Are Your Children Acting Crazy? Read this

I’m on the phone and she’s wrapping the kitchen floor mat around her body.

I walk into another room and she whines and screeches. She’s following me everywhere, whining all the way. She just wants me to stop and pay attention to her.

He is jumping on the couch and then exasperating his sister. He is banging the chair back and forth, and making all kinds of noise, and I’m about to go crazy and he’s pushing all my buttons.

He just needs me.

And than there is the oldest girl, the one who just looks at me with sad eyes that say, “I just need you.”

My babies, they need their mama.

And your babies, they need you.

Sometimes our children will act crazy to get our attention. They will disobey, they will push our buttons, they will test boundaries. They don’t need more discipline or harsh looks or “stop it!” from us. No, they need just us. They need us to put them before the phone conversation, the cleaning, the reading, the whatever. They just need us to smile, to bend down and hug, to laugh with, spend time with, and to just plain pay attention to them. Sometimes they just need us to say to our friend or important person on the phone, “I’m sorry, can I call you back, my children need me now.”

Our children, just like us, want to be known. They want to be respected. They want to know they matter more than anyone else, because they are ours.

If your babies are driving you crazy today, consider giving them more of you. Give them your full attention. Give them your arms to lean into. Give them your eyes and your smile. Make them feel like the most important people in the world.

Because they are, in this moment, they are.

Love, SM