The Life Lesson My Son Taught Me on the Drive Home From Drum Lessons

Posted on January 5, 2023 by The Orange Rhino

My 11 year old just told me a life lesson that I didn’t fully grasp until at least 30…if that. Last drum lesson he left uber frustrated because he wasn’t playing well.

So frustrated in fact that he wanted to quit and just give up drums altogether. Going to today’s lesson took a lot of reassuring and supporting from me and honestly, a lot of courage and strength from him. He showed up and almost didn’t make it in – but he did!

So proud. But truly the best was the car ride home…

“Mom, I just realized that my brain is why I make mistakes.

I mean yes I make mistakes because I make mistakes but so much of that is because of what my brain is saying to me!

When I tell myself I can’t do the beat and I can’t hold the drumsticks right then I make more mistakes!

My brain is so important! It’s the most important! My thoughts are so important to my ability to play drums…or basketball…or anything!”

Yes, my sweet boy. Yes. Breakthrough tonight! We both needed it big time.

So happy for him. Oh…and irony that the song he was learning tonight was “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty. Irony? I think not.

xoxo, Sheila

🧡 The Orange Rhino

10 Ways I Yell Less When Life Gets Extra Busy

Posted on December 17, 2022 by The Orange Rhino

As we go into what I am sure will be an extra busy weekend for many – being the weekend before Christmas and the 1st night of Hanukkah – I thought I would share some of my top 10 tips for Not Yelling at your kids. I am gonna warn you though – the list might not be what you expect.

When I challenged myself to go an entire year without yelling at my kids (then ages 5 and under), my assumption was that I was going to learn how to “improve” my kids’ behavior, how to get them to listen better, respond faster, fight less, and all that stuff so that they gave me less reasons to yell.

Because you know they were the majority of the problem – or so I thought. I quickly learned, by tracking when and why I yelled, that while some of their behaviors were indeed triggers, a lot of these triggers came from me and own crap. The whole “It’s not you, it’s me” stuff. I quickly learned that while I was indeed triggered by their not listening, the yelling wasn’t because of the trigger – the yelling was because I wasn’t in a place to manage the trigger!

The real trigger was me.
My mood.
My problems.
My life.
My past.
Blech.

Don’t get me wrong. My kids’ behaviors could (is!) still be triggering, but in learning to not yell, I had to look at the whole picture and find solutions to all the triggers. And what I have really come to learn since my book came out and I was forced to reflect on what was next, is that what happens all the many moments before “the yelling trigger” are just as important as the exact moment you want to yell.

Just think about it. I hate using battle as an example but…no, I just can’t. I need to come up with something better.

Okay – pick any big moment.
Job interview.
Breaking up with someone.
Going to divorce court.
Meeting with a friend over a personal issue.

How well you handle that tough emotional moment depends on so many things – but how you go into it, how calm, confident, prepared makes a world of difference. Of course there is only so much one can do to control everything before the tough moment.

I mean knowing me – I can do everything I do to be mentally ready – and then do what I do best and slip on non-slippery pavement and fall into the smallest puddle ever and spill the one drop of coffee left on the one white polka dot on my shirt – and then become all frazzled and poof! Mental state begone BUT my mental state will still be way better than if I had done nothing to be in a good place.

So with that said…some of my top things to prepare for / handle yelling moments:

