Grace is getting another post. She is getting a lot of my parenting focus right now. And a lot of my prayer focus, a lot of my energy… a lot of me. She doesn’t feel like she gets a lot of me, but if she new my heart and my thoughts, she would know that she is.
Grace is my “broken bucket”. We pour into her what we can when we can, but it’s never really enough. She also tends to feel she is the victim in life. This is something that drives me crazy about people, but God is teaching me that I have to approach this differently with her. She’s not some adult who doesn’t want to deal with the realities of life, she is a child who doesn’t understand the realities of life… and her heart is fragile. It bruises easily and deeply.
This monumental task – teaching my children how to be adults and navigate this world that will bruise their tender hearts – is big. It’s bigger than books let on. It’s bigger than kind old ladies who tell me to savor this moment let on. It’s bigger than I could have ever imagined. It’s so big, that I want to make sure I do it as well as I possibly can.
Grace’s tender heart makes this seem particularly difficult. Last night soup was on the calendar for supper. She doesn’t like soup. She looked at the four options on the counter and asked if she could make herself a sandwich. The problem is we have a very clear rule – you can eat what is for supper, or you can wait for breakfast. We don’t negotiate, we don’t argue, we don’t fight. If you’d like to fight, you can go to bed. If the kids are really hungry, they’ll eat what’s on the table. The result of this is they have learned to eat a lot more foods, and the fighting at dinner has decreased considerably. She knows this rule. This rule makes her cry regularly. Anyway, back to last night.
She tried one bight of soup and decided she didn’t like it, but thought she should still ask if she can have dessert. (Really?) Chad said she could either A) eat more soup and have dessert, or B) make a sandwich and forfeit the dessert. Dessert is one of Grace’s greatest prizes. She didn’t like this choice. Eli and Ada both ate their supper and had dessert. Grace decided this wasn’t fair because they had the WHOLE week to get used to soup while she was away at camp last July. Because… they ate soup every day?? No.
Eli and Ada were excused from the table while Chad and I settled in for a long talk with the eldest. We explained (again) the difference between when something isn’t fair, and when we just don’t like it. We explained (again) that she was given a choice and she made it. We explained (again) that not having dessert was a result of her choice. Nothing happened TO her. Action – Choice – Result. We empathized, we let her cry, we hugged her, we loved on her, we didn’t let her emotions change the outcome. This is our routine with Grace.
In all of this, we hope we’ve helped the bruise heal, that next time she’ll remember that she has a choice to make and that she isn’t actually a victim after all. Growing up just sucks sometimes. I hate how many tears she has cried. Lord Jesus, I pray that you have created a very sensitive, kind, loving man who will know how to dry those tears and how to prevent them.
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