Daughter is having a hard time adjusting to the Teenager's absence, and it manifests itself in negative behaviors. She is now afraid of the dark and storms, and lies awake at night as a result. Her physical exhaustion snowballs into even more Daughter Drama. Daughter's stubborn streak has become more apparent, and she is regularly testing boundaries.
In some ways, it's like the first month she moved in with us. Our fights were legendary. There was the time I wouldn't let her get a movie from the grocery store, so she sat down in the middle of the aisle in protest. And I left her there. (She wasn't expecting that one). There was the time she tried to run away from me when I insisted I was going to brush her hair. She tried to evade me by running around the kitchen island. I was faster. Or the time she refused to brush her teeth with regular toothpaste. So I brushed them for her.
But it has gotten much harder. When Daughter was eleven and we clashed over movies, the parent-child role was clear. Now, when Daughter is sixteen and we clash, I am balancing my parent role with Daughter's need for more decision-making control in her life. And that is hard for me. At what point does Daughter get to make her own decisions about what she wants to do? Does it matter that Daughter might make decisions that will socially alienate people? Most children are given decision making control at the point where they are rationally able to make good decisions. Does it matter that Daughter's decision making process will always be different from my own?
Parenting Daughter is so hard. Right now, it's a job riddled with frustration, guilt and discouragement, caused in part by Daughter's limitations but mostly due to my own lack of patience.
Web Site Hit Counters
No comments:
Post a Comment
Reminder: The Administrator deletes messages that identify freetobeme350 :-)