I have never hidden the fact that I struggle with nearly every aspect of parenting on this blog or in my life. TRANSPARENCY is my theme:) I also have been fairly candid about my struggles with parenting Caroline. I love my middle girl with all my heart. She is driven, passionate, artistic, caring, sweet, smart as heck, athletic and the list goes on and on. But, she has tested every fiber of my being. Parenting her has taught me some very ugly truths about myself. I am inpatient, quick to criticize, I speak without thinking, and react in anger when dealing with her. Many times my interactions with Caroline have brought me such shame. Most days I struggle with parenting and feel so defeated. I realized earlier this summer that my struggles with parenting were impacting my life in a variety of ways. When you know you are messing up majorly in one area of your life you can't help but wonder how that affects the rest of it? But, for a long time I have struggled with how to handle it, where to turn to get help. I have gone to counseling in the past but it didn't seem to have any lasting changes on my parenting. I literally didn't know what to do, so I basically have just ignored it.
Well, last week we discovered through some pretty horrible circumstances that our girl is struggling more than we ever thought. We are devastated. We have always had the goal of shaping Caroline's spirit, not breaking it. I am afraid that right now, our sweet girl has a very defeated and broken spirit. We have decided that rather than bury our heads in the sand through this crisis, we will fight to help Caroline rediscover all the wonderful things that make her the fantastic girl we know and love. We have enlisted the help of a counselor who will work with our whole family to become healthier and stronger. We need to learn how to communicate better, discipline more effectively, love more unconditionally. We are so sad that it took a crisis in our child's life to get us to this point, but we are moving ahead optimistically and enthusiastically. I pray that Caroline never again doubts the love we have for her. I debated whether this was appropriate for my blog. But, like I said earlier, I am pretty open about my struggles. We are struggling. We covet all the well wishes and prayers you can send our sweet Caroline's way!
2 comments:
your family is amaizing :)
This is the first time reading your blog Susan. You are such an amazing, articulate, funny and Godly woman! My advice? Pray every morning with your husband and at night with your kids for His parenting wisdom and strength. We ALL mess up, ALOT.. do the best you can, leaning on God. Don't look back on your mistakes, learn from them and look forward. One of the things I remember some wise person telling me was: Don't take credit for your childrens' successes, OR their failures. So when your child is "doing well", be humble and realize that it wasn't about your successful parenting, but the grace of God in your life. On the flip side, when your child struggles, don't automatically blame or be shamed into thinking "if only" I parented better...Every mom struggles with these issues Susan. I will be praying for you hun.
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