BEFORE the DESIRE to YELL – setting up for success

Identify what problems might arise and problem solve (for me – malls are hot and crowded and make me cranky so now I wear t-shirts. No joke. And I always leave the jacket in the car. Carrying it makes me even crankier.) Also, practice. What will you do? How will you respond? What will you say? Knowing is MORE than half the battle 😉
Drink lots of water and eat balanced meals (Kids and parents, alike!) – I know, this is annoying to freakin’ read but it is relevant. I do not want to get into a nutritional debate. But, hanger is a real thing. Dehydration doesn’t help. I have learned as I have aged that Pizza and I? We had to break up. It was tragic. One of my worst breakups ever. Pizza truly made me cranky. I have also broken up with ice cream sundaes. And bagels with cream cheese. My world is a little less without these foods BUT the few moments of joy they brought me were increasingly LESS than the crankiness and bickering that came after.
Exercise (parents and kids alike, again!) – Moving the body, works wonders, endorphins and all that good stuff. Plus if done together, connection and sometimes even problem solving because it is easier to share problems walking next to each other not staring into each other’s eyes 😉
Do something relaxing / enjoyable for even just a few minutes – doesn’t matter what. When my kids come home every other weekend, it is super stressful. Really hard. I always try to sit and do something just for me for 5 or 10 minutes beforehand. It can be anything – think out of the box. What makes you happy? Just think about that. Think about a favorite memory. A future trip.
Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. It truly is medicine. TRIGGER is totally STARTING to get to you.
Find a baby picture – or a happy picture – remember your child is indeed a sweet, loving, innocent child. They aren’t trying to be bad. They are in need and don’t know how to better communicate. Happy pictures also release endorphins.
Release it and “yell” productively and proactively – but say something totally and utterly different. OOGASCHMOOGABOOGA!!! This was an old one, but a favorite. It made us all laugh because it is ridiculous sounding and fun to say. If I opened my mouth to yell I would pause and then burst into that. Took practice – but getting out the yell productively, released that emotion. The intensity needs to get out – let it out or it will come out in other not so good ways! Also – yell into the freezer (cold air, works wonders), get your kids and run around outside yelling while playing tag or whatever (bonus – fresh air and exercise)
Turn the lights down – two effects (1) makes kids stop because they are all what the heck just happened so not only have they stopped you have their attention and (2) it reduces sensory overload and induces a more relaxing environment oh and (3) forces a pause for everyone which gives you a chance to re-group mentally.
And now a trick brought to you by my therapist. 5-4-3-2-1 senses. Notice 5 things you can see – 4 things you can hear – 3 things you can smell – 2 things you can touch – 1 thing you can taste. I apply the senses to any number but the point is all senses assigned to a number. This brings you into the present moment which again, allows you to re-group and respond instead of yell.
Remind yourself: it isn’t an emergency. Yelling isn’t needed. Yelling won’t truly work – it won’t truly de-escalate the situation, it won’t motivate long-term, it won’t build a connection to prevent the same situation from happening again. Yelling will likely make things worse. Yelling really isn’t what you want to do. This tough moment will indeed pass AND You can get through it – and will get through it – without yelling because you, you my friend are a freakin’ Orange Rhino.

A strong, determined, peaceful and powerful person. So go head, respond – really, problem solve – that really annoying trigger without yelling – use a quiet voice because kids have to work harder to listen.

xoxo, Sheila

🧡 The Orange Rhino

Why Singing Badly With My Teens Is Good for All of Us

Posted on September 13, 2022 by The Orange Rhino

I may or may not have burst into my kids’ rooms this morning singing to “Keep the Beat” by Lin-Manuel Miranda. I say “may not have” because I am fairly certain my boys would say that I wasn’t singing because singing sounds good and apparently, I sounded beyond awful.

All seriousness – singing is so good for the soul and your nerves, no matter how bad you sound 🙂 So is laughter – my boys (even though they wouldn’t admit it but the twinkle in their eyes said otherwise) and I laughed together at my horrid singing and did I mention, dancing?!

My goofiness got us all off on the right foot this morning and created an environment that made yelling at morning annoyances way harder.

As for my teenagers – I gotta say. It’s hard to relate to them a lot but being goofy and making a fool of myself is turning out to be a great way to connect (Take note though: make sure to do so when they aren’t in a scale 10 bad mood. 1-9 and goofiness is generally accepted!)

“All I can do when the road bends is lean into the curve…All I can do when the tanks run dry is see what’s in the reserve…”

xoxo, Sheila

🧡 The Orange Rhino

The “Secret” Trigger I am Focusing on to Help Me Yell Less at my Kids

Posted on February 22, 2016 by The Orange Rhino

February 22, 2016

As you all know, this past summer I found myself yelling at my kids way more than I liked and as a result, I found myself re-reading my book, “Yell Less, Love More: How The Orange Rhino Mom Stopped Yelling at Her Kids–and How You Can Too!” (I also found myself feeling embarrassed, but more on that later!)

And you all also know that as a result of following the 30-day plan in my book, it became abundantly clear to me that the reason I was yelling so much was because I wasn’t taking care of me. At all. I shared with you all that once I did start taking care of myself again, that I became an Orange Rhino, again. This was a totally true statement. But there was a big piece I didn’t share; the whole “how I really started taking care of me” bit. I just didn’t feel brave enough to share that truth; it was too raw, too brutally honest, too potentially damaging, too well, lots of things. But I have decided that it is too powerful of a truth to not share, so here goes.

* * * * *

One day this past summer as I tracked my triggers and tried to figure out why the heck I was yelling so much, I found myself aimlessly surfing the Internet (no doubt trying to self-soothe my frustrations by getting lost in the world of celebrity gossip and hysterical e-cards.) While surfing, I stumbled upon a quote that struck a nerve and made me really think. Like, really, REALLY think. The quote more or less read,

“We give to others what we feel within.”
Repeat.
“We give to others what we feel within.”

