the choice is yours

This is my beautiful girl, Emmaleigh. As I've said before, she was and is my first real challenge and my first glimpse at God's amazing love. She has many awesome characteristics and gives me joy, but that is not the topic of this post.

Deep at the core of Emma dwells an incredibly strong will. I started to see it shortly after she turned 1 year old. She responds to discipline with disdain. I've often thought that our battles would be the end of my sanity. Then I remember the stories of my own willful childhood, say a prayer of thanks for my wonderful mother and delve in for another round.

Since Emma turned 3, her reasoning is better and she chooses to obey more often. I love it. Oh, I love it. I love obedience. I should make a t-shirt that says, "I love obedience." She is a delightful girl that I enjoy very much.

Of course we still have battles. Some of the issues, I recently realized, are of my own making. Emma responds very well to threats, so I use them all the time. You can often here this at my house:

 

"It's time to go, please find your shoes and get in the car."

"Where are your shoes? Why didn't you put them on? We need to go. Put on your shoes."

"All right. Your shoes are still not on and we need to go. Get your shoes on now. If you do not have your shoes on by the time I come back in this room, you will get a ______ (Prov. 13:24)."

Miraculously, when I come back in the room, her shoes are on and she is running to get in the car. Even though I am not a 1-2-3 threat kind of mom, in my own way I am still giving her a lot of leeway before she needs to finally obey. 

Now that I have this figured out and I am thoroughly tired of repeating myself and threatening until I am blue in the face and irritated beyond measure, it was time to tighten the rains/reigns (I have no idea how to spell the word that describes the thing on the bridle of the horse to makes it obey). This week my goal was to threaten less, repeat myself no more, and tighten the thing on the bridle of a horse that makes it obey -- only on my kid.

So, fresh home from a stop at the library and lunch with Jeff, I told Emma to go in the house, go potty, and get in bed. I know full well that she is capable of following 3 commands because she would easily obey if I said, "Go in the house, pull the chair over and get as many chocolate chips as you want. Go ahead, go for it." Then just watch her jump.

Since Emma was so well trained  not to obey me at the first utterance of my command, I added, "I am not saying this again. Go inside now and go potty and climb in bed or..... (and this is the biggy).... you will not get to watch a movie from the library after you rest." She did not believe me, obviously, because about 5 minutes later, I found her outside playing with her cat and she hid when she saw me coming. I eventually got her into bed, crying and kicking and screaming because she does not do anything well that is not her idea. I did not make my threat again, because I knew the time would come.

The time came and she ran to me after a good rest with a movie in her hand. She was all smiles. She had forgotten our scuffle and her disobedience like she always does. I reminded her of our deal, the battle we had a few hours previously and again said, "No movie today. You did not listen when we got home today and I told you this would happen. You made the choice to not obey." Oh, heavens! You would have thought her little world ended. She screamed and cried, I gave out some generous _______ (Prov. 13:24), time outs and I repeated our agreement. "Next time I hope you choose to obey when I tell you to do something and then you will get to do the fun things that obedient girls get to do."

By the way, these pictures have nothing to do with my story, they are just pictures of my sweet Emma and I needed something to get the bad taste out of my mouth as I re-live that horrid afternoon when Emma realized her fierce, painful consequence.

She eventually got through the day, begging and pleading at every turn for the movie. She even turned on the smiles and said, "God made me happy now. Please can I watch the movie?" Nope. Nope. Nope. Sorry kid. When I repeated the consequence, God's happiness quickly faded from her life (sometimes this happens to me too, so I understand). I called my sister who has vast experience with a child who can't let something go and she was not much help. She said you just have to ride it out, see it through, ya da ya da ya da. It is much harder than it sounds.

The next day started bright and beautiful and I could not have predicted how lovely my little girl was acting. I had to go shopping and she was an angel. I had to rush her and she kept up with a smile. I told her to get out of the car when we arrived home after lunch, go inside, go potty, and climb in to bed. She immediately obeyed and started inside. Her kitten rubbed her leg and purred as she passed and and I heard her say, "Sorry, Kitty. I have to go inside now. I'll see you next time."

After her nap she got to watch her movie. We've had a few scuffles in the last days, but nothing major. I tell her the consequence for disobeying and let her decide. I'm done threatening and repeating myself. It left me weary and frustrated. It is still alot of work to train my child, but I pray I continue to see the benefits of my delightful, happy, loving, and obedient girl.