Stop Worrying About Your Kids-Part Two

So, what now? In every situational inventory (which is, basically, what that list of codependent behavior is), I‘ve learned through friends, programs, and experience, that’s it always most effective to list the good after the bad. That always leaves me feeling encouraged, hopeful, and having a better perspective. The inventory should end well and the parenting story will end well also. So here are some things that I’m working on that are healthy efforts in the midst of unhealthy behavior:

·         Keeping good boundaries-sometimes I’m on edge because I’m letting the kids get into my space too much, invade my time, ask for too much (to which I usually give too much), and I don’t make enough time for me. When Mom’s happy, everything is better. I’d like to use the rest of the saying, “then everybody’s happy,” but that’s not always how it works. Having boundaries also includes not doing things for my kids that they should be doing for themselves. I do want them to grow up and be able to do things for themselves. (only ten years to go!)

·         Allowing kids of all ages to experience consequences-As the book Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend teaches, consequences grow people up. When I don’t give consequences for negative behavior or don’t make my children follow through and/or accept consequences in their lives, I am giving them no reason to change and develop good behavior. Good consequences for good behavior is important too.

·         Being consistent-and let me clarify-I don’t mean PERFECTLY consistent. Perfection is not the goal. The goal is to do my best and get up every day and act like the woman God is calling me to be. I can’t do everything, be everything, and catch everything. My consistent efforts send the message that I’m not quitting, backing down, this is important, and I will not give up on this process.

·         Making quality time-The latest addition to our busy schedule is “ten minutes with Mom.” It could be anything from movies to card games or watching funny Youtube videos and it’s super simple. Our counselor even advised to give commentary while you are playing games to make sure that everyone is staying engaged. “oh, you have a yellow five card,” is an easy example. It’s also a great time to offer encouragement for positive behavior like, “thanks for not getting mad when you lost that game.” Lately, one of my teenagers and I haven’t been very fond of each other, but we played cards anyway and we left the door open. Things are getting better because of it.  

On that last bullet point, let me say something about not being very “fond of each other.” This is a hard process. Sometimes it good, but sometimes it’s not good at all. Sometimes good parenting means being the bad guy to my kid and not backing down. When they were small, it didn’t seem so significant because I had so much control over what they did. As my kids grow and become more independent, we have a lot more long periods of not being happy with each other. This has been sad because I feel like I’m losing some of the most precious years of their lives while we are at war with each other. However, if I’ve learned nothing else about healthy decisions, I have learned that people will often reject me when I choose to do the next right thing instead of giving in to their unhealthy behavior. I say “people” here because it’s not just kids that will do this. Sometimes people and kids punish us for not giving in to their poor, self-serving behavior. That hurts, but it will always pay off in the end. My kid may not like my choices, but I know when they grow up, they will see that I loved them and didn’t put my need for them to like me before their need for me to love them the way they needed to be loved-and that can mean TOUGH love too.

So…what if it fails? What if I do all this and they still rebel and turn away from me AND God?

Even if my children choose to reject the good lives and opportunities they have been given, I will always have the peace of knowing that I didn’t cause it, enable, perpetuate it, and I don’t have to live my life in guilt because I helped them fail. And-someday they will run back because they will know the difference between right and wrong and remember how much God and I loved them.

And what’s the worst thing that can happen to them? If God promised that if we raise our children up in the instruction of the Lord, that they will not depart from it, then should I be worried? If He promises to take everything that Satan meant for evil and use it for good, shouldn’t I be resting in the peace that we belong to Jesus and EVERY thing in our lives will be used for our good? Fear and stress are from the enemy and they should be red flags that tell me that I need to turn back to God and give my life, my family, and the outcome to Him over and over again.

And SO WHAT if they make mistakes?! Every person I admire is a mistake maker and usually someone who has suffered and overcome their circumstances. God uses those broken overcomers to lead people out of lives of darkness and into His marvelous light. I’ve never read St. Paul’s beautiful writings and thought, “his story would mean a lot more to me if he hadn’t murdered all those people!” How far God brought St. Paul makes his life magnify the power of God to deliver and set free!  And furthermore, when my world fell apart, it was the adulterers, former prostitutes, addicts, convicts, rejects, and other lost and found sheep that God surrounded me by to carry me until I could walk. They loved me extravagantly and committed themselves to me and my family because someone had done that for them. Now my family does the same for others.

What have I been doing? I’ve been trying to keep my kids from being like the people that I admire most!!! This is ridiculous! Of course, I don’t WANT my kids to make horrible mistakes, but I could be standing in the way of God’s will for them by trying to hold on to them so tightly. He will work out their lives for his glory and for the building of the kingdom of God. He will get them to heaven and that’s the most important thing I should be hoping for them. The bottom line is that my kids and I can’t have His will for us until I. Let. Go.

God, forgive me for trying to save my kids from Your plan. Forgive me for not trusting you to do what’s right and best. Give me the grace to love them as you lead them down the good path that You have planned, regardless of how that plan looks. 

P.S. If any of my kids are reading this, NO, you cannot have your phones back. Go flush the toilet.  

Stop Worrying About Your Kids (and other things God has asked me to do that are difficult)

Lately, I have really been struggling with the stress of parenting. It’s hard to pinpoint it to one thing, but here are my “serenity breakers”  in the area of parenting:

·         Kids fighting, bickering, bullying, arguing, and generally offending one another; which fills the house with strife and ruins many of the family activities/outings that we attempt. (hey-lets go spend $30 on expensive ice cream so we can all fight in front of the general public!)

