I can’t remember where I got this, but when things are tense between me and my husband we remind each other that “I’m not the enemy - the children/dog are.” It always makes us laugh and lightens the mood.
“This is temporary, this will pass” is what I find myself saying over and over when a child has grown into their latest irritating phase. Currently dealing with sleep training a 5.5 month old after having a great-sleeping 5 year old, so it’s getting repeated a lot right now.
One of my friends wrote that phrase, "This too shall pass," on a card for me over a decade ago at the baby shower for my first child. It's been my parenting mantra ever since! It helps me savor the easy and joyous moments while they last and reminds me that the hard parts are only temporary.
It took me a while as a parent to *fully* grasp "It's only a phase" and have it work for me, but it now helps. It feels ridiculous in hindsight but it's so easy to get stressed out about any behavior/challenge and thinking it's your new normal or that your child is going to be permanently lacking in some way instead of it being an annoying phase that will be gone soon.
I mean I am also in the field, but there are days where I get through by reminding myself that no one died, no one got seriously injured, so the day is a success.
Whenever my head starts to spin with what ifs — what if my son screams the whole flight, what if he doesn’t sleep, what if i didn’t pack enough snacks, what if he gets sick, on and on, i pause and say, “ok, but what if it’s easy?”
I also love and teach, “She/He is really being fill-in-the-blank age right now.” When I remember my kiddo is really just being 12 right now, it helps me realign my expectations.
I remember years ago, I threw open my husband’s office door, and shouted, “She’s really being 4 years old today!!!”
We do this too! Sometimes spouse and I just flash each other the kids' age with our hands - like, holding up four fingers for the 4yo. Just... yep, they're 4 alright. 😂
Love all of these! Mine is “more often than not”, a reminder of how much realistically I can expect to be the parent/partner/whatever I wish I was. If I’m being that person more often than not, I feel pretty good about that.
Haha the mantra story rings a bell! Could it have been for RS??
I have a new mantra that I've been saying to my kids, who are constantly picking on each other and starting fights and tattling. It's "We're all on the same team." I've been talking a lot to my younger one (the usual instigator) about how when you're on a team, like a family, you have to work together to make it a nice place to be — that it's ok to have feelings and express yourself, but it's not ok to be unkind and to try to provoke everyone else. It's very effective… some of the time. LOL.
Ooo I love this. My oldest is almost four, and just loves his little sister like 80% of the time. I want our kids to have a slightly less adversarial relationship than the one I have with my siblings, so I think that this phrase will really help!
My kids are grown, but I used to say, If it’s not a good time, it’s a good story. It diffused to tension and, let me tell you, we have lots of good stories.
Ha, I've used a similar one, especially on trips, to help relieve the pressure of having a "good trip": "It's either a good decision or a good story." As a scrapbooker, I value the good stories a lot, so it really helps!
I tell myself "I'm doing my best" because it reminds me that it's not always my fault, and that I'm an engaged and caring parent (and when I'm *not* actually doing my best, like when I've been busy with work or not paying attention, it helps me refocus and do what I can).
With an adolescent in the house, my husband and I remind each other: "Don't get on the roller coaster." It's his ride, not ours. We can watch from the ground, but we don't have to accompany him on all the ups and downs. It has saved our sanity a few times.
My mantra -- not just for parenting, but for life in general -- has, since probably 2020, been, "I am doing my best." I am doing my best to take care of my sick duck, I am doing my best to not yell, I am doing my best to keep all the plates spinning. It helps me let go of beating myself up over how I could be doing "better", by reminding myself that even if my best is woefully insufficient to the challenges in front of me, it's still my best! I can't do better than it, by definition.
Some days it feels like 50% of what I say is just "I am doing my best", over and over, but on those days, that's the best I can do. (I also have been humming a song recently, with the bombshell line, "Some days you do your best and some days you do what gets you out of bed.")
I wish I could share an image here. I have a photo above my work desk. During the pandemic when people were leaving so many decorated rocks with messages all over, I walked by one that read, "I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have" and I just need to read that daily.
"They aren't giving me a hard time, they are having a hard time" This has been the most helpful when we entered 3 years old with my oldest, and my incredibly fussy second born (turns out she had some serious birth trauma because of her birth). Reminding myself that these kids aren't being difficult or fussy AT me is really helpful. I'm sure as we go through other phases, that this will also be really helpful.
When I’m tempted to judge myself OR other parents: “everyone does the best they can with what they have.” (Obviously does not apply in some cases, but for the VERY most part this is true for all of us.) Sometimes I truly don’t have patience, or knowledge of the “best” that I could do, or infinite money or time to give my kids the most perfect experience. But I do the best I can do with what I have, know, and am.
I have a 10 month old, and my new mantra is that I go with the flow! 😅Every time I get worked up or worried about something lately, it’s over in a day, week, whatever and there’s something completely new- so I’m trying to lean into this mantra now to save myself some angst and wasted effort as we go thru phase after phase!
I can’t remember where I got this, but when things are tense between me and my husband we remind each other that “I’m not the enemy - the children/dog are.” It always makes us laugh and lightens the mood.
I use this as well! It really helps to refocus.
Lol!!!! This is great. Humor is SO helpful to break the tension.
“This is temporary, this will pass” is what I find myself saying over and over when a child has grown into their latest irritating phase. Currently dealing with sleep training a 5.5 month old after having a great-sleeping 5 year old, so it’s getting repeated a lot right now.
Oh gosh yes. In the moment it feels like it will be endless, but it does actually stop, thank goodness!
