Coping, Patience, and Solutions That Weren't

Yeah, I kind of thought I had a little more...

Watching Jordan grow and slowly become a more independent person was amazing to me. It was like pure magic to witness. Before kindergarten she began showing interest in letters and numbers. She said, "If I had two pennies and Kayla gave me two more, I would have four." Kayla's worried response to this was, "If Me give Jordan all my pennies, then Me would have none."  So cute. :)

Along with Jordan's growing independence and confidence, came more attitude, especially when we backed off on our thumbs-up/thumbs-down reward system. She would speak to us as if she was the queen of the house, the one in charge. "But Mommmm".... Each time we told her "no", she would still lose her mind and fight us on it. Again, her tone made her sound like a disgruntled teenager.

Actually, she and I get along so much better now that she is a teen. And I'm so very relieved about this. Maybe it's because of that longed for light-at-the-end-of-the-parental-tunnel-thing. The light that empowers us with the knowledge that we did not cause any real permanent damage, or create a monster who will never move out on his or her own.

What? I can't be the only one out there who has worried about things like this. Can I?

So, yes, I would get angry at her. I would tell her I didn't enjoy being with her when she was being nasty and rude. She would stomp off up to her room and slam the door. But when she came downstairs, she was as sweet as could be, telling me how much she loved when we colored and did things together. Thankfully our pleasant, endearing Jordan came back.

Not knowing which Jordan I was going to be faced with, on an hour to hour basis, was difficult for me. I think it's part of the reason why we all eventually began walking on eggshells around her. I guess we were instinctively trying to keep the peace, to avoid the blow-ups and anger. It took us a long time (too long) to figure out that this was not an actual solution, it was only a coping mechanism. And after a while we realized, it wasn't even a good coping mechanism. Because as the years went by, it became apparent that we were not actually coping. We were floundering and struggling, but definitely not coping.

Thank you.

Us Too