Baby love.

The littlest Little won't let them out of her sight.  The three others are a constant part of her consciousness.  They leave, she cries.  They act silly, she giggles.  They play with her, she is over the moon.  Then she pulls their hair, they cry.  Such is the cycle of life.
 
Recently I was watching H3 and the Littlest H in the tub. H3 was playing and H4 was just watching, intently taking in all that her big sister was doing.  The longer I watched the more evident it became that H4 was studying her. She might as well have been taking notes.
 
We all know this is how it goes, the youngsters learn from the older generations.  It is not rocket science.  Yet, we are all surprised to some degree when our children parrot one of our expressions or randomly bust out their hidden ability to recite something another sibling has been working on. Or, how about when a younger one mimics the exact way an older one throws a fit.  That one is not so surprising. It is traumatic. Children are fantastically great at sitting back and taking their world in.

I spend an awful lot of my time exercising my elder responsibilities by helping my youngsters learn.  I teach, instruct, discipline, correct, nag, model, encourage, yell, remind, lead ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY.  Frankly, it is exhausting. Especially when I remember that a significant portion of their learning experience will be what they observe me doing when I forget they are watching.  Just typing this makes me want to take a nap.

Alas, it is my job to teach my children. A job I attempt to accept with utter humility because most days I feel fully ill-equipped. So much so that sometimes I wonder if it is my fear of being ill-equipped that often drives my "leadership" style.  I use the word leadership loosely, lest you feel like I am actually parenting using some sort of plan or method. Unless you can call "winging it" a technique,  I am flying by the seat of my pants most days.

There is however, one trend in my parenting that I can identify with some clarity.  I've observed more than once, that the more insecure I feel with what is going on in my kids' lives, the more strict (harsh) I become with them.  If fear creeps into how I see my children, I immediately default into control mode.  I want to eliminate my fear and the easiest way I know how to do this is to manufacture enough sense of safety by manipulating my environment and my people by ordering them around.  Think drill-sergeant. Or as I have endearingly come to think of it, white-knuckle parenting.
 

White-knuckle parenting is destructive and ineffective at best. 

Simply because it is based in fear.

  

This last semester of home school with my biggest Little, it started to happen again.  My insecurity in how things were progressing in his academics increased, and right along with it came some first class white-knuckle parenting.  I defaulted and went above and beyond to make sure he was performing at a level I deemed "safe".  This included some super attempts at controlling his every move.  As you can imagine, it made for an equally not super home environment, mom, and kid.

I slowly came to realize that in my attempts to secure the perimeter, I stopped seeing the actual kid within the perimeter.  I wasn't instructing or teaching or leading my boy- I was entertaining my fear.  I  had started seeing him as only the sum of his accomplishments, not the depth of his heart.  I was focusing in on his struggles and had become oblivious to his strengths.  I was holding him up to the world's standards and turned blind to God's gifting on his life.  I was forcing compliance instead of listening openly to his frustrations. In short, I created an impossible standard for the biggest Little because the only "safe" thing for me to expect was perfection.
 
He recognized his inability to measure up long before I did. Naturally, he shut down.  For awhile I tried shouting louder.  Until I finally stopped yelling altogether.
  
Things got real depressing in our house and the opposite of fun. I can only operate in an un-fun, dark environment for so long. Drastic measures were required.  Our normal had become completely ineffective, so in a moment of desperation, I flipped the script- but not before taking away all of his electronics until the end of time.  I forced myself to let go of my fear.  I gave H1 complete control of when and how he completed his work for the last month of school.  It was momentarily terrifying, truly inconvenient and definitely NOT a way I could home school all the time. (This momma needs more structure than that.)

But that letting go allowed me to regain clarity.  I started watching my boy again.  Since I wasn't in control, I was free to sit back and observe.  For the first time all year I got a focused view of his likes and dislikes.  I gained a better idea of what he perceives as his strengths and difficulties.  Some of it shocked me, some of it I knew but had forgotten, but all of what I saw made me love my kid more.

See, you can't love a standard.  You can't love an insecurity and you can't love your fear.  You might hold tight to those things, but you cannot love them.  

I promise. 

What you can love though, is a person.

 
It seems to me that when I try to control others I inadvertently step out of the relationship, even (especially) with my kids.  As Josh McDowell says, rules without relationship equals rebellion.  If I am making rules and setting boundaries just to please me, without any consideration for WHO the person IS that I am setting them for- that is me, being controlling. It makes rebellion imminent.
 
Me setting boundaries- good.  Me enacting consistent  and fair consequences for breaking boundaries- necessary.  My attempts to control another human being- destructive and alienating. Now, maybe some of you parents out there disagree, and have found a way to manage your children's behavior with more controlling techniques, and to this I say, Sweet! You found your method.  However, for me- it backfires. Every single time.

