Please Stop Making That Dreadful Sound - That's Six Words, Too

Do you all know about the six words you're supposed to say to your child? To my surprise, these six words are not, "get it yourself; I am busy." Rather, according to the Hands Free Mama blog those words are, "I love to watch you play," which is what you should tell your child after a sporting event or activity. Rather than criticizing or critiquing your child's performance, you should just say, "I love to watch you play," and leave it at that. This frees a child from feeling the pressure to perform to a particular standard to please her parents. Of course, reading the blog left me feeling like I was not performing to a particular standard to please my children. What does it say about me that my list of six-word phrases for my children would include: "take the bag off your head," "please stop making that dreadful sound," "shut the door, I hate mosquitos," and "doing that might lead to death?" Clearly, it says that I will not be winning the same mother-of-the-year award that I expect the Hands Free Mama will be receiving.

I totally agree with the premise that kids don't need the pressure of feeling like they're going to disappoint their parents if they don't play well. I've seen my share of parents who berate their kids during a game, and I can only imagine that the berating is worse in private. I am totally on-board with not screaming at your kid about that ball he dropped. My problem with the blog is that Hands Free Mama makes me feel like I should be sobbing with pure joy watching my children's sporting events even if I've driven two hours to get to the game and the game has been called after 45 minutes because we're losing 24-0. If I have to be honest, sometimes I don't love to watch them play. Sometimes I'd just rather be at home reading a book.