YES! YES! YES! Finally all my struggling to Yell Less and Love More made sense! Maybe, just maybe, the reason I was yelling so much was because I didn’t feel love within so therefore I couldn’t give it to my boys?

“Could that really be true?” I thought to myself. “Did I really have no love within?”

Based on the pit in my stomach, I knew that I had found the truth I sought; I knew that there wasn’t enough love within me. Or more appropriately, I knew that I had love for my kiddos and my life, but that the love I had for myself was so lacking that it was overpowering all the positive feelings within me.

And more painfully, I knew that because I didn’t have much love within to share, I was instead giving out what I did have within: an abundance of anger, frustration, shame, disappointment, concern, and strong dislike.

Fortunately I didn’t have to look hard to figure out where all these intense not-so-loving feelings were coming from. I couldn’t stand the fact that I was (am!) the author of a book about not yelling, a book with alternatives to yelling, simple steps to follow to yell less, and stories to inspire and yet here I was spending my summer not doing any of what I knew to do to keep yelling at bay and being anything but inspirational. Yep, here I was a mere seven months after my book published and I had to turn to it for advice. This reality was crushing me. Crushing me. I couldn’t stop saying things to myself like,

“What is wrong with you, why can’t you just get it together?”
“I feel like such an imposter, writing one thing and doing another.”
“I am so disappointed in myself and I bet people will be disappointed in me.”
“I am so ashamed of myself; I am so angry that I have slipped.”

Nor could I stop saying not-so-nice things to myself about other aspects of my life for just as loving thoughts and actions are contagious, so are negative thoughts and actions. As my negativity about my “yelling too much, and I should know better” grew, so did my negativity towards myself about my relationships, my work in general, and my body.

My goodness, I was yelling at myself, berating myself, seemingly all the time. I wasn’t just giving out what I felt within, I was giving out what I was doing within! Of course I was yelling at my kids when I was with them; it was just a natural, instinctual extension of what I had done moments prior!

Thank goodness this wasn’t entirely a new trigger that I didn’t know how to manage. Thank goodness I knew exactly what I needed to do to yell less!

I needed to love myself more so that I could yell at my kids less.

I needed to love myself more by allowing myself to be proud of my successes (520 days straight without yelling and a book) instead of letting myself magnify my misses.

I needed to love myself more by forgiving myself for past yells while reminding myself that while I might be an Orange Rhino, I am still an imperfect human and that is more than okay.

I needed to love myself more by giving myself compassion. Of course I was struggling to yell less, I had just had knee surgery, followed by a blood clot, all with four kids home for summer vacation!

I needed to love myself more by letting go of what I hadn’t done to focus on what I could do.

I needed to love myself more by accepting my body as more than a number on the scale; it was the home to four children for thirty-six months in five years.

I needed to love myself more by telling myself that I am doing the best I can in this moment and that counts for a heck of a lot.

I needed to love myself more by nurturing myself with quiet time and “doing what I love” time.

I needed to love myself more by stopping all negative thoughts before they have a chance to grow and fester.

And I needed to do one other thing. I needed to learn how to do and say all of the above on a daily basis, not just every once in a while! I needed to learn how to make loving myself an unwavering and natural part of my life so that I wouldn’t once again find myself sliding into old yelling habits.

Loving myself more and yelling at myself less is arguably one of the biggest and most important triggers to manage.

I knew the power of this trigger when I started my Orange Rhino journey and now I know it even more. Of all my old triggers to push me to yell, it is the only one that was strong enough to re-surface.

I am yet to get even close to mastering this trigger, but just knowing that I need to really work at it has made a difference. Thought-by-thought, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, I am working to be kinder to myself. I am reminding myself of all of the promises above. I am reminding myself that if I want to give out love, and I so very much do, then I need to foster love within. And ironically, I am reminding myself that I must be patient and kind to myself, that I must love myself as I learn to fully love myself, for steady change will not happen instantly.

I know I have a lot more learning to do to make this new habit of loving myself a prevailing part of my life, but I can tell you this much so far: loving myself more since this discovery this summer, has already resulted in yelling less, a lot less. It hasn’t been easy, that’s for sure, but it has been entirely worth it. I am no longer giving out a variety of negative feelings but am once again giving out pride, enthusiasm, kindness, support, encouragement, laughter and love. I am giving out the best of me instead of the worst and am getting back the best of my kids instead of their worst. Yelling at myself less, loving myself more, well it’s a win-win for everyone.

