Tag Archives: The Difficult Child

The Difficult Child – Part 2

This was posted on by .

This month we continue a discussion that was generated from the below e-mail that I received.

“I just stopped school to come in here to write you. I don’t know what to do, and I am at this awful place with one of my children that a mom definitely doesn’t want to be. I have five boys ranging in age from nine months to nine years. Four of my children are sweet, obedient, in love with the Lord, wanting to sing praises to Him, and wanting to please my husband and me. Then there is my six year old. He is the most difficult child, and I don’t know what to do with him. I have had him memorize Scriptures on obedience. He has more Scriptures memorized than I do—he is really smart. But he is a huge handful. He has no control over his emotions and will strike out at anyone who crosses him.

“Recently he has started back talking me. I’ll tell him to do something, and that is followed by whines and reasons why he doesn’t want to obey. My other kids would NEVER do this. At first I was shocked and talked to him about his attitude and his need to obey me. Then I tried consequences and talked more. He isn’t responding. I love him so much and don’t want to be around him—all at the same time. Am I a terrible mom?”
In Christ,
A struggling mom

Last month I shared about one of our children who was a difficult child, but who has outgrown the problems that were such a struggle for him and for us through his younger years. There was more to cover concerning how we dealt with this son than there was room for in just one Mom’s Corner so this month is a continuation. Here is the link to the previous Mom’s Corner in case you didn’t read the first article.

It was important for us to have set consequences for wrong behavior and then to use those consequences consistently. “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul” (Proverbs 29:17). This was hard for me because John was so frequently doing or saying something that would earn him a consequence. What I tended to want to do was to ignore some of his behavior so that he wouldn’t have another consequence. However, consistency was our ally, and we needed to maintain it. We can’t imagine what John would be like had we given up with him.

In our homeschooling, we needed to be very patient with John, but still hold to the family homeschool standard. Even though John struggled greatly with staying focused on his schoolwork and completing it, he accomplished what the rest of his siblings did. On our part, we continually worked with John to teach him to stay in his place where he was doing his work, to keep him on track with the work he was to do rather than having his mind elsewhere, and to motivate him to complete the schoolwork.

Our attitudes were key in this process. If we were frustrated or impatient with John, he responded with his own level of frustration. The more we were pleasant, gentle, and encouraging, the more we diffused his negative attitudes. In addition, we had consequences for schoolwork that wasn’t done. If schoolwork was not finished during the school day, the child had to stay in to do it after school ended. If it wasn’t finished by Saturday, then Saturday became a school day as well. John stayed in many afternoons doing schoolwork he hadn’t done during the allotted time on the school schedule. However, he only had to spend one Saturday doing school. The afternoons he worked late on school, he was generally more motivated the next day to be diligent and complete his work on time. Here is a link to a Mom’s Corner I wrote on homeschooling a dawdler.

John needed a great deal of love and affirmation. That really isn’t surprising considering how often he did something that wasn’t right and needed to be corrected. We made quite an effort with this child, and then with all the children, to smile at them much more frequently, to hug them, give pats, ruffle the hair, sit close to one for Bible time, and simply to give as much affection as we could.

We discovered that John blossomed when made to feel very special. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). Steve made an effort to have one-on-one time with John too. He encouraged him to come and talk frequently. We worked at fostering those close relationships.

Over and over, we modeled for our difficult child how he could have responded in the situation, how he could have spoken kindly to a sibling rather than cuttingly, and how he could have done what he was supposed to do. This son needed extra help to teach him the right responses because they didn’t come naturally to him.

We spoke truth to this child. He would allow his mind to twist his thoughts—even Scripture at times—so that he wasn’t thinking truth. We would lovingly, gently, often with an arm around him, speak the truth to him. We regularly encouraged him on the importance of repentance in his heart over his sin. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We let him know that sin is something we all deal with, but until he repented, he wouldn’t have victory over his sin. John seemed to always have an excuse for his bad behavior. When spiritual growth occurred in his life and he was repenting of his sin, we saw great improvement.

Sleep was a critical issue for John. He was the most dependent of all our children on getting a certain amount of sleep. Without that amount of sleep, he became almost impossible to live with. The other children would show some signs when they hadn’t gotten a normal’s night’s sleep, but nothing like John. When he was tired, we worked at being understanding; however, he was still responsible for his behavior. We then made an effort to get him caught back up on his sleep.

