when they feel you're getting angry. Do everything you can to change. Sometimes, moms just loose their cool. My mom used to be like that when we were younger. But the good thing about her is that she doesn't hit us. She just nags. So we'd just keep quiet and let her off her steam. Eventually, as we grew older, she lost her temper problems. Or perhaps, when you're cleaning, you tell your kids to stay in the room. So that they won't be in your way.

Hi vsraovsr, Nothing to worry dear this is a common problem and am also passing through the same situation sometime. But I am a working mother and have two kids by the age of 7 year and 19 months. I think you can also understand my situation, doing the office work, house hold chorus and studies of elder one, sometimes getting mad in between them. But do you know what I do, if I angry, normally it is on the elder one, after cooling down I call him and give him a hug and explain him why I did like that and requested him not do the same mistake again. But he will do the same in next time also(lol). I think we have to understand that they are kids and they can do some naughty things now only. We have to convert our attention to someo ther things when we feel angry. Let us try. All the best.

You really do need to lighten up. And I know it's a tough thing to do as I too am a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist is fine even though it drives those of us that are crazy sometimes. In your case it looks like it's hurting those that you love. It's very hard for those of us who have been perfectionists all of our lives to let that go even after we have children. Children just kind of crash through the world as they grow and learn and it's hard to incorporate them into our neat perfect little world. We think the jelly on the sandwich we just made them should stay on the bread and they have it all over their face and that drives us "NUTS". Kids have to be kids. Is it more important to discipline them for that or grab the camera and take a picture of a messy happy child. It's hard not to place the expectations we have on ourselves on those around us. But at least you recognize what you are doing and before it's too late. If you can't change your behavior (and SOON) then seek parenting help from a professional. There is nothing wrong with that. I would respect you as a parent if you did rather than if you just recognized your behavior and did nothing to change it. Just my opinion. Good luck and it can get better for you and your children.

Your worry is genuine. The fact that you are worried should be enough to explain your willingness to help yourself out of this situation. I think you have to put some questions to yourself. And the one that comes to my mind is "Do I have to play the role of a father who is away from house for long periods". It happened with me when I went out for work early morning when my very young son was sleeping and return home late when again he was sleeping. It was during vacation that we realised that both have to contribute and it makes a change in the siblings and mother both. I wonder if you could examine it from this perspective and make some adjustments and observe behavioural changes. Another angle to it is your being perfectionist. Try for a week and let the children do the way they want. Ignore small small things and don't interfere. I understand it may be difficult but try to force yourself for the sake of experimenting. I hope you will realise that it won't go that wrong in the absence of your perfectionist intervention. And was it worth it? The solution lies within. Best of luck.

Dear friend, it is very typical to us and i can understand how childern tease their mothers. But this time mother should be patient. Chiledren quarreling and teasing with each other upto 10 years of age. so, you have to be patient this time dont abuse them.tell everything slowly like how to manage their own works and how to receive when guests come to our home. slowly train them on how to receive guests and how to take care of one another. Also tell them small works like watering plants,how to maintain the dining table neatly.dont expect them to learn at the first go. Give them time to learn. after one month you find a little change in your childern. but remember this , dont unnecessarily dont abuse them and often dont say sorry for everything. behave sometimes like friend and sometimes like a teacher and sometimes purely a nice mother.control your feelings and emotions. o.k. have a nice family

Well the fact that you can recognize what you are doing means you are on the right path to fixing the problem. We all want to be perfect but there is no such thing. I am raising a 5 and 9 year old and things have been rough the last few years. It is hard trying to raise children, take care of the household, manage finances, deal with significant others and so forth. I think you are less likely to find parents who haven't lost it at some time or another. I know this is easier said than done but when you get frustrated or feel yourself getting frustrated try and say a prayer or just go in a room and scream to let it out. It sounds like you need to find a way to vent. More importantly you sound like you need some "you" time. As much as we love our children and spouses we need time for ourselves or we can lose ourselves just that easily. Have you considered counseling? An objective party who will not judge you may be able to help you in the healing process. Best of luck to you and your family.

vsr... you want meditation.. please go for it.. madhu, hyderabad