Take Your Stress Out on Your Kids

There is one week each year that fills my mind with anxiety and my stomach with butterflies. (Actually every week does, but this one really stands out.) 

That week is my company’s national sales meeting.  As Director of Sales, this meeting is my ultimate responsibility and annual challenge. 

While I have a great team to pull this all together I have a tormenting mind that loves to over-analyze everything. 

Every year, all this trepidation converges on the weekend just before the meeting where there is plenty of time to stress out about everything and precisely zero time to do anything about it.

This year I did something I thought I would never be capable of when faced with overwhelming stress. I took it out on my kids.

It was late in the afternoon on a Saturday. The sun was blazing while my one-year-old daughter and my two boys sat quietly in the shade of our front yard tree. 

I was in the midst of a typical afternoon as my mind was lost somewhere between worrying about my kick-off presentation and questioning if the meeting room would be set up properly. As I looked at the kids from the kitchen window, my mind succumbed to the pressure and my body just started moving.

I grabbed two water guns, filled them to the limit and marched out to the front yard. I said nothing as the kids looked up at me with piqued curiosity. I set one gun down on the ground and as I stepped back I dared one of the kids to pick it up with a warning that if they do, they’re gonna get soaked. 

My daughter was the first to crawl over and just to show the boys I was serious I fired a warning shot just over her head. The few drops of water that landed on her were enough to turn her around and let the boys know, “It’s On!”

My oldest son grabbed the gun and for the next ninety minutes, we all ran around the block soaking each other, hiding and ambushing, taunting and laughing. More kids got involved and water balloons showed up. My stress quickly went from worrying about whether or not all the power point presentations were loaded on my computer to whether or not my super soaker was loaded with enough water to survive an impending attack.

The next time you see a dad running around like he doesn’t have a care in the world, know that he probably has more of them than he wants. Instead of spending another afternoon lost in his worries and disconnected from his family, he decided to take it out on his kids.

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