How to Keep Cool When You Are Hot!

Here is a question for you Miss Molly!  How do you stay so cool (calm and peaceful) when it is really hot? I am just crabby! ~ Jennifer (age 9)

Hello Jennifer!

Yes, there is something about being too hot that makes you crabby! I can just see you--you are quietly reading and your little brother comes crashing onto the couch and takes your book. You hit him and take it back and yell at him to go away and stop pestering you. He cries as loudly as he can and calls, “Mom, he hit me!” Then you yell at mom, “He took my book!” For some crazy reason the hotter it gets, the more he pesters. The more he pesters, the madder you get! You just want to hit and scream. It is hot and nearly everyone is crabby! There is more than one way you can be hot. You can be hot from the heat which has its own type of problems. And you can be hot with anger, which creates another set of problems. But there are things you can do to help cool and calm.

Heat makes your brain turn off! You forget to think. You forget who you are and how you want to act. And you forget your manners and do and say things that hurt.

Our barnyard solution is to scatter and give each other more space. For example: The geese leave the barnyard and stay on the pond. The pigs soak in the mud. The cows, sheep and other “grass eaters” try to not move and find shade and give each other lots of space. The birds and chickens fluff their feathers so the air can cool them down. You can do something similar.

You might try these ideas:

·       Turn on the sprinkler or play in a pool if you have one

·       Ask your mom if she has stuff for lemonade

·       Suck on ice cubes

·      Stay away from the kids who fight – fighting makes you even hotter, both kinds of hot!

·       Find more good books and a quiet place to read. If you have to share the space, find some masking tape and tape off the area for each kid.

·       Do you forget manners when you are hot or angry? Think about the kind of person you want to be. Write down how you want to act so when you forget, you can read it and remember!

·        Make a list of ideas for activities that will distract from the heat

Can you help us with this list? If you have an idea that works to calm or make you cool, please share it in the comment box! Let’s see how big we can make the list!

See you down by the gate! Carol Brown

www.fromgodsheart.com

http://sassypantsco.blogspot.com

http://connectwithcarolbrown.blogspot.com

Sassy Pants here today working with Ms. Molly. I have been down over the hill in the oak grove routing around for tasty morsals. Squirrels are wonderful little critters. They hide their nuts and then forget where they put them. After a long time those nuts start to sprout--oh, they are good! But routing doesn't take a whole lot of your brain, you know, so you can think about things. Digging in the roots I remembered a story I shared with Molly and she thought I should tell the story in case it helps.

A brother and sister were outside playing; they had turned on the water faucet and were playing with the hose. Mom sent the older brother out to turn the water off because Dad said not to play in the water. Little brother and sister paid no attention and kept right on playing in the water. Older brother turned off the water before they all got in trouble. At the very moment he had his hand on the faucet Dad came around the corner. Older brother was in trouble. He loudly declared, "I was shutting it off! they turned it on and I was shutting it off because you said we should not play in the water."

Dad did not listen. He punished older brother. Later Mom told Dad that Older Brother was innocent. All Dad said was, "Guess the joke's on me!" There never was an apology. Dad never admitted that he was wrong. Young brother and sister were never punished. It was not fair and Older Brother was angry...angry at Dad for punishing him when it was not his fault and for not listening, and then for not apologizing, and then forlaughing and thinking it was funny! But it wasn't funny and it wasn't safe to be angry with Dad!

What do you do? You try to forget about it. Days and years go by and it becomes buried like those roots I was digging in, and twisted and entangled with other memories and feelings. After a while the brain has a difficult task figuring out which root goes with what memory. Everyone sort of forgot about what happened and the years went by. Years later Older Brother began to have a real problem with anger. He would blow up like a volcano and no one knew what would cause him to blow. Even he could see that he was much more angry than he should have been when his kid left her bike in the wrong place. He could see it wasn't right to be hugely angry over a little thing.

He began to dig. Like me looking for buried acorns, he had to dig through a lot of other stuff that had nothing to do with it before he found that acorn of anger at his dad. When he forgave his dad (even though his dad never apologized) then all he had was a bad habit. Forgiving Dad in his heart took the steam out of his anger. Now all he had was a habit of yelling when he was angry. He could break a habit! At first he could feel himself becoming angry but he could not stop--he still yelled. Then he would become angry but he could stop before he yelled. Then he would feel the anger rise and go back down. Finally he got so he didn't even become angry; he could talk about a problem when it was happening and sort it out! But as long as that anger was buried inside with no apology and no forgiveness he could not control his anger.

Ms. Molly thought I should say that if any of you get hugely angry about things that just need a little anger she could listen if you want to try to figure out which twisty root is connected. But mostly, kids, just work at solving the problem right then and there! If the problem is big enough maybe get an adult to help you sort things out. So if you have questions...just ask Molly!

Sassy Pants, signing off here!