Parenting

Parenting is exhausting! Most of the time I write about the "warm fuzzies" of parenting, but it has been one of those weeks, and honestly I don't have many "warm fuzzies" to talk about today. It's amazing to me how I can give advice to hundreds of families about how to raise their children, but for some reason none of the advice I give my families has worked for me this week. I have a 6 year old that is all attitude and doesn't do anything I ask her to do and when she has a consequence she screams and tantrums like a 2 year old. And then I have an almost 2 year old (enough said)!! I have never been a spanker. Time out has always worked on my kids (especially Morgan). This week, I have resorted to a couple swats on Ava's behind, and you know what friends......that didn't even work!!!! So for those of you who said you were spanked as a child and you minded your parents......well......it doesn't work :-) at least for my children. So...what now? Has it just been a bad week?? Is it going to get better? We have spent a lot of time yelling at each other and it is a waste of my time and their time. We are losing precious play time together over battles of not wanting to do eye exercises, leg exercises, cleaning up toys, changing diapers, etc and spending more time arguing about doing those things. It seems kind of silly to me. Are my expectations too high? Sometimes I wonder. I really think they are both testing that independence and wanting to do more for themselves and make their own decisions, but there needs to be some limits. I guess it goes to show you even the "experts" have struggles with parenting too......