Daily Excerpt: I Love My Kids, But I Don't Always Like Them (Bagdade) - Expectations in the Bagdade Family
excerpt from I Love My Kids, But I Don't Always Like Them by Franki Bagdade
Expectations in the Bagdade Family
My kids need sleep! All kids do, of course, but mine take it to the next level. This was awesome when they were little because most evenings, after they were all tucked in, I could enjoy alone time with my husband. I might be going out on a limb here, but I think he’ll agree. (Or completely ignore my husband and watch the newest romantic comedy alone!)
Now, our oldest still needs more sleep than the younger two. She could probably win an Olympic sleeping competition. This proficiency made her the world’s best baby! It’s become a little trickier as she gets older and wants to stay out late and have a social life. It’s especially tricky when she wants to stay up extra late to watch Vampire Diaries because that usually means that the next day (and maybe the one after that, too) we all have to deal with her dedicated crankiness or moodiness or whichever -ness you want to call it.
In the spirit of full disclosure, let me tell you something right here and now. If you think that whining and meltdowns will end by the time your child becomes a teenager, then I have news for you—and a teen to lend you for the weekend! Adolescence, which is a polite way to put it, is a challenge to any parent’s sanity.
Of course, life happens, and we want our “maturing” children to be able to experience special occasions, such as trips, live theater, family celebrations and extra movie nights, just to name a few from the demand list. Some kids are super flexible in this regard and that is completely normal and most welcome. However, mine are not, and this is also completely normal, and not most welcome. To explain, my kids just don’t have fun after a certain time.
I know better than to expect age-appropriate behavior from my seven-year-old after nine p.m. If I did, this would be setting myself up for real disappointment, not to mention a headache, and whoever is with us at any given time—grandparents, friends or strangers looking on in horror—will be subjected to behavior that, let’s just say, they’d rather not witness.
Sometimes, the novelty of an exciting activity will stretch him a little longer into the evening, and when this happens, some extra sugar doesn’t hurt. (How old do they have to be before having a Coke? Asking for a friend.)
On any given night, he may regress and become a cranky preschooler as we hit his “being awake too long wall” and that’s okay. It’s up to me, as the expert on my little guy, to expect this, to plan accordingly, and sometimes say no to late activities. (Yes, you can say no!)
When he’s lying on the floor with his eyes closed at 9:15 p.m., smack in the middle of my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah party (true story), and family members are wandering by, wondering why I’m not “fixing” this problem, it’s really my fault for having him awake this late. He’s not misbehaving! It’s not his fault at all. So, he cannot be blamed at all either.
Realistic expectations on my part should have prepared me for this exact moment, and I must be confident in the fact that it’s natural and following his usual pattern and it’s now my problem and not his. Believe me, I will pay the price for the next two or three days, as my normally happy-go-lucky seven-year-old acts more like the world’s whiniest three-year-old.
This is not a behavioral issue that needs “fixing.” No bribe, behavior chart or clear expectations will likely change his behavior. In this case, I’m the one who must “right size” my expectations and share the burden of doing whatever is needed to help him restore his normal equilibrium. This doesn’t mean that we never keep our little guy out past his bedtime; we just pick and choose what situations will not compromise our exceptions in the wrong way, which means that sometimes when we may leave him home with a babysitter.
My middle child, however, has boundless energy, and since she was nine, she has been handling an 8:30 p.m. end-time for her midweek dance classes. In fact, she sleeps much better on dance nights! My oldest child hates running errands. To her, going to the grocery store represents a special type of medieval torture, comparable to a despicable, impossible world with no iPhones or TikTok. No! Not that, please!
Considering her limited capacity to shop for food, I pick my battles. She’s now old enough to stay home alone, and I will go out of my way to drop her off at home when time allows.
When she was little, this conundrum meant less errand productivity during the week for me and more on the weekend, when my husband was home. It also meant that I was never going to be the mom who shopped at three grocery stores, determined to find the perfect watermelon, and I was going to have to adapt to finding everything as best as I could in one short stop, standing in one (hopefully) short line, similar to my favorite game show of the 90’s, called “Super Market Sweep.”
