My Brain-Mouth Coordination Needs Some Work
One misconception about Dad bloggers, (or at least a misconception I had myself) is that they have it all together. They post parenting tips, they have good advice, etc. These are signs they have their life together. But I don’t care who you are, kids are unpredictable. No matter what techniques or parenting models you put into place, your kids are going to throw you a curve ball. Part of my not having it together is that my own brain and body throw me curve balls, which makes it hard to be a parent sometimes.
Now, I’m not talking about the regular body aches and pains that everyone experiences as they get older. No, I’m pretty sure my brain hates me and wants to make me look like an idiot whenever possible. This is pretty evident just by looking at me. I mean, I’m an educated guy, I’m not a super-genius but I can confidently say that I’m a smart guy. Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t enjoy being smart and like to make a fool of me whenever possible. My Brain-Mouth Coordination could use some work it seems.
The most common time that things get goofy is when I am trying to be a serious dad. There are a few situations in life I adamantly avoid because of this:
- Having serious conversations with my kids
- Teaching my kids serious lessons
- Being Stern/ Disciplining my kids
These are the top three culprits when my brain and body decide to mess with me. Allow me to give you a few examples:
Serious conversations with my kids
For some reason, as soon as I try to sit down with my kids and have a serious conversation with them, maybe about how they feel, or their thoughts on a life event, things go awry. It is at this point in time that I begin to stutter. I don’t stutter any other time in my life. I don’t have any sort of speech impediment either.
“So I that boy made fun of you. He kind of b-b-b-bullied you, huh?” Or I begin to speak gibberish. “Bullying isn’t varedy niaghtce is it?” (Translation: a combination of “Bully isn’t very nice” and “bullying is naughty”)
Perhaps there is some deep rooted Freudian-esque moment in my past that prevents me from speaking coherently to my children when I am trying to talk to them. I don’t know. Perhaps because I’m just a goofy guy, serious conversations just get me all flustered so I naturally begin to talk goofy. I don’t know what it is, but I tend to look like a putz.
Teaching my kids serious lessons
When it comes to teaching my kids serious lessons, this is generally when my body loses control of itself, as if it suddenly becomes possessed. Like the movie Idle Hands. At restaurants we always take the knives out of the kids silverware. We don’t let them put knives away when putting dishes away. Knives are dangerous, we tell them constantly. So the other day while they were asking me if they could help me make smoothies (I’m cutting a banana at this point in time), I say, “It’s okay I can chop this up, I’m almost done.” I’m not sure I even finished the sentence when I stabbed myself in the hand with the knife. It was like my brain went, “You know maybe they don’t understand the danger of knives, let’s display it for them! Ha ha ha!!!” I suppose this helped them realize the danger, but I now look like the idiot dad who stabbed his hand making a smoothie. My brain thought “Smoothie, Haha! Let’s show him smooth!” It wasn’t a fun night.
Being stern and disciplining my kids
I’m not going to lie to you, I raise my voice at my kids. Since we are being honest, I’ll admit I occasionally yell at my kids. Yelling is a funny thing. Yelling gives you the assurance that your kids hear you. But it gives no guarantees that your kids will listen. Whether I am yelling or simply being stern, my body does not comply. These moments are generally when my voice decides to crack. Let me just tell you, nothing will cut a yell short more than your voice cracking. When a grown man is bellowing out his expectations of what a “clean” room looks like, and suddenly it sounds as if he has turned into a 6-year-old screaming girl. Nothing about that says “STERN”. At no point in time does that convey the severity or urgency of the moment.
Voice-cracking is the worst. Because now I have to regroup and try a different approach. I have to talk to my kids about “no matter what Daddy’s voice sounds like you still have to listen to and obey him.” But wait, that sounds like a serious conversation. You betcha! So “You still have to listen and obey” turns into gibberish and stuttering and mixed up slurred words. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.
This frightens me a bit because my children will be entering the wonderful puberty filled teenage years. You’re thinking to yourself, “at least with his voice cracking he will be well prepared for the puberty speech with his son.” To that I s-s-s-say, I’m n-n-n-not ready to have that discusatalk with him yet. (See what I did there?)
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