Confession Time - Is Yelling Affective?

Do you know who your biggest critic is?

You

Not Susie Pinterest or Karen the organizer or even Judy the judgemental, it's you.

You compare yourself to everyone you think is doing a better job than you.  You put yourself down for not living up to some standard that we set for ourselves that are 99% of the time unrealistic.  I say this not because I am judging you, putting you down, or just pointing out the obvious but because we are all the same.  You may struggle with different aspects of life than I am but we all struggle.  I have 4 boys, you may have 2 but both are hard!

My boys have recently began pushing me to the boiling point.  Some of its my own stresses from moving, dealing with a very needy 3 year old and 8 month old but it's also them getting older and pushing boundaries.  Plus, who am I kidding, they are boys!  Young men and we all know men don't typically listen that well...

Sorry men...  but it's true.

I find myself repeating the same things over and over again until I lose it and yell.  I then spend 10 to 15 minutes beating myself up about yelling and promise myself to do a better job the next time until the next time comes and it's the same vicous cycle all over again.

At the same time I am typing this Ryan is screaming for the 4th time tonight.

So does yelling work?  It seems like it, at least it gets their attention but are the down sides out weighing the positive of them finally paying attention?  I'm not sure if it does but nothing else seems to be working.

As a mom I am tired.

The little ones need me all of the time but the older ones are growing so fast I feel like they are growing too far away from me.  Is this a common theme with families of more than three kids?  I surely cannot be alone in this but I feel like it.

I worry the most about Noah, my sweet sweet Noah who seems to be struggling the most with his younger siblings.  I want more time with him to nurture his sweet side but I can't seem to find enough time in the day when Ryan doesn't need me or Evan who has an insanely strong personality is being his very crazy self.

I don't have the answers, who does?  We do what we can to the best of our ability and give the rest to God.  It's all I can do as a very imperfect person.

Ultimately I love my boys and am 200% determined to show them and tell them as often as I can.