Children

I have a terrible confession. One of my major triggers, one of the things most likely to make me want to dive headfirst into a vat of fermented grapes, was..... my own children.

Don't get me wrong. I love the little blighters, obviously. And bringing them up is a constant delight and adventure. I would happily take a bullet or fight a tiger with my bare hands for them.

However, bringing up children is hard - at least I found it so.

There's the endless repetition (say please, wipe your nose, don't forget to flush the loo), the boredom (pushing swings for hours, pureeing vegetables, picking cereal off the floor), the frustration (what do you mean you can't remember where you left your book bag?)

It's no wonder that by the end of the day so many of us are gasping for a glass of vino (or, let's face it, a bottle).

But, slowly, slowly, all of these everyday stresses have got much easier since I quit. It is, I promise you, the case that the booze only increases the levels of anxiety, the lack of patience and the bad temper.

(See my post: Reasons to Quit Drinking #6: Because You're a Parent).

These days, the SM household is (relatively) calm. Zen. You hardly ever hear any shouting. A situation which seemed inconceivable this time last year.

There are, however, still child related things that push every one of my buttons, that have me longing for the Chablis, even after all this time.

(I generally end up eating a slice of cake bigger than my head and drinking twice as much Becks Blue as usual).

What I find most tricky is watching my children navigate major hurdles in life and not being able to help them. This inevitably comes with an awful lot of self blame, as I decide that, for some reason, it's all my fault.

A few months ago, for example, one of my kids was being bullied in the playground. I wanted to tear the limbs off the culprit one by one, and he was only a nine year old boy.

I spent hours debating strategies to solve the problem, and days berating myself, thinking that I must have done something that made my child look like a victim.

And this week has been a horribly hard one to navigate sober because it's exam week.

#1 has no issue with exams. She sails through them in a calmly ordered flotilla of revision timetables, colour coded notes and sharpened pencils, usually coming top.

#2 is a different matter. Trying to get him to concentrate on revision for longer than thirty minutes is almost impossible. So, despite that fact that he does really well in IQ tests, he struggles to get even average marks in exams.

He's not worried. He's perfectly happy, so long as he doesn't come bottom. And even that wouldn't bother him too much. But I wind myself up into a little stress ball, and - again - blame myself for not helping or inspiring him enough.

There are two things that I've found helpful:

One is remembering to be grateful.

My children are healthy and happy, and that's really all that matters.

I know that sounds terribly obvious, but it's amazing how seeing the things to be thankful for in a situation can completely diffuse it.

(For more on the power of being grateful see my post: Gratitude).

The second is reminding myself that they are not me. All three are totally different from me and each other. The way they work, how they think, what motivates them is not the same as me.

My job is to advise, nurture, encourage, but not to do it for them. Their failures are not my fault, in the same was as their successes are entirely their own, and - what's more - they need a few failures to learn from.

At least there's one thing I know for sure: this week wouldn't have been any easier if I'd been drinking through it. It would have been a hell of a lot worse. There would have been yelling and tears (theirs and mine). And that really wouldn't have helped.

For more on sober parenting, and all the ups and downs of the sobercoaster, check out NoWayRose's fabulous new blog by clicking here.

Love to you all,

SM x