106. "What Do You Think Mommy Should Do?" Choosing To Teach When You Feel Like Reacting

Welcome to the momset podcast, my friend. I'm your coach, Tessa Romero, and as a woman of God, an adoring wife, and a mother of three darling boys, I am passionate about giving you the tools you need to build a mindset skill set that enriches your experience through motherhood and daily life. I've had my fair share of challenges and hardship throughout my life, and that is exactly how I came to this place of finding purpose to my pain and helping you do the same. I know we can thrive right where we are at, and it's time for us to take back motherhood by being the mommy that we want to be right right now. Thank you for being here and making this a wonderful place for me to show up alongside you. Oh, friends, here goes motherhood, yet again. Showing off in my life and giving me yet another opportunity to see the bigger picture of this work and how powerful it is. And giving me, again, another generous opportunity to share a story with you where it's like, wow, I can see so clearly where mindsets come into play and the enormous benefits that come from the work that you choose to do on yourself. And I, gosh, I'm just so grateful for this, so I'm gonna jump right in. This episode is truly all about the understanding of being able to model what we really want our kids to do, ask better questions, and then be able to use that one moment, that one time that we handled a hard moment really well as an ongoing lesson that we can pull on. So I want you to just feel really hopeful and really inspired starting out this episode to understand that I am not asking you by any stretch of the imagination to handle every hard moment really, really well. That's not what it's about. I know that we're all gonna be faced with some of those unexpected, just completely left field moments, or, you know, there's just so many circumstances seemingly stacked against us that we lost focus from for a minute. We lost that source, that sense of regulation where we could think bigger and handle things in a way that we feel proud of. And you know what? You're human and you're doing an incredible job, and I just want you to feel so hopeful that, you know, using this story that I'm about to share with you, and maybe you take some. You have some takeaways from this that you're like, oh, man, I could try that next time. Yes. Get hopeful, get inspired and. And know that for every one moment you handle really well, you're also equipping yourself with a lesson you can Continuously teach from that one hard moment instead of feeling like everything, and every time, you have to start all over again. That's not true. So let's dive into the story. I was in my backyard watering my grass, and my two older boys were playing with water balloons. And Drew's down for his nap, and all is well. And as I'm watering the grass and my boys are playing with water balloons, my oldest makes a choice that I was honestly just feeling, like, so frustrated, Just so freaking frustrated. My mind was racing with the thoughts of, why on earth would you do that? Is that seriously what you just decided to do? Here I am setting up this fun time for you guys to play outside together, and you chose to do that to your brother, of all things. Like, that's. That's where we're gonna go right now. And then my little guy in this situation is crying and very, very upset at what my oldest chose to do. And, you know, I'm just feeling that frustration, and I'm having all those negative thoughts flood into my mind while I'm watering my grass. And I just want you to take notice of those negative thoughts. Like, if you can do anything right after this, after this episode that you're listening to, challenge yourself to really just pay attention to what the thoughts are saying, what they're saying, because here's my mind saying all of those things, and then looking at Luke and saying, oh, I. I just cannot believe that he did that to you. And my mind is going to this place, and it seems so out of control and so wild. And then if that weren't enough, like, all those negative thoughts, all of that perspective flooding in, of, how could you? Why would you. Is that really where we're going right now? All of that's flooding in. Then my mind takes it up a notch, and it's like, you know what we should do? Soak him with the hose. Soak my oldest with the hose. That'll teach him not to do that to his little brother. That will teach him to make better choices. That will show him how it feels when someone chooses to do that to you. Now you know what it feels like. And I know that those thoughts coming into my mind are based so deeply in my own lived experiences. Because that's what your mind does when it's gonna go make, predict. It's not just gonna pull something out of thin air. It's using your lived experiences. And goodness, did I grow up in a home of. I'll give you something to cry about. That will teach you a lesson. Like that was totally my learning experience. And it's something that I. I am consciously trying to teach myself how to do something different. And it's a big reason why what I do matters so much. And I hold myself to such high standards because. Because I not only