Disaster.
The wondrous effect of that poor choice was this his mood, from the minute his feet hit the ground, stunk in a royal sort of way. He refused to eat breakfast, he missed the bus and then to further make his day worse, he used his free will to "show us" that we aren't the boss of him by choosing to skip packing his lunch.
Here's a kid who has historically struggled with school, knows that he functions poorly with little sleep and food and water and announced with stubborn pride last night that he had made it a whole day without drinking anything. Nope, he wasn't performing a spiritual fast, but rather asserting his independence once again by "showing us" that he doesn't need any advice regarding how to take care of HIS body.
So what did we do as parents?
If this had been the first time that this sort of thing had happened (which it wasn't; not by a mile!), we would have tried to reason with him, perhaps trying to force an exploration as to what was causing his hard feelings, or maybe we'd even cave and save the day by running him a lunch and a water bottle to school later knowing that by 10:30 a.m. he'd be regretting his choices in a big, big way.
Nope. Call us hardcore.
We didn't give in to his manipulation nor are we going to rescue him from his choices no matter how sad it makes me as a mom knowing that he's going to have a really hard day today at school. Sure there are times that require parents to step back and see what they're doing to cause a child to feel the need to assert their independence or willfully rebel if things are too strict at home. But there are also ages and personalities that just tend to behave in this sort of way more often than not. We've got one of those and it's no walk in the park.
Unfortunately, the result of HIS choices affects how things will be at home once he returns. His decisions starting with last night's "all-nighter" has begun a domino effect for how things will go for the rest of today: He'll be tired, hungry, moody, will take his frustrations out on the family which will then lead to time in his room where he'll most likely be shouting that we all hate him and that his life is horrible.
Yep. Been there and done that scene with this kid often enough to know how it'll end. And this won't be the last time.
My point is, is that we can teach him what's right and what's best, but he has to want to do those things for himself. He's only going to truly learn from the consequences and it may take a lot of those repeat cycles for him to finally tie them back to the decision that HE made rather than blame everyone and everything around him.
I thought a lot about self-sabotage this morning on the way to driving him to school while he gave me the silent treatment. It made me wonder how much worse God must feel when He sees us shooting ourselves in the foot. I was so saddened this morning that this child would choose what he did for himself against all efforts of reasoning with him, knowing that at the end of the day he would think that he had not only a bad day, but a bad life, instead of realizing that he simply just plain had a bad attitude.
And I told him that. And his masterful "stink eye" just grew fiercer from the back seat. (I'm still not even sure why I was getting the look of death, but irrationality doesn't lend to doing things that make sense.)
It made me remember of times past when I was armed with knowledge of the right choices, warned of the impending consequences, was given clear and simple instructions on how to find happiness and despite all of those gifts, chose to do things my way and then gave God the stink eye from the backseat when He was right and I was wrong. Ever have that happen? Sure you have!
My job now is to remind myself as I often do with my kids, that my job is to allow him to learn and to grow in his own time and in his own way. I could force him to (fill in the blank)____________, but at his age and in this situation, what would that accomplish?--a robbery of his agency, resentment, and a lack of coming to know, really know for himself.
He will as some point later in the week come to me and talk about what happened and why and I will give him a hug and tell him that I love him even when he can be hard to love. He'll then smile and say, "Mom, remind me to listen to you next time!" To which I will wish that I again had someone recording this to play back to him at some not too distant date in the future.
*sigh*
In the meantime, that classic 90's Beastie Boys' song about sabotage will be blaring in my head.
Until next time!!
~Arianna
P.S. If you recognize catching yourself in the cycle of sabotage (or wonder if that's what's keeping you from making progress in your own life), I shared some great links yesterday on Facebook. Sometimes we do these sorts of things out of youthful pride, but as adults, it's more often a result of negative self-talk and self-image.
It's really worth our time to learn to recognize and understand why and what we're really thinking about ourselves in any given circumstance. The wise proverb about "as a man think, so is he" is TRUTH! (More to come about that next time.) Here's some excellent reading and some final thoughts!
http://blog.iqmatrix.com/overcome-self-sabotage
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201109/dodging-emotions-the-help-harms
