Battle of the wills....

Will it ever get better? "This too, shall pass." says my hubs Kevin. Over the past few days, we have had the battle of the wills in our house. Ours against Stone's! We continue to win, but not without major drama, resistance (of course), and us feeling like we're gonna win the "Worst parents of the year award" hands down. I blame Stone's stubbornness not Kevin or myself, but my brother. Yes, my brother of all people! I'm not naive enough to say that Kevin and I aren't stubborn ourselves.. we are, and to quite a good degree I might add. But this stubbornness beats all... and reminds me of growing up with my brother! Seriously, love my brother, but I don't think I know another person on the planet that is more stubborn than him. Stone is a close 2nd at this point.

My SIL tells us all the time about stories with her M and her battle of the wills with her. I now am feeling her pain in first person! I truly think that it's a mixture of a few things though with Stone... and now we're trying to "fix" it as best as we know how. Some of it's enabling on our part (most of that falling to me as I'm with him the most--I acknowledge that and accept it), some of it is Stone's true stubborn will and being 3 and all that entails, and some I think is partially to blame on him not quite understanding everything we tell him. I haven't written about this before, mainly because it's all been in the works over the past few months, BUT, I guess now is as good a time as ever.

Before leaving SC and moving here, I had started the process of getting Stone evaluated... mainly on speech. We (this includes my hubs, me, my SIL, inlaws and Stone's preschool teachers) had started noticing what we thought MIGHT be a speech delay. None of us wanted to jump to any conclusions, so we watched it and then I finally was convinced I at least needed to check into this further. Anyway, did the speech eval and they determined that he had Auditory Processing Disorder, (or Receptive Language Disorder) which basically means that it usually takes longer for him to process oral communication than the "normal" kid his age. Also, we think he has the Expressive Language Disorder which kind of goes along with it and means he has a lot of trouble verbally expressing himself. Both are true of Stone. Since moving here and getting started in finding out if he qualifies for services in NC, they did some more testing and 'labeled' him as Developmentally Delayed as well. This, they feel, mostly comes from his speech delay and everyone who's met with him and evaluated him so far believes that once his speech gets going, all the rest will fall into place. So, communicating with him sometimes is a challenge. We have learned to keep things simple, rephrase words several times so he "gets" it, use visual cues for him and do whatever it takes for him to understand. Thus, some of the extra frustration on both our parts when it comes to the battle of the wills! Sometimes, it's a simple thing such as not even knowing what he wants or doesn't want to do... he can't communicate that like other kids his age. It thus presents itself as a "tantrum" and sometimes explodes even more from there. When really, he's wanting to tell us what he wants/doesn't want but doesn't know how.

Then of course, are the times when he does understand and just wants his way, like every other kid! Those are frustrating as well! And one of the biggest problems we've had of late has been his lack of eating real food. Again, this is partially to blame on us (me more so than Kevin). I have, in the past few months, have let him slide into eating what he wants, and haven't forced him to eat other foods, or try new ones. So, Kevin and I have decided to ban together for the common good of our son's eating health and crack down on this, as best we know how.

Tonight, it began, and did not end pretty. We had a really good day today.. ran a lot of errands and he was really good for all of it. We seemed to have fun and when we got home, it was soon time for dinner. We asked him to eat at least 2 bites of a hot dog and then he could have some cheese and other "snacks" which is food for him. I mean, we're starting off a lot nicer than a lot of people would!! And we know that he actually likes hot dogs, so it's not like we're asking him to eat liver or something. He refused, so we gave him a bath and sent him to bed WAY early for him (it wasn't even quite 7pm and he usually doesn't go to bed until 9). We made sure he understood our wishes and his consequences before following through... again, a much longer and exhausting task to make sure he does understand before just punishing him for something he doesn't understand. After MUCH wailing on his end, during his bath, trying to brush his teeth and putting on his pj's, we put him in bed. Then, there was much more wailing going on from inside his room. Agghghgh! This is hard for me to sit through, so after 40 minutes of it, I go in to calm him down so he could go to sleep. Still, we did not let him get up, or eat anything else. Small steps to hopefully what will be a success in the future.

Another battle is helping him help himself... for some things, he only wants to do it himself. For others, he'd much rather you do it for him than to struggle to learn himself. Example: putting on simple clothing. He can do it, and still needs some help, but most of the time doesn't want to. He wants us to do it for him. So, thus the battle begins again!

As Kevin's Aunt Kathy has stated and I'm sure others as well, "Parenting is not for the faint of heart!" But it sure does wear you down! No wonder my own mom seemed tired a lot.. she had me, along with 2 other children to deal with on a daily basis. Yes Mom, this is payback for my behavior as a child! Thankfully, my mom allowed me to live to see the day when I'd have my own child, just so I'd one day know what she lived through! Love you Mom and Dad!

So, we continue on... TRAINING our child, as Kevin's mom has said on numerous occasions.. and she is right. We're not just raising him and taking care of him (and also being able to delight in him as one of the perks), we are training him to be who God intended him to be.. and hopefully, we are teaching him to love God in the process!