* * * * *

Yesterday was my birthday. As I found myself grateful for all the presents I received, I decided I would gift myself the commitment of really, really learning to love myself more. Yes I have been working on it the last five months, but I know that I need to, ehem WANT TO, make a deeper commitment. I look forward to my continued learning over the next twelve months and I hope I share it with you all as frequently as I wish. I will, however, love myself and be kind to myself when I “fall short” of my goals 😉

To learn how you too can track your own triggers and yell less and love more – both at your kids and yourself – click on the book to the left.

At Least: My Two Favorite Words

Posted on June 14, 2013 by The Orange Rhino

Originally posted January 28, 2013. Re-posted today, day 496 of being yelling free. My potty trained son just looked at me and said he had to pee. I said go to the bathroom. He said “Nope, don’t want to” and proceeded to pee all over the floor. I was pissed. Ha! Pun intended. I wanted to yell but instead mumbled to myself, well, “at least it was on the tile floor and not the rug. That would have been a real pain.” It reminded me of this post which is one of my favorites….

Dear Perspective,

It’s so nice to have breakfast with you. Whenever I start the day with you by my side, not yelling comes so much easier. I remember that kids are just kids. I remember that spilled cereal isn’t the end of the world. I remember that it’s more important to have a good good-bye than a rushed one. I remember that not yelling is what matters to me more than not cleaning up. Yes perspective, you have been a dear friend of mine during this no-yelling challenge. You are welcome to come for breakfast, lunch and dinner any time. Just know that my house isn’t always clean and that I am an awful cook.

Cheers,
The Orange Rhino

I remember crying my eyes out on Thanksgiving this past year. There was a commercial for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. I don’t recall the exact details but the message was clear: yes, this little boy just ran into the house with mud all over his shoes but a year ago he was in a hospital bed and didn’t have the energy to even get out of bed. The mud? It doesn’t matter. The fact that he can now walk? That matters. While the main message was all about the power of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, I took home a secondary message as well.

The Power of Perspective.

This wasn’t a new lesson to me. I realized on Day 3, take 2 (I think) of my Orange Rhino Challenge the importance of perspective. Just tonight I found a half written post about the subject. Why I never finished it I don’t know. Maybe because I knew that the power of perspective had such a profound impact on me that I feared I wouldn’t find the right words to express how I felt.

I wrote this: “Perspective. That’s all I need. 8 out of 10 times I’m yelling for no reason at all. For example, the fact that #3 is learning to feed himself is more important than the fact that the baby just crawled in the syrup that dripped off the piece of waffle that fell on the table after it fell off the fork.” I didn’t finish the middle of the post but did write an ending:

“Somehow I made it through today without yelling. And trust me, today the odds were stacked against me. But I did it. And I think it is all because of Perspective. I stopped and looked at things differently and that made all the difference.”

Here I am 353 days after that initial attempt at a post still struggling to find the perfect words to express just how important the role of perspective played in this challenge and how I went about finding said perspective. And I can’t find all the words. But I can find two.

At least.

These are my two new favorite words. Seriously. Add it to any moment you want to yell and voila! life seems easier as it is filled with newfound perspective. Here’s a little perspective that keeps me from yelling day after day after day!

“Oh there is syrup dripping on the floor….at least the entire bottle isn’t dripping.”

“Oh he is climbing on the table… at least he isn’t hanging by the chandelier.”

“Oh he destroyed his bedroom…at least his brothers didn’t copy him.”

“Oh my life is so crazy with three kids with different therapy needs…at least they are in my life to love.”

I could go on and on and on. I think I will, at least for a bit. Here is a little more perspective.

“Ugh. I have 362 days left of this challenge…hey, at least I have gone 3 days that is better than none.”

“Ugh. I yelled today…hey at least I am trying to not yell.”

“Ugh. I still don’t like how this post is turning out…hey at least it will be done and off my mental to-do list that is bogging you down!”

See, at least really works wonders. Does at least not suit your fancy? Substitute any other word or phrase that helps you see spin the situation into positive light. My other popular choice? I’m grateful.

“It seems I have so many triggers…hey I’m grateful that I know who I am and what I need to work on.”

No matter what words you choose, the power of perspective remains the same.

Is it always easy to find perspective when things are rough? Is it always easy to stop and say at least or I’m grateful and keep on going? No, it isn’t. Sometimes the moment is too frustrating to be able to find perspective, to even want to find perspective. And sometimes it takes me longer to find perspective than I wish. Some moments it takes 3 seconds, other times 3 hours, or even 3 days. But when I finally find that perspective, I truly feel a weight lifted. I feel a sense of peace and calm that allows me to parent with more patience and love. Do I care that if it took me longer than desired to get to that moment, or that it was hard to get there? Nope. Because at least I got there!