One of my friends wrote that phrase, "This too shall pass," on a card for me over a decade ago at the baby shower for my first child. It's been my parenting mantra ever since! It helps me savor the easy and joyous moments while they last and reminds me that the hard parts are only temporary.
It took me a while as a parent to *fully* grasp "It's only a phase" and have it work for me, but it now helps. It feels ridiculous in hindsight but it's so easy to get stressed out about any behavior/challenge and thinking it's your new normal or that your child is going to be permanently lacking in some way instead of it being an annoying phase that will be gone soon.
This may sound “sick” to you non-medical people, but when things got really stressful, I would say to myself “no one is coding, no one is dying.”
I mean I am also in the field, but there are days where I get through by reminding myself that no one died, no one got seriously injured, so the day is a success.
This is what my mother (a doctor) says! No one died? A good day!
Sounds sick, but oh so true as we try to put our parenting choices into perspective.
My husband, a surgeon, would often say "everyone is alive" at the end of the day when the kids were small.
So it is the doctors' mantra - having seen so many things that are so much worse than any usual parenting stress.
My aunt and uncle used this daily when their three kids were teenagers. It's always been an inspiration for me.
“What if it’s easy?”
Whenever my head starts to spin with what ifs — what if my son screams the whole flight, what if he doesn’t sleep, what if i didn’t pack enough snacks, what if he gets sick, on and on, i pause and say, “ok, but what if it’s easy?”
SUCH a good reframe!!
“This is not an emergency” is my primary one.
I also love and teach, “She/He is really being fill-in-the-blank age right now.” When I remember my kiddo is really just being 12 right now, it helps me realign my expectations.
I remember years ago, I threw open my husband’s office door, and shouted, “She’s really being 4 years old today!!!”
We do this too! Sometimes spouse and I just flash each other the kids' age with our hands - like, holding up four fingers for the 4yo. Just... yep, they're 4 alright. 😂
Love all of these! Mine is “more often than not”, a reminder of how much realistically I can expect to be the parent/partner/whatever I wish I was. If I’m being that person more often than not, I feel pretty good about that.
Haha the mantra story rings a bell! Could it have been for RS??
I have a new mantra that I've been saying to my kids, who are constantly picking on each other and starting fights and tattling. It's "We're all on the same team." I've been talking a lot to my younger one (the usual instigator) about how when you're on a team, like a family, you have to work together to make it a nice place to be — that it's ok to have feelings and express yourself, but it's not ok to be unkind and to try to provoke everyone else. It's very effective… some of the time. LOL.
Ooo I love this. My oldest is almost four, and just loves his little sister like 80% of the time. I want our kids to have a slightly less adversarial relationship than the one I have with my siblings, so I think that this phrase will really help!
My kids are grown, but I used to say, If it’s not a good time, it’s a good story. It diffused to tension and, let me tell you, we have lots of good stories.
Ha, I've used a similar one, especially on trips, to help relieve the pressure of having a "good trip": "It's either a good decision or a good story." As a scrapbooker, I value the good stories a lot, so it really helps!
I tell myself "I'm doing my best" because it reminds me that it's not always my fault, and that I'm an engaged and caring parent (and when I'm *not* actually doing my best, like when I've been busy with work or not paying attention, it helps me refocus and do what I can).
With an adolescent in the house, my husband and I remind each other: "Don't get on the roller coaster." It's his ride, not ours. We can watch from the ground, but we don't have to accompany him on all the ups and downs. It has saved our sanity a few times.
My mantra -- not just for parenting, but for life in general -- has, since probably 2020, been, "I am doing my best." I am doing my best to take care of my sick duck, I am doing my best to not yell, I am doing my best to keep all the plates spinning. It helps me let go of beating myself up over how I could be doing "better", by reminding myself that even if my best is woefully insufficient to the challenges in front of me, it's still my best! I can't do better than it, by definition.
Some days it feels like 50% of what I say is just "I am doing my best", over and over, but on those days, that's the best I can do. (I also have been humming a song recently, with the bombshell line, "Some days you do your best and some days you do what gets you out of bed.")
I wish I could share an image here. I have a photo above my work desk. During the pandemic when people were leaving so many decorated rocks with messages all over, I walked by one that read, "I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have" and I just need to read that daily.
What a great rock!
"They aren't giving me a hard time, they are having a hard time" This has been the most helpful when we entered 3 years old with my oldest, and my incredibly fussy second born (turns out she had some serious birth trauma because of her birth). Reminding myself that these kids aren't being difficult or fussy AT me is really helpful. I'm sure as we go through other phases, that this will also be really helpful.
This doesn't come up often enough to be an all-purpose mantra, but I learned "Don't try to make a happy kid happier" from Lucy Huber (see: https://tinybeans.com/why-you-should-fight-the-urge-to-make-a-happy-kid-happier/) and it's helped me relax about some of my FOMO and desire to optimize.
“Do I really want to die on this hill?” 😄 Puts things in perspective. (Also, hi, Melinda!)
When I’m tempted to judge myself OR other parents: “everyone does the best they can with what they have.” (Obviously does not apply in some cases, but for the VERY most part this is true for all of us.) Sometimes I truly don’t have patience, or knowledge of the “best” that I could do, or infinite money or time to give my kids the most perfect experience. But I do the best I can do with what I have, know, and am.
I have a 10 month old, and my new mantra is that I go with the flow! 😅Every time I get worked up or worried about something lately, it’s over in a day, week, whatever and there’s something completely new- so I’m trying to lean into this mantra now to save myself some angst and wasted effort as we go thru phase after phase!