Round 1,170 goes to...Ryan!

Yesterday was supposed to be the end our of our school year, and we were supposed to have a fun celebration dinner last night, after all of which I was supposed to have written a victorious post here celebrating the completion of our year.



But yesterday was one of the days on which Ryan literally woke up screaming at me. Do you ever wonder if some days your children have it out for you - if they just really want to see how much you can take from them and still love them unconditionally? :-) Ryan, a classic spirited child, has those kinds of days often, and yesterday was definitely one of them. He was screaming because he could not have any of his immediate requests - "requests" like, "I want ice cream for breakfast" - and he did not like any of my alternative suggestions. We eventually reached a compromise, but it was a temporary one, as this kind of scenario repeated itself throughout the day, and all we accomplished as far as school was one history coloring page. We had arranged a park playdate for late in the morning, and by the time we were ready to leave, the house was a disasterous mess. As a homeschooling mom and an adherent to attachment parenting, I am supposed to relax about this and let it all go... but all the same, it WOULD have been good to have a feeling of order and accomplishment to my morning. If not, an more satisfying trade-off would have been the knowledge that I spent some priceless moments with my children, and not, as it happened on the morning in question, that Ryan screamed at me, opposed my every wish and instruction, and fought everyone else over everything they had at any given moment... also that, taking advantage of my being distracted by dealing with one child, Chase climbed all over the furniture to his constant possible peril (but great personal delight), and the older ones did pretty much whatever they pleased, relieved that they had escaped from any unpleasantries such as school or chores. But on to the park we went, and I was hoping the fresh air and change of scenery would do everyone some good. Ryan, however, continued to push the boundaries there a little, and then even more so again when we returned home. I didn't feel I was completely at a loss, mind you, but just the doing in dealing with a day (and a person!) like this is exhausting, and by late afternoon I had to retreat to the bathroom to have a good cry. This actually had some therapuetic effect, but I was still ready to hand everyone off to Dave when he arrived home from work later. As I was trying to explain our day and mentioning that Ryan's behaviour had been so extreme that I had been driven to tears, Dave replied in some bewilderment, "How could he make you cry?" I decided he didn't have to understand exactly how a preschooler could drive his mother to tears, as long as he just kept said preschooler outside while I went in to make dinner.

So if it were a battle, this round, on Day 1, 170 of Ryan's life, went to Ryan. But as it's not a battle, I did tell Ryan I loved him oh, so much, as Dave carried him off to bed later, and I then recovered my strength for the next day. I also reaffirmed my determination to avoid making parenting Ryan a power struggle - mostly because if I did that, he would almost always win! He is such a strong, intense soul, and it cannot be that it is my job to "break his will", as I have often heard expressed as a parenting goal. I know that his will must be bent toward that of his Creator, but I don't believe that's my job. I can only imagine the raised eyebrows at church if I said that out loud! :-) But I'll clarify - I do believe I must show him the Way, that I must teach him and guide him, giving him bounadaries to discipline his heart, mind, and body, and allowing him to feel natural consequences of poor choices - as well as the happy consequences of right ones. But if I make it MY goal, rather than the Lord's, to capture his heart, I run the huge risk of failing. If it becomes a struggle between my will and his, I will be constantly frustrated and possibly very dissapointed in the end. And I think it might shut doors of communication between us, even causing resentment in him and thus ultimately making him more likely to turn from the very Path to which we strive to draw him.