My prayer is that what we learned with our John will be a practical help and an encouragement to Struggling Mom. I hope that she won’t feel like a terrible mom, but that she will become even more committed to loving her son and helping him through the problems that he presents to the family and that she will have renewed courage and motivation with her son. We are so grateful for the guidance the Lord Jesus gave us through our years of parenting John as we continually cried out to Him, and we desire to see other families look to Him for their strength and wisdom as well.

The Difficult Child – Part 1

This was posted on by .

“I just stopped school to come in here to write you. I don’t know what to do, and I am at this awful place with one of my children that a mom definitely doesn’t want to be. I have five boys ranging in age from nine months to nine years. Four of my children are sweet, obedient, in love with the Lord, wanting to sing praises to Him, and wanting to please my husband and me. Then there is my six year old. He is the most difficult child, and I don’t know what to do with him. I have had him memorize Scriptures on obedience. He has more Scriptures memorized than I do—he is really smart. But he is a huge handful. He has no control over his emotions and will strike out at anyone who crosses him.

“Recently he has started back talking me. I’ll tell him to do something, and that is followed by whines and reasons why he doesn’t want to obey. My other kids would NEVER do this. At first I was shocked and talked to him about his attitude and his need to obey me. Then I tried consequences and talked more. He isn’t responding. I love him so much and don’t want to be around him—all at the same time. Am I a terrible mom?”
In Christ,
A struggling mom

This mom’s problem is typical in many homes regarding at least one of their children. Regularly I read or hear a description of a child like this from someone. Immediately, I think of one of our children. When this child introduces himself at our music session, he says, “Hello, my name is John. I am nineteen, and I play the banjo. I wasn’t what you would call a model child growing up. As a matter of fact, because of how difficult I was, I think my mom was able to write that book, Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit. I expect if I had been put into a public school, they would have labeled me with a learning disability. However, the reality was that I was simply lazy.”

John has now graduated from our homeschool, and the message I want to share with this mom, and others like her, is a message of hope and encouragement. Today John isn’t what he was when he was a little boy. He is a winsome, young man whom every one seems to love. He invested his out-of-school time for two years building our house with his brother and dad— a project he and his brother volunteered to do. He learned to study as a result of his homeschooling years and has been tackling some difficult after-graduation study assignments of his own choosing as he prepares for a vocation in construction and also to obtain his commercial driver’s license.

I have graduated five children from homeschool, but John was the first to say to me, “Mom, for my graduation I want to take you out to eat at the nicest restaurant you can think of to go to.” He then spent the evening telling me of his gratitude for my investment in his homeschooling. John read and approved these articles because his heart is to help other families who might be facing some of the same issues that our family faced with John.

I am delighted that I can share such good news about this son with you. As John was growing up, every year we saw improvement in his attitudes and behavior. At nine, he wasn’t like he was at six. At twelve, he had made great progress from when he was nine. It got better for him day by day. “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Perhaps what we did with John and where he is today will be an encouragement to you and give you some ideas for your situation.

John caused Steve and me to pray more. “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). There is something about increased need that drives us to a greater frequency and fervency of prayer. We knew that we were dependent on the Lord’s working in this child’s life for his growth and maturity both emotional and spiritual.

Steve and I found that we had to encourage ourselves greatly about our difficult child. We knew the importance of loving and accepting him, but his behavior caused us to sometimes have negative feelings toward him. He could be unkind to his siblings, plus he regularly had bad attitudes toward us. As Steve and I talked about and prayed for John, we would remind each other of what this son needed and what the Lord would have us do. Seeing that we were both struggling helped us realize that our feelings were normal even though they weren’t ones we wanted to allow to fester. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).

We discovered we needed to deal with John very quietly and in a matter of fact manner. “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). Because of the ongoing nature of the problems, it was extremely easy to have an irritated tone in our voices almost before the first word was out. We knew that anger, impatience, and frustration were not the vehicles to loving our son and helping him. Therefore, his behavior was our training ground as well—a training ground for our own growth in self-control.

In families, it is common to have a child who struggles more with his behavior than the other children. Steve and I know how easy it is for parents to become discouraged over this child. However, we also have seen the Lord work through the years of our child’s life, achieving incredible changes that have been almost unbelievable considering his early childhood behavior. What we did with and for John were things that were valuable for all our children. Therefore, we know that our parenting improved because of John. May we encourage those of you with a difficult child to continue doing what you need to do. Love this child abundantly even when he is not loveable. Look for ways to help him grow and mature. Pray for this child, knowing that the Lord is as interested in him overcoming wrong behavior as you are. Next month we will continue with more of what we did in parenting John and what we learned.