Well once again my son has me questioning my ability to parent a boy. I do realize he is 8 (almost 9) and is a good kid. But he has quite the ability to test my patience to its limits. Today he did it again - took what I would call a great day and knocked it clear down to a great big UGH kind of day.
Details aren't important - just the fact that he did something I consider inappropriate and he thought was funny. Even when disciplining him, he had that smirk on his face that drives me nuts. He knows he was wrong but because his friends were still around, he was putting on his I'm so cool act. That is when I sent him in to have a chat with his father about his behavior.
So here I am wondering how can I can be a good parent when my son keeps making impulsive choices that usual defy my instructions. Let me say that when he acts on his impulses, I don't let it slide. He has been disciplined with what I would consider appropriate consequences. But he hasn't learned how to control his impulses and make good choices. So once again we are talking about making good choices, showing us how he can earn our trust again, being a good friend/brother/citizen and acting like a Christian.
Tonight I sit here wondering why God allows us to act in certain ways that lead to trouble. I guess that we do have free will, but I always hope that God would lead us to down the better path. I have prayed for Bill and his behavior many times and prayed for myself as well - that I can be a mom who has a better understanding as to what drives his behavior and who can help steer him down a path that leads to better choices and safe behavior.
Last year Bill had an incident that eventually led to us grounding him for 2 months and cancelling his birthday party. A few weeks into the grounding he came to us with a possible explanation as to why he did what he did. He said -" you know how God has a force field around you to keep you safe? Well there was a small hole in my force field and the devil got in there and made me do what I did. But God has fixed my force field and I won't do that again."
The devil made him do it. Couldn't that be true? Haven't we been taught from early on how Satan is evil and leads us down the wrong path. We have been told to put our Faith in God and follow his teachings and we will be safe from Satan's ways. I know that none of us are perfect and I realize that Satan tries to work not just on our actions, but on our thoughts as well. That explains why I am doubting my ability to parent. That little bit of doubt has opened up my "force field" and allowed Satan to keep me from focusing on my positives and has kept me building up the negatives.
I am thankful that as I have been on my NEW journey, my Faith has been built up to the point that I know that God will bring me through things - usually sooner than later. And that feeling is with me now. I struggle at times to remember to give it to God but tonight I was able to do that shortly after the incident. Prayers were said for my son again - that he realizes why his behavior is inappropriate. Prayer were also said for me - that I can forgive him and show him how he can make choices to become the fine young Christian man that I really hope he will be.
Tomorrow is a new day - that is one of those perks of being a Christian - God gives us a clean slate each day. I am hopeful that my son and I can come to some sort of understanding over what he did and what he can do to fix it in my eyes. We can work together to fix those holes in our force fields.
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