“I tell my son eight times to get off the couch…and then I lose it,” complains a mother who is frustrated at repeating herself to a child who apparently doesn’t listen to her.
I love a good mystery.
Let’s see. She tells him 8 times.
Now, unless she speaks eight languages, I am reasonably certain she said in English the same thing eight times.
Why?
Her explanation: he didn’t do it the first time.
Brain researchers say she has it all wrong.
See, now they know we have about 60, 000 thoughts a day, and of those, 95% are the same ones we had yesterday, and the day before, the week before, and even year before. It wouldn’t be a stretch to go back even further, to decades, for many of us.
Here’s the kicker. Of those 60,000 thoughts, a whopping 45, 000 are negative!
Now, back to Couch Boy and the Endless Loop.
She says it 8 times because she is thinking the same thing… again. However, she is feeling progressively resentful over the course of her escalating diatribe… again.
Any armchair psychologist can connect the dots here to see the repetitive dynamic in place between an apparently unresponsive child and his increasingly exasperated mother.
Is this a cartoon where the caption reads “Are we having fun yet?”
This is real life for millions of parents who are crouched in the foxhole, wondering how they got here, when they may be allowed to crawl out, and whether they deserve to.
As I ponder the foxhole, I think of my trip to Senegal fifteen years ago, where I shot an episode for a travel show. I was taken aback to discover there are no words for our common American greeting “How are you?”
Instead, they say, “Nanga def?” in Wolof, their native tongue.
Translation: Do you have peace?
Imagine us asking each other if we had peace?
Does the mom who asks her son eight times to get off the couch have peace? Does her son have it if he’s tuned her out? Do the scores of harried, hurried parents, ushering children to activities, offering bribes, ultimatums, and sugar-coated threats have peace? How about their children? We are on our cell phones when backing out of our driveways, enduring the water park, and shopping at the grocery store with kids in the cart whining for marshmallows.
We are over exhausted, of course. Too tired for peace, we say. To tired for joy.
Is it all a result of our external circumstances?
Remember those 45,000 negative thoughts we carry around every day like dead weight? Scientists and medical doctors can attest to the effects of negative thinking on our immune systems, recovery rates, and overall health. Dr. Robert Emmons, author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, divided patients into two groups. He asked one group to keep daily diaries and the other group to keep a gratitude journal for a period of several weeks. The grateful group recovered faster, showed boosted immune system health, and an increased sense of well-being.
The way I see it, our loop of repetitive, negative thoughts is our biggest drain.
What does this have to do with motherhood?
Everything!
If we want positive change on the outside, we need to spark a revolution within. Joy is an inside job. It builds connective tissue inside us so we can connect with our children. Joy is forgiving. It’s for…giving.
We can model joy to our children only if we have it. Trust me, we all have it. Somewhere deep down, under the years of cultural and family messages, we have that bottomless well of joy that has been closed for many long winters.
So, you say: “But my kids don’t listen to me!” Of course they don’t. You haven’t said anything different from the month before, remember?
People listen to us if we listen to ourselves first. If we ignore our own needs, so will our children. If we dismiss our own well-being, we teach them to do the same. If we tell them we are tired of repeating ourselves, and repeat ourselves anyway, they don’t believe us. They disrespect us only as much as we disrespect ourselves.
Freud said Repetition is the mother of invention.
Maybe we think repetition is the invention of mothers.
Here’s one for the road: Avoid vicious circles.
They just lead us back to the couch.