want something different for my kids, I want something different for me too. And yes, I'm grateful that I can provide something different to my kids. And every time I do, it's healing to me too. Of like, oh, yeah, that feels better. And good job, Tess. Like, I love that new way and I love that pursuit of things. So, yes, this is something that matters a whole lot to me. And even when my mind floods in with all that negativity of, how could you? Why would you? I can't believe you. And my mind comes up with the. With the idea to soak him with the hose. That'll teach him. It'll show him what it feels like. He needs to be taught a lesson. He deserves that. After what he did, justifying something that would be really unkind to do. And given the age of my son, he would likely remember. I have very vivid memories around that age of some of those forms of punishment that I was given. And somehow, some way in the capacity of our minds, I was aware of that too. Like, and it just felt so merciful. And honestly, just like this sacred moment where I had a little bit more awareness than just the negativity, where, yes, I could acknowledge these and the negative thoughts and recognize I really just so badly want to soak them with the hose. I mean, seriously, it must have been, like, stamped all over my face. I'm going to soak you with the hose. Because my oldest did not want to come near me. And I never said, like, come here so I can soak you with those. I never said anything about spraying with the hose. He just saw me and didn't want to come close to me. So clearly my emotions were fairytelling on my face. And meanwhile, I'm trying to, like, get all this sorted in my head because I have this other merciful perspective that's saying, what's the impact going to be on him? And, wow, this sounds a lot like what I went through as a kid, too. And I swear to you, I just latched on to this one thought, this one thought after I had the thoughts that said, soak him with the hose. That'll teach him. He needs to learn a lesson. After I had those thoughts, I had this one thought creep in, and it just said, you can do better than that. And my Gosh, if that. The best way to describe that thought for me in that moment was accountability. Just this insight, this different perspective, that was just enough. It wasn't as detailed as all the negative stuff. I had no idea what I was gonna do that's better than that. I just knew I can do better than that. I really can. I can do better than that. And I didn't know what I was gonna do. Friends, how. How many times you. In motherhood, you're in that hard moment, and you're just like, I want to do something better than this urge. And how my arm literally feels like it's out of my control right now, and it's going to spray you with the hose regardless. Like, my whole body is about to kick in and soak you down, kiddo. And I want to do something better than that. And I don't know what it is. That's the position I found myself in. So I understood I can do better than that. And I liked that thought, so I held onto that, and I repeated it to myself. I can do better than that. I can do better than that. Okay. Yeah, I can do better than that. And I'm telling my oldest, come here, come here, come here. And he doesn't want to come near me. Obviously, my emotions are very telling on my face. Like, mom is clearly not pleased with the choice that I just made. My younger brother is scared, screaming, this is not a good setup for me. And, you know, my mom's holding this hose. And given what I just did, it would make sense that I would get soaked right now, is likely what my oldest was thinking. And I repeated myself several times. Come here. And he said, no, no. And he, like, runs further away from me in our backyard, and our backyard is just a wonderful size for us. Not huge by any means. And he's running further away from me, and he goes, no, you're gonna spray me with the hose. You're gonna soak me with the hose. And I didn't say, no, I'm not. Because, honestly, I would've loved to just hold his arm and soak him with the hose. Like, in my mind, that was the vision. That was. That was the clearest picture I had in my head at that moment, was, get him to come over to you, grab his arm, soak him with the hose. And I knew I wanted to do better than that. And it just felt so hard. So hard to even come up with what the heck would be better than that right now? Because that seems real nice to do. Like, that just seems like I'm gonna get some type of relief. I'm gonna get some type of just satisfaction within myself. And it was such like a. It was like a tug of war inside of me. And I keep the hose on the grass, and I'm watering the grass. And as he's saying, no, you're gonna spray me with the hose, it's like it kept dousing me with that perspective of how I felt as a kid. And it kept grounding me deeper into that idea of, I can do better than that, I can do better than that. I can do better than that, even if I didn't know what I was gonna do. So he finally trusts me enough to come on over and trust me to just let me try. He trusts me enough to say, all right, I'll let you try. I think you're going to soak me with hose. I clearly don't want to be next to you right now, and you