You know when they say if your nervous if you have to stand in front of an audience to picture all the people in their underwear so you don’t’ feel so intimidated.
With the N’s when I would picture them as a 6 year old kid. Hear what they were saying look at them like I’d look at my son. Aware of his reasoning that he thinks is rational as a 6 year old. Roll my eyes when he wasn’t looking. Think Oh dear god, when I say no there is going to be a tantrum. And it always came. Send him to his room and listen to whining and crying for as long as it took but from a distance. He would get sick of himself till he stopped come back out and feel sorry, just until the next time I said no and here came the tantrums again. Fortunately it got better as he got older. He was growing up and could rationalize better. With N’s they never do. It’s dealing with a 6 year old mind, tantrums, decisions, lies, manipulating and all that goes along with being a child.
My problem was that I looked at an adult and it was hard for me to place the body with the mind they have. I was always looking at them as adults. Made me freaking crazy with what came out of their mouths how they rationalized things. I would fee the same way as I did when I knew a tantrum was coming from my kid. Oh God! Here comes the whining and crying. Dread the scene. I stopped looking at the adult N’s. I would lower my eyes and listen so I didn’t have to look at this grown up person/body. It was so much more effective for me. I heard a selfish, troubled kid talking and I didn’t feel so frustrated then. I let them go on and on and did what I needed anyway. They will always be stuck as little self-centered kids. If you can visualize this they won’t be so intimidating anymore.
With our children you think Oh god please get me through this child/teen stage. You bite your lip, roll your eyes and drop the hammer sometimes. They hopefully grow up to be productive human adult beings. N’s are always going to stay that child that you will always bite your lip, roll your eyes even drop the hammer but this will last for the rest of your life because they never grow up. OMG I could not imagine UN ending tantrums.
Margo try to picture him as a kid being taken on by big adult attorneys and a grown wife.
He is going to react like a punished kid. You’re just dreading the tantrum.
It helped me to think of them this way. I was less stressed when dealing with them. Till I was able to get them the hell out of my life.
Love Deb
