Parenting recently has been a little bit brutal. I have one child with emotional breakdowns and some attitude flaring out of nowhere, I have one child that likes to attack the youngest and has some passive/aggressive defiance going on, and my youngest abounds in energy and is into EVERYTHING! It is easy to feel deflated at the end of the day thinking that our parenting is getting nowhere. Usually I will then turn to my parenting resources. I absolutely love reading parenting books and moms blogs and getting tips on how to combat bad behavior. While I love getting a new tip and having it work, usually it is short lived. I think I can get lost in all the parenting resources and become very confused on what I should be doing for discipline.
Yesterday was pretty rough. I would like to say that it ended wrapped up in a pretty bow and we all had feel good feelings at the end of the day. That is not what happened, but I felt less pressure and stress on myself because I spent the morning throwing my hands in the air and saying, “God, I can’t do this alone. I have no idea what to do with this child right now and I am turning this situation over to you.” I don’t feel like an answer came floating down from Heaven and I don’t feel like I am on top of my parenting game, but I do feel like the situation is out of my hands. (Which it is anyway!) I feel so much better when I place my children’s lives into their creator’s hands.
Parenting has been something that I will occasionally turn over to God and then I will get a little too self-reliant and take it back. It is very illogical to think that I can do better for my kids than God can, but I think that is what I am saying by my behavior. By taking back my parenting worries, joys, concerns, etc, I am taking God out of it and setting myself up for failure.
I am not saying that having a program, schedule, or using parenting resources is a bad thing. I believe that God sends us these things for support in our lives. What I am saying is that we need to relinquish our illusion of control over our children’s lives to God. After we have turned over our cares for our children in prayer, then we can listen and see how God wants us to proceed. God may then have us implement a schedule, program, or use a parenting resource, but we can’t replace God with these things.
When I think about my ultimate goal as a mother, it would be to have my children come to know Jesus and love him with all their hearts. I pray this over my kids mostly everyday. I know that only God is in charge of what my children believe. When I turn them over to Him daily, then I know that they are in His hands and he will bring them to Him. No parenting book, diet, family rule book, or schedule is going to enter my children’s hearts like Christ can. I need to remember to go to Him before anything else, and that is the best parenting tip I could give to anyone.