don't look very pleasant to be around, and I'm going to trust you anyway. And just capturing little moments like that really helped to soften me enough to ask him a better question. So he comes over finally, and I still feel very angry. I still feel very upset. And he's standing in front of me, and I'm still watering the grass, and still the vision is in my mind. You know, you could just grab his arm right now and soak him down with the hose and show him what it feels like. And that vision's there, meaning I can see the picture of doing that. And I wanted to do something better, and I didn't know what that was, so I just asked him, what do you think Mommy should do right now? And my son will be six in a couple months or in a month, so he's almost six. And I asked my six year old after he just made a really bad choice, and I felt clearly so upset that he didn't even want to come near me. And I asked him, what do you think Mommy should do right now? And he said, spray me with the hose. And in that moment, I realized something that changed the entire experience for me. And it changed. I mean, it's like my whole body turned into a puddle. Like, I stayed in the hard moment long enough as who I want to be. And I navigated those feelings and I showed up through those thoughts, and I chose to do something better. Even if it wasn't like an action really, like the something better was just waiting it out a little bit longer until I could come up with something to do. I stayed in that Long enough that I got the reward at the end. And the reward for me was hearing my 6 year old tell me, you should spray me with the hose right now. Like, he knows, yeah, you should do that. And he's thinking that I should do that. And to me it was like, wow, I could be so justified in doing something so unkind right now and doing something. And I'm, I'm just thinking these things. I could be so justified in doing something unkind, doing something that I would think about later on today and feel extremely guilty about and just like, justify it and say, like, well, he even told me that I should do it. Clearly, I should do it. He even said I should. And it was in that moment that I realized I wanted to do something unkind and just so reactive. I wanted to react to the emotions that I felt instead of really navigate through them and get down to the perspective that was behind all of them and come up with an intentional response that aligns with who I want to be and get to that bigger perspective and meaning of the moment. What I wanted to do was react to my emotions. And that's exactly what my son did. The way he treated his little brother was reacting on his emotions and his mind first. Before he did that mean thing, his mind told him to do it. His mind said, you should do this to your little brother. That'll teach him. That'll show him, that will teach him a lesson and give him what he deserves. And you're justified in doing this. Gosh, my son had all the same thoughts that I was having that could have led me to soaking in with the hose. And even as an outsider's perspective, I mean, could have justified doing that where he can even see, what should mommy do right now? You should soak me with the hose. And what's so cool about handling this one hard moment really well is the lesson that came out of it is something that I could use over and over and over and over again. I don't need, like, to learn 25 new things. I can just keep teaching that 25 different times. And when I realized, okay, he just told me I should soak him with the hose. And when he said that to me, I just softened because it's like, wow, you know that? Like, you see that too. And if I choose to do that, then all I'm teaching you, all I'm modeling and affirming right now is that it's okay to act on your emotions. It's okay to do that even if it means doing something unkind to Somebody else, even if it means doing something you're going to feel guilty about later, it's okay, because that emotion was really strong. And I just, gosh dang it, I want better for myself. I want better for my kids. And instead of doing that, I, I, I didn't soak him with the hose, and I decided to teach a lesson about mercy instead, and to understand that mercy is being able to give something, something kind, something true, something just that maybe isn't deserved. Like, you still give forgiveness even when maybe it's not deserved, and you give generously even when maybe it's not deserved in some perspectives. And I gave Liam mercy in that moment, and I wanted him to learn what mercy is. And it's to give someone something even when it may appear that they don't deserve it. You give them the benefit of the doubt. You give them your time, you give them your resources. You give them your energy. You give them your attention. You give them your kindness. You give them your respect. You give them, you give them the best of you, even when it seems like they don't deserve it. And that's what I decided to teach him in that moment of, Even when you think I should soak you with the hose, I am not going to do that. And my mind right now is telling me to do mean things. My mind is telling me to soak you with the hose. That's what my brain is saying. And I have these feelings