I snap at my kids too much. I love my kids. They are amazing. I love being their mom. But I hate that they don’t listen, that they fight, that they argue with me. My oldest son expresses daily resentment and anger every morning about going to his new school. He was previously at a wonderful elementary school, but the pandemic has kept him out of school more than in and he was clearly falling behind. I mean, who wouldn’t like a school that was never in session and where there was no work and no expectations required? So I moved my kids to our Parish school–we are practicing Catholics. It was a really hard decision because my oldest son has ADHD and SPD and an IEP to go with all of that. Private and parochial schools don’t have the same resources that public schools have to help children with special needs, and that is why we didn’t put our kids in Catholic school from the start. But I am already seeing progress in some of his academic and, more importantly, responsibility skills. And the transition has been good overall for our family. And there was another school shooting 10 minutes away yesterday, so I feel safer having them in Catholic school. You can tell from this thought download that I am continuously trying to justify my decision to move them there. But I’m feeling the need to do that because every other thought in my head is “did I do the right thing?” Will he resent me for life? Would he have been just fine if I let him continue in our public school? Will this be his downfall? I was reading Glennon Doyle’s “Untamed” when we made the decision. And I was completely transformed when she made the mind-blowing point regarding her daughter trying soccer. “What if it breaks her?” Doyle asked her partner, Abby. Abby said, “What if it makes her?” This is ultimately what made me make the leap. What if I was denying my son(s) opportunities by not putting them in private school? And my family? So now I’m stuck still in this choice that I have already made. I recognize it doesn’t serve me to perseverate on it. I justify this by reminding myself we can change our minds any time and so it is an ongoing decision, one which will resurface again and again. And I come back to the beginning–blaming it on him–if HE just didn’t act this way every morning when it’s time to leave, fussing and pouting about how going to this school means he has to get up earlier and leave earlier and has less time for AM play or TV. Ugh.

I don’t know what my question is. I needed to force myself to do this download with other eyes seeing it. This is where I need to start. Thanks.