I’ve also noticed that around 7 years old a different attitude can start to emerge; my 9-year-old is just pulling out of a tendency to complain and be negative. You’ve gotten some great advice, and there were a few other things I thought I’d mention.
– Habits – if I can pare the issue down to a few habits, sometimes it makes it seem a bit less overwhelming to deal with. It is very hard when the child is a moody or disobedient mess at some stages, but sometimes I find myself upset with a child a good deal of the time (and showing it) and know that it becomes a cycle that is hard to break. Pick the most compelling issue, and begin with that. For one of my guys at that age, the habit was one of complaining, while for another it was disobedience/laziness when asked to do something. You’ve likely read CM’s thoughts on this and perhaps Laying Down the Rails, and those thoughts helped me tremendously in disciplining not just my child, but myself to respond to each and every time the chosen issue reared its head. It required much more diligence on my part, but one at a time we’d see each issue dwindle and then could choose another – while maintaining discipline on the first.
– Our 25 Family Ways is a fantastic devotional by the Clarksons that’s helped us deal with many discipline/heart issues in a scriptural way that doesn’t single out one child, but can be done with the family and uses scripture to teach about how we interact as a family – we are grateful, we share, etc. Highly recommended as a 15-minute-per day devotional.
– Which brings me to the last thought – heart issues. You may be light years ahead of where I was, but in my earlier parenting (my oldest are almost 20 and 22), I looked very much at the outward behavior and tried hard (and often unsuccessfully!) to control it. My daughter, now a young woman, was an extremely willfull little girl and I can really identify with what you posted. With this younger group of kids (9-14) God has gently shown me that there’s a heart issue underlying the behavioral issue. What that means for me is lots of prayer for that child, for patience to deal with them as God would have me do, for wisdom to understand them and the way to best approach the issues, for God’s intervention in the child’s heart.
Ok, I lied, one more thought. I was also guilty of talk, talk, talking too much with my older kids about why I was asking them to do things, why they should be more grateful, etc, as if I could convince them. I am much more apt now to lay out the expectations for behavior and calmly give them a consequence if they choose to ignore the expectations – and to call it their choice, which it is. So ingratitude might result in fewer options or special things. Continual boredom and complaining about it might result in chores to “help keep you busy.” Poorly done chores with complaining might result in more, “for practice.”
Try not to take it personally, hard as it is (I am sorry, I feel for you, it is so hard sometimes!). They’re all little persons trying to figure out how to deal with that free will thing we were given, and we need to keep gently showing them the way as God keeps gently doing for us. You are doing a good job, faithful mama.
Blessings,
Aimee