I want my babies to do their best.  Like every parent.  Yet, when I become ultra focused on their performance I lose sight of what their best even is.  I replace "their best" with "my expectations" and like I said before, if I am fearful, my expectations go sky-high.  Right to the standard of perfection. If said child isn't behaving precisely as I deem acceptable- well then, in my mind it is further proof that we are failing.  And then fear is just knocked up another notch. It is a cycle of doom.

As I write this I can feel guilt and grief bubbling up.  This is so simple, so obvious.  How in the world do I even let it happen???? I think the answer to that question is also the solution.  Just a different response to it.  And I think the answer is love.

I love my babies so so so so so much.  I love them so much I get afraid.  Afraid of failing them. Control sneaks in like a thief and tricks me into thinking that I can actually save them from me- do you see how jacked up that is?  If I am scared I am messing them up, then the very last common sense approach would be to force more of me upon them. Right?! I am a mess, people.

 Then John the Beloved whispers truth to this bruised and obviously confused part of my heart. I am again reminded:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear is by suspicion , but he who fears is not grown up in love."

1 John 4:18

Who is love?  God is love.  Do I trust Him with my fears or am I suspicious of His motivations towards me and my family? Do I trust His words in Isaiah 41:10, "Fear not for I am with you..."?  DO I BELIEVE THEM, or are they just old fashioned pretty pillow embroidery words or maybe something modern for an encouraging meme?  If I am honest, I fear. This fear? It reveals the depths of my immaturity in love. Both in how I fail to trust my God to love me and how I neglect to trust Him to love my children.

Tears now, because Jesus didn't leave me hanging on this one.  He foresaw this struggle and he wrote me a prescription:

  

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it ABIDES in the vine, neither can you, unless you ABIDE IN ME.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever ABIDES in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING.  If anyone does not ABIDE in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  If you ABIDE in me, and my words in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  By this my Father is glorified, that you MATURE as my disciples."

John 15:1-8 (emphasis mine)

Q. Do I want my love for my children to mature, mature past the place of fear based, white-knuckled parenting?  Beyond the need to control? 

A. YES!!!!  A million times yes.

  

Then the place to start is in Jesus.  ABIDING in him.  The Greek word for abide is meno, and it means to stay, wait or remain.  This is the opposite of control.  It is actually an invitation to release control. To trust his love for me, to trust his love for my children.  This is my call to loosen my fists and relax my white knuckles.  To abide is to let Him be God, and let me be His child and a student of Jesus. It sort of reminds me of my baby in the bath, just sitting back, watching and learning from her big sister. That baby has no control- she is at the mercy of the ones who love her.  Thankfully she can trust us.  Just like I can, if I so choose, to trust Him who loves me.

 I would be a liar if I told you I knew what this resting was supposed to look like.  I actually have had several conversations recently just trying to hammer it out something that resembles a plan.  But I don't have much. I'll level with you, I am a supremely immature lover of souls.  There, I feel better already just typing it.

We have decided to home school another year. How will I make it a year of abiding and not a year of more white knuckles?  LOL, I DON'T KNOW! But, I think I do know where to start.  I will start at the beginning.  Again, like my baby in the bathtub studying her older sister.  I will surrender myself to the Good Teacher.  I will watch and learn.  This momma-teacher will become the student.  A student of Jesus and a student of my Littles.  If I want to trust God and learn from Him, I need to stay in relationship with Him. If I want my Littles to trust me and learn from me, I need to stay in relationship with them- not in control of who they are.  

THIS is my summer manifesto: to meno. 

Just one word to say all of this... 

I will submit control and abide instead.  

I will remain in Jesus and in this resting, allow myself to sit back and watch my babies play and engage with their world.  

I will make space for resting moments where the only parenting I do is observing the 4-H's. 

I will resist criticisms and save corrections, waiting for really important matters. 

I will try to again learn who my kids are, who they have become, who they are becoming. 

I will trust that God holds them as He holds me.  

I will let go. 

I will take the Littles in with my eyes and my heart and allow myself to respond like a baby to their play: if they laugh I will laugh, if they cry I will be moved.  

I will be able to do this because I am choosing to see them free of my fear- 

I will see them as the already loved, protected, cherished children of God that they are.

I will see myself as the already loved, protected, cherished child of God that I am.

  

This momma wants to stop pulling hair like an ignorant, overly excitable baby and making the kids cry.  I want to grow up. grow up in love. The kind of love that has no room for fear or control. This is me, endeavoring for a white-knuckle free summer.