You Keep On Pressing On

We all want the best for our children. I know I do. And I think we all try to instill in our children that they should try to do what is honest and meaningful and truthful so that they could not only be content with themselves but also be a blessing to others.

Yet, this is not something that happens overnight. It can takes days, months, and for some children years and years to understand. Not to mention play out in their everyday lives.

While I know that, and have learned more patience than I thought I ever would, I still can't help but think to myself, "Come on child. Isn't this the day that you are going to realize that what you are doing is self destructive and of no benefit to anyone including yourself? Aren't you tired of living this way? Aren't you tired of having to live with yet one more ridiculous lie under your belt, one more disruptive day at school, one more day of having a particular privilege taken away?"

One of my daughter's is famous for lying. How embarrassing to say that about my child. Often, I want to give my child the benefit of the doubt---- she must have finally had something click in her head-- right? This has surely got to be the last time she lies to my face.

But I am wrong. My daughter is just not there yet. I guess you can call her a late bloomer in the honesty department. Just take a look at the other day.

I asked two of my daughter's to hang up their jackets. One had a few more of hers to hang up-- a few in the hall closet and a few in her bedroom closet. I supervised her hanging up the jackets in the hall closet and followed up with her about remembering to hang up the ones in her room. She not only acknowledged that she knew, but she promised that she would, so I went into the kitchen. A few minutes later I saw my daughter heading outside to play.

"Did you hang up all of the jackets, even in your room?"

"Yes Mom, I promise."

"Great thanks. It is times like these where you didn't argue with me and did what was asked that helps to earn back trust from me."

So I let her go out and play. I thought I covered my bases. I followed up, praised her outside of conflict, and let her know that her honesty and hard work earned back some of my trust.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful for her except for forgetting once again to put her dirty clothes in the hamper.

Fast forward to the next morning. I walk into the girls' bedroom to find a pile of jackets on the floor.

"What's this?" I asked.

One girl quickly answered, "I found these shoved in the back of the closet behind my shoe box."

After further investigating, I found out that they were the jackets I had asked you know who to hang up.

So, I went to talk to you know who.

I told her about the pile of jackets on the floor and asked her if she indeed hung up the jackets yesterday. She answered yes and yes repeatedly and even offered to show me.

I must tell you, she was convincing.

When she saw the jackets, she started acting like she had no clue how they got on the floor. As she went round and round with her excuses, she admitted to having only hung up two of the jackets and hiding the rest.

This is classic. Admitting that half of what you said was a lie---- as if that makes you look somewhat honest. We had no doubt what the truth was and let our daughter know how silly she sounded admitting to hiding only two of the jackets--- as if the other two jumped off their hangers to hide with the rest.

Eventually the whole truth and nothing but the truth came out, but the damage was done once more.

By lying to us while looking into our eyes, our daughter once more was at ground zero in the trust department.

By lying to us--- her sisters have little faith in her that she is capable of being truthful. Yet, they compassionately give her new chances almost everyday.

By lying to us, she has shown us that she is not ready for more responsibility.

By lying to us, she has broken previous promises to not lie anymore.

The list can go and on, but I know you catch the drift.

This happens on a regular basis still and often times it is worse than the example I gave.... but this child has come so far so I have faith that she will eventually get there. Our whole family can now leave money out on our dressers-- rest assured that it won't go missing. I can trust that she won't wittingly try to convince her teacher that I don't pack her big enough lunches. I can see that she is making effort and that it is a very hard step in the right direction for her. To unlearn behaviors that she has depended on for many years to get her through life has been tough-- like rocking, overeating, tuning people out....... but I do see improvement. I constantly tell her about the positive differences that I see and how that is how I know she is so darn amazing. I have went out on a limb and also told her that I noticed that when I used to comment on how pretty her nails looked because she wasn't biting them, she would go and intentionally bite them. I honestly told her that her doing that made me sad. She acknowledged that she did indeed go and sabatoge all of her own efforts if I postively commented about it, and because I have pointed it out, she is actually more accepting of my praise and allows herself to feel proud of herself.

To be honest, this child is a handful for both John and I. But to be honest, I am learning to be a better parent because of her. And for some reason, God keeps showing me over and over why He put her in our care. I won't question Him---- not now-- not ever. He loves this child and so do I.