and I feel so upset. And I'm still choosing to keep the water in the grass. I'm still choosing to talk to you in a way that mommy loves to talk to you. And being able to teach him that lesson, it's like, look, I get those thoughts too. And as mothers, I mean, I hear that all the time on social media, all the time from my clients. These unkindness, untrue, mean thoughts that we have that tell us to do mean things that we're not proud of and we don't want to do. It just seems like, oh, that's going to feel really rewarding in the moment. So maybe I'm going to do that. And gosh dang it, does my arm just want to lift up and soak him with the freaking hose? Yeah, all of that can be true. And we still choose to do something different. So when I did that, it wasn't about finding the appropriate punishment and the appropriate cause consequence for what my, what my oldest decided to do instead of getting so, so tied up in punishments and consequences. And how am I going to teach him A lesson on, like, how's he going to know this isn't right to do? Instead of getting so caught up there, I just focused on where I was at and how can I use his hard moment as an opportunity to teach instead of just taking on the hard moment for myself and calling it my own. And in doing that, like, afterwards, I got a lot of questions on my Instagram, you know, so, what did you do next? What did you do next? And I was like, honestly, we went for a family walk. Like, we, we went for a family walk because I already taught him about mercy. And that's what I want my kids to learn. That's what I, I don't want them to constantly think like, oh, there has to be this enormous consequence to your actions. Like, there was already a consequence to his actions. And I don't need to instill punishment in this, this other discipline on top of that, when I could just use it as an opportunity to say, hey, look, I get those mean thoughts, too. And sometimes my body tells me to hit and it tells me to spray you with the hose. And you even think that I should do that right now. And you know what? I'm still choosing to water the grass. So if I can teach a lesson like that and keep him, keep that trust, gosh, he trusted me enough that even when I looked like I'm going to soak him with the hose, he trusted me enough to still come over. And to me, that means so much more than him turning 30 years old one day and saying, oh, yeah, I still remember the way my mom punished me for that. And he never learned a lesson about mercy. He never learned a lesson about what to do with all those mean thoughts when they come flooding in and your body says, hit your brother or do this to your brother. And my body says, soak him with the hose. Like, I, I, I think we want to learn from people that, that we know have been through this and we know go through these things. And I think our kids are the same way. I mean, gosh, I hope my kids want to learn from people that they feel like, get it. And I want my kids to know that I get it. And when I can, Gosh dang it, when I can just, like, model what I want them to do in those moments. I fully, just so wholeheartedly believe that one day Liam, my oldest, might feel upset like that again, and his brother underneath him, you know, maybe instead of acting on that, he recognizes, oh, these are the mean thoughts my mom was talking about. And this is, this is a Time that I want to do something mean, and I'm going to give mercy. I'm going to give mercy instead, I'm going to choose to do something that maybe I don't think is really deserved, and it's still the right thing to do. And I would feel so proud. I would feel so proud if you did that instead of, well, mom soaks me with the hose, so why can't I soak you with the hose or something like that? And what's really cool, just like, wrapping up this story with so, so, so cool about this, is about two or three days later, my boys were again having a hard moment. And. And. And a poor choice was made because, you know, we're siblings, and that just seems to be the theme of things sometimes. So poor choice was made. They're having a hard moment. They're experiencing this sibling friction. And instead of making it something that now I'm feeling extremely frustrated about, again, I look at it as like, this is my chance to teach. This is an example of one of those moments and helping my oldest understand. Remember. Remember when you thought I should soak you with the hose? And you said. And I asked you, I said, what should mommy do right now? And you told me I should spray you with the hose. And he said, yeah, I remember, and I'm okay. Mommy had mean thoughts, too. My brain told me to spray you with the hose, and I had to choose to do something different. My body wanted to grab your arm and spray you down with the hose, and I felt very angry, and I had to choose to do something different. So I've been able to pull on that story, pull on that experience in our backyard that, yes, felt really hard to do in the moment. And it's. And it's paying me back tenfold in freaking motherhood because I just keep to. I get to keep talking about it. I get to keep that at the front of their minds of, hey, yeah, remember, remember, we all get those really mean thoughts, and we all