Communication as Fire Prevention

Communication has the potential to change everything.

And it certainly has the potential to diffuse a dramatic outcome.

When I’m scrambley, overwhelmed and overstimulated I don’t even think twice now about saying; “You know what? I’m pretty overstimulated right now, but I want to hear this story, so can you tell me later when I don’t feel like my brain is about to explode?".

When Bannon, who is excitedly telling me how many  followers he has on his live stream project, is competing with Alec who is telling me that he’s hungry and can’t find anything to eat, who’s talking over Henry who’s holding two swords asking me to play Zombie Apocalypse with him, who is being interrupted by Evan who is craving something sweet and is not so subtly asking if she can raid my chocolate stash, and who are ALL pushing Cameron right out of the airwaves when all she wants to do is read me the story she’s just written.

When I throw out that one line about hitting my limit the kids are like; “sure, mom, no problem”.

This simple one-liner saves everyone involved because it relieves the pressure just enough for me to not have a messy explosion. It saves me having to put out the fires later because I over reacted.

And it’s so easy.

Feel free to use my template. It’s a good one. And it works.

Oooh, and it works on big people too.

Adjust wording and delivery slightly as necessary :)