This Isn’t Your Grouchy Day!

“This isn’t your grouchy day!”

That’s what I used to tell my kids when I saw a bad attitude wash over them like an approaching thunderstorm.

Ok. Disclaimer. I am not talking about serious situations, the kind where we need to comfort our children and allow them to talk (and maybe cry) it out. (That’s a whole other blog post.) I am talking about those little annoyances that fester into sister-poking, door-slamming, eye-rolling big annoyances.

Your 3rd grader is upset because his sister ate the last of the peanut butter.

Your 5th grader screams because “someone borrowed my red marker.”

Your 7th grader stomps around the house because he has to finish his math homework before being allowed on the computer.

These dozens of little upsets build on one another until the entire day is upside down.

So, being a mom, I came up with a plan—“grouchy day.” On your grouchy day you could have a bad attitude – because it was YOUR day and YOUR perogative to be as miserable as you wanted to be.

The next time that thundercloud of attitude descended on one of my kids, I said, “Sorry, it’s not your day to be grouchy. Can’t have any complaining from you.” Then I’d look at my calendar and say, “Can’t find you on the schedule this week.”

The truth is, none of us were EVER on the schedule. But simply joking around about it usually got everyone smiling. (Ok, not EVERY time, but a lot of the time.)

Phillipians 4 is a great instruction guide for a non-grouchy attitude. In the fourth verse, Paul tells us to always rejoice. Joy is not elated happiness, but rather an underlying reliance on Christ, knowing He is in control. the verses following also have great “good attitude” words such as : gentleness, thankfulness, peace, etc. Then Paul comes right out and tells us to think about the positive, not the negative. Paul concludes his thoughts by saying that whatever they’ve seen in him and heard from him (a good attitude guide), they were now suppose to DO.

Then what? The God of peace will be with you.

Probably one of the hardest jobs as a parent is encouraging good attitudes in our kids and discouraging impulsive responses when life doesn’t happen exactly the way our kids want it to happen. We need to use God’s good-attitude instruction guide (Philippians 4) and consistently work on attitude adjustment.

Oh, yeah – first we need to adjust our OWN attitude.

Because really—

No day is anyone’s grouchy day.