·         Kids breaking rules. One of my least favorite: Kids taking food without asking-yes, I know that sounds stingy of me, but I feel disrespected when the kids eat things without asking. It makes it difficult to plan meals ahead. This results in thinking that I have food/ingredients that I don’t really have and leaves me without what I need for meals and packed lunches. Of course, I could just run to the store every day. No big deal. Right? Not to mention that it would be too easy to throw the wrappers, boxes, and half eaten items in the trash. That’s too cliché? Not daring enough? I really don’t know why, but it’s APPARENTLY way easier to discard all those sticky and/or greasy decorations under furniture, in laundry baskets, behind the toilet, or ANYWHERE that would result in me transforming into a deranged lunatic when I find it. Why am I going into to such detail with this? Because I want you to understand that this makes me ABSOLUTELY INSANE! We can also add to the rule-breaking category: lying, peeing on the toilet seat, cleaning out the guinea pig cage and leaving the scat bag in some surprise location in the house, not flushing, leaving the back door open with the air on, leaving the deep freeze wide open in the summer, having a knife fight (not kidding), and hiding dirty socks and underwear (and all other dirty clothing) in the clean laundry baskets, inside furniture, the front yard, and various other locations. This is not the whole list, but I’m getting angrier as I type. I’ll stop there.

·         Kids making bad choices that could take them down on the wrong road in life or lead to addictions and major problems. How do I know that this could happen? Because I feel the pain of the some of the choices I made when I was their age every. day. of. my. life. No kidding. EVERY day. I’m mostly talking about my teenagers for this part.

Let me be the first to throw it out there that I’m not good at this phase of parenting. I’m not good at watching them grow up. I’m not good at looking at them and seeing them so grown up and not crying about the babies that I miss. I’m not good at the process of letting them go-especially when I see them messing up all the possibilities for good stuff later in life.

How do I know that they are messing up all those fantastic possibilities? Easy. I DON’T. And I have become totally consumed by a war against my children and their bad choices which I have hoped will result in their victory over all these things. And guess what? It’s driving me insane. So-the other day, I made an inventory of “my part” of this situation. Not just my part of their problems, but my part of ME not being in the right place mentally, having healthy thoughts, and managing my stress well. Here’s what I listed as “my part:”

·         When the kids are at their worst, I’ve usually deteriorated into break-down mode by then, which includes crying often, overeating, underactivity, disengagement, discouragement, and distraction. At that point, I’m usually just hoping that I can lecture them enough to get them to change, but I’m not really doing much good to divert, give vision, and keep them moving forward and engaged. It’s kind of like I’m protesting and acting like a well…you know…kid.

·         In regards to my stress level, I have fallen into some recovery issues, which I will call general codependency. Here are some codependent traits (from various 12 step book, AA/Al-Anon materials, and personal experience) which are affecting my state of mind:

o   Magical thinking-this is a very common trait for codependent people where they live in a fantasy world, imagining the attainment of perfection, being loved and needed, loving and giving your all for others, and imagining that things will somehow all end up okay. This is NOT reality and I can set myself up for some big smacks in the face when my wishbone is where my backbone should be.

o   Unrealistic expectations-there is a great 12-step-ism that says that “unrealistic expectations are pre-meditated resentments.” This is so true. I learned how to stop having unrealistic expectations of addicts, but it’s always much harder for me to utilize what I have learned about enabling addicts to my kids. My kids not only have the regular issues that come with being a kid, but they also lived in an alcoholic home for most of their lives, followed by the death of their dad. There are a lot of issues to work on and I am so afraid to lose this war that I have stopped choosing battles and started fighting everything. EVERYTHING. This, too, is insanity.

o   Pride & Perfectionism-When my kids were younger I was a VERY angry parent. I rode them constantly and punished harshly. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway. I couldn’t stop. It was all I had ever known. It poured out of me and, as much as I hated myself for it, I could NOT stop. I tried lots of methods of getting rid of my anger, but it wasn’t until I realized WHY I was so angry that I could do something lasting about it. I couldn’t blame it on my parents anymore and it wasn’t the kids’ faults. One night in a small group sharing time, I realized that it all came down to pride and perfection. I was trying to be perfect so I could be worthy of love and acceptance and I needed my kids to be perfect too. It was a sobering realization. I could picture all the times that I had been so hard on them-and all for the sake of MY perfection.

o   Self-destructive behaviors-When I was a teenager and early young adult, if I was stressed out (or not) I would have gotten drunk, high, and thrown a party. End of story. Dunzo. When I left that life behind me, I switched to food, wasting money, procrastination, isolation, and other habits that show my passive aggression, self-rejection, self-punishment, and general non-acceptance and dissatisfaction for life. It is difficult to manage kids when I’m living in this painful place of self-destructive behaviors.  There are many times that I am being hard on my kids for their behavior, knowing fully that I wouldn’t be so mad at them if I weren’t so mad at myself for my own behavior. I’m not going to beat myself up about this right now. I’m just going to give it to Jesus, my higher power, and ask Him to help me.

o   Playing God-The first step of recovery if to realize that I’m not God. What? I have NEVER thought I was God! I mean just because I think that I can save someone…fix their problems… determine the outcome of their lives…give them the answers that would change them…I mean…aren’t I responsible for how they turn out? I’m not? Oh, okay. Well…crap. This was a really painful one for me. My sponsor finally had to tell me, “Susej, you stop trying to play God. You can’t control how your kids respond to their dad’s death. You can’t control any of this.” I guess knowing is half the battle, but it’s still hard to not fall back into that. Either way, it doesn’t work, so I’m trying to stop going down that street all together.

To be continued…