have those times that our body wants to do something mean, and we have to teach it how to do something more kind, and we have to teach it how to do something better. And I've just loved that ever since that experience. As hard as it was to figure out what the frick I'm gonna do, that does align with the mom that I want to be and the experiences that I want to have with my kids, as hard as that was, it's been. It's been so fruitful. Like, I just have been continuously reaping fruit From. From that seed. Like, I. I'm so grateful for it, and I would do it all over again right now. And that's. That's how I view motherhood, friend. That's how. That's how it's really encouraging to view. Motherhood is this constant, ongoing opportunity to learn something that continuously serves you and your kids and to teach lessons and do things different. Because now you finally get to see them differently. You were so used to seeing it one way for so long, and now you get to see it different. And anytime now, my boys are like, in that hard moment. I love teaching about those mean thoughts that we get and the times that our body wants to do something that would be pretty unkind and could really hurt somebody else. And yeah, even Mommy. Even mommy thinks that way. And my kids know for work, what do I help mommies do? I help them have more fun with their kids and say really nice things to their kids. I talk with moms, I work with moms. I create things with for mom so that they can have more fun as a mom with their kids and make sure that they're saying kind things to them. They even know that that's my job. It's my job to do this. I've built a whole career out of it. And it's still something that I have to actively practice, too, because I get those mean thoughts, I get those negative thoughts. I get those urges in my body to hit or to spray or to just push away and shut down. And I've got to work past that. And how valuable would it be for your kids to hear from you, hey, sometimes mommy thinks that I should do something mean too. Just like you just hit brother or you hit sister, or you took this from her, or, you know, whatever it is that you did, it started as a thought in your brain and your brain said, spray him. Or your brain said, hit him. And then your body said, okay, well, what if we slowed all that down and we decided, yes, my brain is staying hit him. And now I'm going to teach my brain. No brain, give me a better idea. And that's what I taught my. That's what I've been teaching them. Now is when your brain tells you to do something just unkind, and it's telling you to do something that would be mean or hurtful to somebody else. You tell your brain, give me a better idea. Give me. Tell me what is kind that I can do. And teaching my kids right now, like, your mind is your servant. It's your servant, and you can teach it how to do something better. Just like my brain out there, I just knew I can do better than that. I can teach myself right here in this moment, something better. Something better than spraying them down with the hose. And gosh dang it, my brain delivered. I just needed to pause. I needed to slow down a little bit. I need to be able to ask a better question, and I'd be really curious to hear in the next hard moment with your kids, if you just paused and got their attention and asked them, what do you think mommy should do right now? I would love to hear their answer. I would love to see and just hear about the possible changes that follow an experience like that together. So I. Gosh dang it. I hope we keep going through hard moments and choosing to handle them just differently than we maybe have before and to learn new lessons and new perspectives of like, oh, shoot, if I choose to do that mean thing right now, say that hurtful thing, do that hurtful thing, whatever it is. All I'm teaching my kids is how to continue reacting to their emotions instead of figuring out why they're there in the first place and what we can do instead. So you, gosh, you're just an incredible example and a role model, and I hope that you see yourself that way, too, where you're able to see, like, gosh, I'm really their best role model and I'm their best example. And it's worth it for me to slow down a little bit more in these hard moments and just ask some better questions. Hang on to that one true thought that says I can do better than that and be really proud of what I get to teach instead of focusing so strongly on goodness, discipline, punishment, consequences, all the. All the hoo ha around it. Just what if you taught a really cool lesson in those moments? Like, could that be. Could that be good enough for now? I don't know. I'll keep thinking about it. I sure do love you guys, though. I love motherhood so much, and I'm so glad that we are in similar seasons together and we get to go through so much of the joys, the highs and goodness almighty, the hearts and the lows. I adore you and I hope this episode serves you. Oh, my sweet friend. Thank you for joining me on this week's episode of the momset podcast. Please take a minute to leave a review and share the show. If you loved it, I'd love to see stay connected as we continue to learn and grow in motherhood right alongside each other.