Ah, Parenting
Ah, parenting. The joy of my life and the bane of my existence. I love my children with all my heart, and I would give my life for them without hesitation, but sometimes, I get mired in the day-to-day work of a mom.
We have four daughters who are less than four years apart. Typically, I love having all girls and having them so close in age. They like the same types of shows and movies. They can all ride the same rides at amusement parks. They can share clothes and shoes (with varying levels of bribes and coercion). And I never have to clean up pee on the floor of the bathroom!
Right now, our girls are between 12 & 8. These should be the golden years. I don’t have teens (yet . . . 5 months and counting), and I don’t have diapers. My girls still want me to come on field trips and they haven’t quite figured out that I don’t know everything. Yet I still find myself getting burned out with parenting.
By this time of the summer, I’m anxiously awaiting the start of the new school year. I have so much awe and respect for women who homeschool, but I have never felt called to that life. When summer begins each year, I love not setting alarms and rushing out of the door every morning. I love not having to check homework and study spelling words 1,000 times a day. I love the break from the tedious routine of the school year.
Fast forward six weeks, and I’m counting the days until that tedious routine returns. So it goes with my life. I struggle through one season, anxiously awaiting a new one, only to find that the new season comes with its own challenges.
What I find the most draining about summertime is the constant mediation of personalities. My girls go from playing together beautifully to writing each other out of their wills in a matter of minutes. All too often, I am dragged into their fights, ready to fix everything with my short temper and explosive words. Turns out, this is not particularly helpful.
I’ve learned from several sources lately, including a pediatric therapist, that punishments are not effective. Stay with me here. What they say is that when a punishment is given for bad behavior, the child is able to funnel their anger and discontent toward the punishment and the one who gives the punishment. They have an external place to put their ire and discontent.
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For example, a child disobeys, and her mom takes away her tablet time. The child is now angry that the tablet is gone and that mom is cruel and unjust with consequences. There is no correlation with the bad behavior and the anger, as the child blames her mom for everything without remorse for the disobedience.
This makes so much sense to me because in real life, I have lived through punishments only intensifying bad behavior and making a situation worse. Also, I am brought into screaming matches with my kids when I try to enforce the consequence. The more I push, the more they push back.
So I stopped pushing. It has been just as amazing as it sounds. I don’t yell anymore, because I am not implementing consequences. I don’t argue anymore, because it’s a fight I don’t have to win. I walk away and don’t engage with a child who is making poor choices. Amazingly, most of the time, the child backs down and apologizes right away, wishing to remain in my good graces.
For a long time, I resisted this approach because it feels completely wrong to just ignore bad behavior. I didn’t know how to do this, so I took it to Jesus. I know that He wants me to raise well-behaved, respectful, obedient children. I know He also doesn't want me screaming in anger at my strong-willed child who insists on exerting her independence constantly.
The answer came in a simple sentence. “I have the peace of Christ in my heart. I forgive you and love you.” Jesus gives us a deep, abiding peace. I want that. I don’t want to lose my temper every five minutes with my kids. I want them to see Christ’s peace within me. Now, I have a formula for this.
Whenever I see a bad choice from one of my kids I point to my heart and say what Jesus told me. “Even though you are speaking to me disrespectfully (or not listening, or screaming at your sister, or whatever they are doing), I have the peace of Christ in my heart. I forgive you and I love you.”
This is powerful stuff, y’all. Because it actually allows the peace that Christ has given to me to reign in my heart. Because I mean what I say. I see the bad behavior. They know I see it, but I don’t engage in anger or punishments. I stay calm and act like the parent who is in charge. Instead of escalating a conflict with my own anger, my child calms right down because she has no one to fight. More times than not, I get an apology right away.
Most amazingly, I am also teaching my girls how to deal with conflict. When one of my daughters is wronged by another, I smile and point at my heart. Then I hear her say (sometimes begrudgingly), “I forgive you and love you.” Then we move on. We don’t let the negative choices rule our day.
This method has definitely not made my children suddenly behave perfectly. What it has given me is the words to keep me from losing my temper 15 times a day. I can’t control my kids’ actions, but I can control my reaction, and thanks to the peace of Christ, I’m living the example I want (more often than not).
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