I want to start this post by stating without at doubt and so everyone hears me clearly I AM NO PARENTING EXPERT. If there ever has been anything I have done in my life that has humbled me more...it is parenting. Just when I think I have it under control the rug gets ripped from beneath my expert parenting ways and I find myself looking at the wall asking God, "what now?". There was never a time I felt this more than when my husband left and I had two small children. We separated twice in their young lives, but the final time was when Emma Kate was 4 and Meg had just turned 3. Those were dark days and I am sad to say that the girls got whatever was left of me and not my first fruits. I was just surviving.
I have a friend that I am watching now go through a similar situation. She has lost her husband and is left with five children under the age of 12 and a business to run that she has no idea how to run. Until now, she has home schooled four out of the five and has been a stay-at-home mom. She now finds herself meeting with attorneys and banks and CPAs and trying to figure out how to salvage the business that provides for her family. She also feels that she is giving her kids the leftovers.
In situations where we as parents are grieving it is hard to give to our kids. We do because that is who we are. We are still Mommy and still Daddy, but we are overwhelmed with our own emotions. We try to be strong in front of them and grieve alone, but they are smarter than we think. Even a baby can tell when Mommy just isn't herself. There is a temptation in these situations to give a little more to the kids and slack up a bit and that is certainly what I did. I would say to anyone in a crisis to fight that feeling. If there was ever a time your kids need structure and rules it is now. They need to know that if yesterday fighting with their brother got them put in their room that today that is also the case. You see their world is set up by your rules and boundaries for them. If sassy talk gets them alone time or an earlier bedtime then that is still the rule. Easier said than done.
When we are in a crisis and we feel that we are giving our kids our leftovers our guilt says to ease up on them. Or that their acting out is because of the situation the family finds themselves in. Sometimes that may be true, but truer than that is a testing of the boundaries that kids do naturally when they feel their world tilting. The best thing you can do as a parent is reassure them by being the Mom or Dad that you were the day before your crisis.
Now here is the honest part...I know all of this because I didn't do this always. As a single mom I gave in and I moved boundaries and I parented from fear and guilt. And I reaped what I sowed. I had 2 little girls who were not always well behaved and took advantage of their mother. This became glaringly apparent when I met my husband and we blended our family. I continue to deal with behavior in my girls that was cemented in those days of single parenthood. I will tell you...it is much harder now to go back and undo at 10 and 11 than it would have been to have just stayed the course at 3 and 4. What keeps me on track now is that it is easier to get this in hand at 10 and 11 than it will be at 15 and 16.
I have been int that place where I was too tired to get up and make the girls do what I had asked so they win by my lack of follow through. As their primary parent what am I teaching them? If they can outlast me, they get their way. In a bigger context what am I teaching them about obedience to God and other authority figures? The same. If my child sasses me and makes me feel guilty because she knows how to push my buttons and I give her what she wants instead of what she needs, what have I taught her? Manipulation works. I know all of this because I have taught my girls all of those things by the way I have parented them. By God's grace I am working to undo those mistakes now, but if I can encourage any of you who are in the early stages of crisis, please don't make the same mistakes I made. It is a slow fade, but guilt and fear and not your friends in parenting.
If you have a crisis in your life, divorce, death of a spouse, loss of a child, financial difficulties that change your lifestyle...don't let it change your parenting. Kids need boundaries and rules. It is how they feel safe and if there are none or they shift then the kids don't feel as safe. So in a crisis the BEST thing you can do for your child is to strengthen the rules and boundaries. It is also the hardest.
Ephesians 6:1 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother--which is the FIRST commandment with a promise--that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on earth"
By not asking for obedience and honor from our children we are stripping them of the promise that it may go well with them.
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