child training 101-huh?

I've totally lost my edge. Mostly my confidence as a parent. When the bottom of your world falls out, and there's a season of doubt, you pretty much doubt everything....and today, my parenting.

For those that know me and our family, know that we have this beautiful charming, blonde, petite, blow-away-in-the-wind, delicate, little girl. Her name is Elishah. She is our fifth child who is a dearing 3 and a half years old. She came to us in a strange time...three months after our 1st born died suddenly of pneumonia. We were in a state of chaos and grief. Our basement was being renovated, the financial stress was at it's peak, as well as our marriage was in it's last moments before it nearly completely dissolved. Working through grief, renos and a new baby was beyond our limits. And to make things more complicated, we decided to take on leading a lifegroup (which looking back was the death of us) I was off kilter, Joe was basically there only in body, but nothin else, and here was this little precious gift given to us in such a time. Child training was attempted, but wasn't met by two parents that were on the same team.


Fast forward one year to when our family almost hit the dust. Elishah was 1 and a half then. The time she needed us the most. Mom was a literal train wreck, Joe was trying with everything to repair the damage, focusing most of his attention on mom, and the kids were left to God. I thank God for how he took care of them in that first year. I know he assigned many angels to our kids.

As the dust has settled, we've grown more and more to see that this little "cute/princess?" girl is turning into a monster! She has started saying things like, "I hate you! You're mean! I don't like you! Don't touch me!" Followed with whining out the yinyang and serious "terrible two" attitude. Something that I've only read about in books. Whenever I've read about parents that have monsters like that, I've thanked God that he's taught me about child training and that i would NEVER have a child LIKE THAT!.......apparently.....I do.......

So, after a long, long......looooong series of events of attitude, backtalk, hitting the air, slamming doors (yes...she's even gone to a room and slammed the door on us)......Joe and I totally tagged teamed her in a silly battle that we thought we could handle......

"Please pick up the 3 pieces of dry cereal you just spilled on the carpet and put it into the bowl"
Seemed simple enough........
I thought wrong......
Joe and I won!!!! It completely RIPPED my heart out spanking her, but in the end (20 minutes or so) she finally willfully, cheerfully, respectfully, obediently, put the dang cereal in the bowl!!! YA US!

She's been happy as a clam ever since. Telling how much she loves us and you can actually tell that something rebellious has been lifted off of her. It brings back far and distant memories of when I've trained my other 3 children and actually enjoyed shaping their character and giving them happiness.
Now............I hope that God can give me the strength to keep going and give her what she so desperately needs......consistency, training, and lots of love to back it up!