This year, one of my non-stated resolutions (I read that if you say them aloud that simulates the accomplishment and therefore you're less likely to keep them) is to not yell at my kids. Parenting a child with sensory issues where inflexibility and explosive reactions are common can sometimes trigger losing my temper. I hate yelling at my children. Intellectually I know that it is ineffective, damaging, and even hypocritical, but sometimes in moments of deep frustration and anger (when meditative breathing just doesn’t seem to work), I lose my shit. I can only imagine how unsettling it is for my children to see me lose control in a fit of rage. Possibly even worse is the horrible hangover of regret, self-loathing and remorse I feel afterwards. So I am really making an effort for their sake and mine to stop yelling.

Last Saturday, while my husband was away, I suggested we go on an outing to the farmers market at the Ferry Building. The idea was not well received, to say the least. "I don't want to go to the stupid farmers market." "That's a horrible idea." "Why do we always have to do what you want to do?" “We want to go to Pier 39 (my worst nightmare)!” "I'm not going." Maybe because my idyllic (and ridiculous) vision of us perusing locally grown organic produce in beautiful San Francisco weather was squashed or because the kids had already been fighting that morning or because I forgot (again!) that I’m not perfect and neither are my children, I was mad, really mad. I felt like yelling. But instead, in that heated moment, I got an idea - I went to my desk and wrote down in the form of a letter what I would have screamed. I wrote vehemently as I shouted my words onto the page. It was so liberating!

Just expressing my anger was the release I needed with no harm done and the time it took to write helped to diffuse the situation. We were then able to talk about our frustration with each other calmly and decided on a compromise –we’d first go to Pier 39 and then the Ferry Building for lunch. It was kind of a perfect day.