I had to laugh when 1 Thessalonians 5:16 popped up in my daily devotional this morning. Clearly when Paul writes ‘Rejoice always’, he was not in the middle of trying to potty train a 2 year old! 😉 I thought I was ready, in fact I was even in a strange way looking forward to it. I found a great resource in the Oh Crap! Potty Training Method
Now I do not want to come across as a pessimist in any way but potty training is no walk in the park. Suffice to say if my husband hadn’t been home on the first day I think my daughter would’ve been back in diapers by lunchtime. Although if you’d asked him how he felt about the process when he was cleaning poop out of our brand new bath tub… 😉
I’m going to spare you the details of our journey so far. It’s still early days, I’m honestly still not sure if we can sustain the pace at this stage in my daughter’s development in my pregnant and highly hormonal state unless we hit a breakthrough. However if anyone is actively looking for a blow by blow account, then just feel free to ask. I could write a book about our 5 day experience so far. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you first…
So now that I’m far removed from the situation, enjoying a coffee and some alone time in Starbucks, I can breathe and reflect a little on some thoughts that have been whirring through my mind throughout this crazy, overwhelming process.
Embrace the child you have – quirks and all
This seems obvious but to be honest this is a huge one for me. Oh how I wanted my child to be one of these ‘textbook’ case studies in the book who potty train in 3 days. Although I didn’t necessarily verbalize it, my expectations were sky high. Yet in my quest for success, I forgot about the most important part of the process. My daughter. Her nature, her personality, her unique learning needs, her challenges, her strengths. With so many other milestones, my daughter has learned her own way, at her own pace. She has quirks with eating, she never followed the ‘rules’ with napping. She has a strong will and digs in when faced with change of any kind. Yet I don’t know why this time I expected her to act any differently when faced with a major life challenge or transition. Why was I expecting her to be any different than who she was created uniquely to be? I think sometimes we forget that our kids are really trying so hard at everything. They are doing their very very best. When their best doesn’t match up with what we’re reading in the latest parenting book or age checklist, it can be hard not to get discouraged. We think we’re doing something wrong, Or worse, that there’s something wrong with them.
I’m learning that as soon as we take our focus off them and start comparing them to their peers, we forget what’s important. We stop seeing them as little miracles of creation, gifted to us to love and raise, and instead see them as a list of tick boxes. A friend shared this amazing quote recently: ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’ How true that is. We envy and find ways to fault parents whose children are doing things our children aren’t managing yet and we put others down to make ourselves feel better. Ever said or thought. “Oh well at least my child isn’t like X,?” We also forget about all the amazing, wonderful things our children can do. Their loving spirit, their kindness, their humor, their sense of adventure. They are not defined by the one thing (or several) that they are struggling with at this moment in time. They are defined by their identity as a child of God. Let’s collectively take a breath, embrace the child we have, quirks and all and find a way to make things work for them.
Find your tribe
Okay second of all, this experience reminded me how much I need my tribe. Tribe = any kind of support network, physical, virtual or otherwise, of moms, family members, friends etc who have your back when the going gets tough. I don’t know how many times I have relied on my tribe to ask questions, get encouragement or just generally have a rant. People prayed for me this week, they checked in, they offered encouragement and shared with me in my (limited!) successes and failures. Kudos to my husband too who brought home chocolate cake after a very long day since wine wasn’t an option at 33 weeks pregnant. No cake has ever been met with such joy! At the end of the day, even though I was at home alone with a toddler cleaning up puddle after puddle and inching closer and closer to the edge, I did not feel alone. We are simply not created to do life alone. In her book Fight Back With Joy
“In the fight of life, people can be conduits of great joy and deep refreshment.”
Find your tribe. It may not make the situation any less difficult, but it may make it easier to bear.
Rely on God
At the end of the day, parenting is hard. Oh so hard. I know I am not equipped to deal with the responsibility of raising this little person in my own power or in my own strength. It is a superhuman job and requires a superhuman portion of strength, patience, wisdom and grace. Funnily enough, God has those qualities in spades and He doesn’t want to keep it to himself. He alone can equip us to follow this calling, that at the same time can bring us to places of deep love and contentment as well as to our knees. He can strengthen us when we have nothing left to give, provide us with divine wisdom to guide our children in the ways of the world, and pour out His grace on us and enable us to share that with our children, even when we are at the end of our rope. There is an amazing prayer in the book The Power of a Praying® Parent
“Lord I submit myself to you. I realize that parenting a child in the way you would have me is beyond my human capabilities. I know I need you to help me. I want to partner with you and partake in your gifts of wisdom, discernment, revelation and guidance. I also need your strength and patience along with a generous portion of your love flowing through me.”
What a prayer. It reminds us of our own limitations and weaknesses yet at the same time that we have a God who is willing to offer us everything we need. God doesn’t expect you to do this journey alone. He stands beside you and goes before you. He alone is enough and through him we can be the parents we were created to be, for the children we were gifted with. Even in the midst of potty training…