Construction vs. Destruction

First off I finished a jean quilt a couple weeks ago for Keith's bed but I never posted any pictures of it. And after our first real snow fall of the winter we went sledding and it was a lot of fun! We didn't have any snow suits for the kids because they had all grown so much but we stopped by a used children clothing shop on our way and found three suits for the same price as one at walmart.

As you can see they had so much fun! Hyrum wanted to go keep going down, but he didn't like the trip back up as much.

I have been thinking a lot about how being constructive in thought and in word and in deed can be so beneficial. We've been trying to teach Hyrum to build instead of destroy when it comes to playing with his toys. He loves to knock down blocks and Lego's (and anything else you can imagine) and he take great joy in it. But of course this makes Keith and Natalie very upset when they have worked hard to build something and they don't get to enjoy it because of their destructive brother. This made me ponder on my own life and I discovered how much our thoughts play in whether we are successful or not. Are we building up our lives, or are we demolishing them with how we think? Today I met my 4 mile goal in running. I was originally just going to run three miles and call it good, but close to that distance I was still feeling pretty good and I thought I had enough energy to run a little bit further. So I decided that I would run a lap or two more, and then I was still feeling good so I decided that I would run farther that I ever have and do my four mile goal. It was hard, the last lap my whole body was screaming but I did it! I told myself I could keep going and I did. I have found that when I am tired and I use destructive thoughts like "this is hard, I don't think I can keep going, I need to stop" then all of a sudden I can't breath any more and I am forced to stop. But, if I say, "this isn't so bad, look how far you have gone! Finish strong!" than I can complete hard and seemingly impossible goals.

Now that I have learned this I am going to try extra hard to show my children how what we think and say makes a lot of different with our self confidence and our abilities. Keith gets frustrated very easily when he isn't able to accomplish something on his first try. He puts on his grumpy face and folds his arms and says, "I can't do it!" and refuses to be comforted or try again.

With kids I have learned that there is tricky line here. They want their feelings to be validated. They don't want there mom to say "oh, your fine, just get over it and try again." In that moment they do NOT feel fine, they feel like their world is coming to an end.

So I need to practice validating their feelings, and then encouraging them to finish what they started and try again. While I was typing this Natalie came in and asked if she could watch a show called, "angelina ballerina". I told her she couldn't because it was only on on Sundays. She became instantly devastated. I sat down with her on the couch and I said, "you wanted to watch that show really bad, didn't you?" "YESSSS!!!!" "I'm sorry that you can't right now because it isn't on." "Sniff, sniff sniff." then I remembered we have netflix and I told her that she could watch it if I could find it online. She was thrilled! But they had to clean up their toys first. Natalie came into the kitchen upset that she couldn't get her toy basket back into the cubhard. I told her she could because she was strong and she just needed to push a little harder. She went back and then came running to me saying, "I did it! I got the basket in the cubhard!" I said, "I knew you could, because you can do hard things!" then she responded, "ya, my knuckles are hard!" and she showed them to me.