This is way more pleasant for both of us. We may not end up with every cereal and snack on the shopping list, but we manage. Of course, sometimes time doesn’t allow for the luxury of her languishing at home while I do all the heavy lifting, and it becomes her turn to be flexible.
In that case, it is appropriate to ask a 12-year-old to come along, but for my daughter this is only realistic some of the time. On those occasions, I prepare her for the disappointment, pretend I am wearing earplugs and ignore her grumbling. I don’t expect her to turn into a combat soldier and become irrationally obedient. “Yes ma’am” is not an expected response—ever.
I often steal language from Jim Fay, the famous creator of the brilliant Love and Logic™ and try my luck with his approach. “Did I give you a choice yesterday about leaving the house? Did you get a choice at breakfast and again at lunch? Do you notice how many choices I’ve given you? You do? Great! Now it’s my turn to make a choice, and I choose to stop at the grocery store. Thank you for cooperating!” Once again, realistic expectations set us up for way less disappointment and kept our parenting portfolio from blowing up!
If you happen to have a teen or tween, I don’t recommend looking in the rearview mirror to catch the eye rolling after a Jim Fay decree like this one. Some of you might be thinking that the world doesn’t work this way, that kids have to get used to sucking it up, like adults do.
Well, first of all, they are not adults. Let’s pause right here and digest that as a fact. Calling a 15-year-old a young man or a young woman does not mean they are an adult! The ‘man’ and ‘woman’ part is also misleading and can definitely screw up our expectations, not to mention your kids, who usually want to grow up at the speed of sound, which might explain why they can be so noisy.
Teens and tweens should enjoy some extra flexibility until they are actually capable of making rational and reasonable decisions. Remember right sizing your expectations? This is absolutely necessary and can save your entire family a lot of grief … and ibuprofen … and other unmentionable treatments for advanced exasperation.
I expect some whining when I take my teen to the store with me, but not as much as when I bring my husband along (we are still working on this, but that’s another book.) Full disclosure: I actually hate grocery shopping!
So, you know what I do? I pay $120 a year to Instacart and now I have most of my groceries delivered. Does that mean that I never learned “to just suck it up?” Nope! I still do what’s necessary to have ample groceries in our house. At the same time, I accommodate myself and my own needs. (Imagine that? My own needs!) Along the way, I right sized the expectations I had put on myself! I still do plenty of daily tasks that I don’t enjoy at all but are considered essential. It’s just that grocery shopping (in person) surely isn’t one of them.
Book Description
I Love My Kids, But I Don't Always Like Them is the ultimate survival guide for parents living through one of the strangest times in history. This " how to guide" will support you even if you are exhausted and burnt out in improving your child(ren)'s behavior. Written by an expert with 20 years of experience in behavioral observation in the classroom, in overnight camp, and more. Franki's storyteller cadence helps the book to read as if it's a casual conversation and pep talk between two parents over coffee. Franki is raw, authentic, and honest about her own "mom fails" and what she has learned in her own little lab school, as she raises her three children.
Franki is a parenting expert in her own right with a Masters in Special Education and most of a Masters in Clinical Social Work (pandemic purchase!) at the time she wrote this book. However, you will hear no judgement in this author's advice as she lays out methods to help parents with all types of struggles from anxiety, ADHD and sensory difficulties, to raising siblings with competing needs, to learning when to let go and when to reach out to a professional.
Keywords: parenting book, parenting tips, child behavior help, ADHD parenting, parenting struggles, parenting burnout, child discipline strategies, sibling rivalry solutions, positive parenting, raising kids with ADHD, managing child anxiety, sensory difficulties in children, behavior management for parents, special needs parenting, gentle parenting strategies, parenting expert advice, raising independent kids
Franki's book was selected as IAN Book of the Year
For more posts about Franki and her book, click HERE.
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