Schooling the parents

We are gearing up for school and trying to prepare our new seven-year-old for the second grade, while getting our 8-year-old ready for third, and figuring out how to juggle school dynamics of the two different schools they'll be attending. To help acclimate our foster son to the after-school program he'll be attending, we dropped him off today for a school prep day. A day where the class, along with his foster brother, are going to the movies and a picnic. We thought it would be fun as well as give him a head start in getting comfortable with a new environment, right? Hopefully the end of the day will have better results than the beginning of our day today. No matter how much prep work we do in conversation, repetition, expressing upcoming schedules for the week/day, we as the parents are being schooled and we still have a lot to learn.

As a parent of a child who had seven years of a background I may know details about but haven't experienced his pain, sorrow, depression, I find it a challenge to balance recognizing where he's still hurting and healing compared to what should be defined and upheld as the standard for how you live, love, and respect within a family dynamic.

This morning within a 30-minute time span he threw out ten refusals to me. I realize when school actually starts next week we're going to have a difficult time getting out the door and on the school bus, so we'll need to back up wake up time in the a.m. and sleep time the night before, which again he's not going to understand the need for. His stubbornness, pride, and control builds into a stonewall when patience runs low, time runs short to deal with his negative responses, or when he doesn't get his way. Just like most children he wants to assert his will – but his negative response lasts a lot longer and is more intense than most who don't come from his once chaotic background.

This mornings refusals were adamant NO's to what shirt he will wear for the field trip that's required, whether he will choose to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner or not and then attempt to guilt me for not providing for his needs because he can, whether he will say please or yes mam, whether he will stand in the corner for time out, whether he will turn around in the corner, whether he will even go to day care for the school prep day, and ended with him stopping short of walking into the classroom full of new faces. What's out of character for him is not his defiancy, but the number of NO's he demanded in the short amount of time. Two days ago he pushed and pushed for us to buy him a skull decorated item – either for his book bag, a notebook, a door knocker, and on a pair of flip flops. I know skulls are trendy right now, ranging in iconic style in black/white and pink with bows on them for the girls. But I have put my foot down and am repeatedly having to tell him no to any bad guys, scary toys, and skulls. He doesn't understand how we are protecting his mind and heart from things that are not pure, lovely, and good.

Often times we question how hard we are on him or if we're not tough enough. The line is a fine and  delicate one – we pray for God's discernment as parents to help us be wise in drawing it. He has lived in our home for eleven weeks now so the things he still chooses to control are things he fully knows our expectation of. We give him choices in how he wants to do what we've asked so both parties still get it done, but sometimes the choices aren't enough. How do you help a child see their pride? How do you help a child see that the issue they're holding on to may not be the battle they really want to control, but there's a deeper battle within from past hurt?

I imagine I will pick him up today and he will talk all about the wonderful day they had together at his soon-to-be aftercare program. He will have forgotten about the adamant defiance he exhibited this morning. Maybe the rest of the evening we'll have one or two more battles and we'll start fresh tomorrow with new mercies like our Lord gives. Right now we take it one step at a time and are working on two days with no negative response from him as we teach him our response and love should not be conditional to what happens in our lives – through the good and bad.

So though we may feel like we're going back to parenting school as we learn from trial and error how to parent two boys, but it's really God who is the teacher to us through it all. The Lord shows his unconditional compassion and love to me when I am defiant, stubborn, prideful, and unwilling. I'm just passing along how my Father above parents me – the best I know how. I hope He gets a few laughs and smiles at the beauty of it all.