A Work In Progress

My struggle to adequately parent Elizabeth is real and is something that is in my face every day. Most days I feel completely defeated as she does this thing or that which either completely exasperates me or makes me want to run away and have some one else parent her. It is a continuous and never ending battle.

She does things that none of my other three children have ever done. (And they are all very different and have done a lot of things!) Unlike most children, she doesn't outgrow stages she just takes them with her as she grows up. I have stopped praying that things would get easier for me as my prayers went unanswered after she turned 2 and then 3 and 4, etc...She is now 9.

I always tell people that she is going to be a wonderful adult, but that parenting her is the most difficult thing in the world because she is who she is and does not take instruction easily. She is a free spirited child. She is a very difficult child.

Some of the difficulties I have with her are my own doing. With the other three I feel I was pretty consistent and provided routine and structure for them. Because Elizabeth came out of the womb fussing and fighting I was often emotionally too tired, when she was smaller, to invest the time to be consistent. Because I did not set boundaries with her early on she is constantly pushing the boundaries I place before her now.  During the times I did try to be consistent with her she would leave me stumped as to what she needed because, again, everything that I tried that worked with the other three kids had no effect on her what-so-ever.

I am faced yet again with my parenting lapses and discrepancies as I am seeing her display habits and traits that are not very becoming of her. I have been wracking my brain these last few weeks on how to help her become the best version of herself. I need to find a way help her. It is my duty as her parent to help her become the best version of herself that she can possibly be. It is my duty to give her a solid foundation with which to build a beautiful strong life. I feel like the foundation I intially gave her was not well put together and now I am having to go back and rebuild a new one. Not an easy task when a house is already in the process of being built on that foundation. She has 9 years of building that will need to be taken down in order to go back and properly place the bricks that will help to build a more solid foundation.

I read a quote recently that really hit home for me because it reminded of Elizabeth. It says this:



All too often I look at the negative aspects of parenting her. I feel drained by her and her antics. I feel that I don't know how to love her the way she needs me to. And I feel that out of all of my children I fail her the most as a mother.

But I need to find a way. She is just a little soul needing guidance and expressing it in the most difficult of ways. Perhaps her antics aren't an act of defiance, but rather a cry for help. Maybe her need to be the center of attention is less about what she is trying to say and more about her need to be seen.

I don't have the answers right now. I am not sure that I ever will, but like just about everything else in my life that I fail at I will keep getting up repeatedly to try again. Even if it means falling down 100 times. I will get up 101.

Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is also the most important thing I will ever do. I need to find a way to reach her and to parent her the way she needs to be parented. I need to find some common ground with her before it is too late.