Thought for the day: There are so many words that are triggers for us, the adult..parent…person in charge…authority figure. Many words are said that push our buttons and send us down the road of not being therapeutic. Sometimes those words are triggers because they aren’t being used; thank you, you’re welcome, hello, goodbye, I love you, please, and sorry. All of these words if not used are considered rude, but why do they trigger? What is lost by them not being used? I suggest that this is our problem and not the problem of the child. If we stop placing “niceties” so high on the list of what annoys us, then we won’t be triggered and quite as upset as often. Also consider why you are getting triggered, is it because those people around us expect it? Are we offended because a child didn’t say thank you or are we upset because someone saw the child not say thank you? Now, this bring us to the words being used that are triggers: ^&^%$ and @£$$% , now of course I can’t spell these words out here on the Internet but I am sure that everyone here can fill in the blanks. Swear words are just words. The power we give them is great and our kids will use that power to trigger us, if and only if we give those words the power to trigger us. I get it, society says ‘thank you” and doesn’t use swear words, but do we really need to bow to all society says? Is the word really that powerful and really that important? I used to be offended by my name being said wrong, it took me a long time but now I don’t even notice it. I spent years being frustrated and years of getting upset over other people using my name wrong. My life is better because I learned that the problem was mine and not theirs. So…is this particular button worth it? Is a please or thank you worth the frustration? Is a swear word going to end the world? I choose to not have these battles and life is much easier…So my thought for today is…are there battles that you can let go? Is there a trigger that you can let go that will benefit you and benefit your child as well? Do you really need to make someone say please or get upset over a Damn or two? One goal in Tp is to learn to pick your battles…is this a battle worthy of picking? Just a thought…