Sometimes it is so difficult to act out of love instead of frustration. It’s easy to see how he shouldn’t do something but it is harder to think about the more important lessons hidden in what I need to be teaching him.
It’s not just about him not standing on the coffee table because he could fall or because his feet are dirty.
It’s not just about the here and now.
It’s not only about him learning to obey me.
It’s about his life later.
It benefits him, not just me, when he can obey.
When I am showing him what he can and cannot do, how to treat people, or how to pick up after himself he is learning valuable character traits that will be important to him his entire life.
Sometimes the effort involved in helping him to obey doesn’t feel worth it.
I find myself thinking, “Couldn’t he just play with whatever it is and I’ll just clean it up later? I’m too tired to deal with it right now.”
But that wouldn’t be loving him.
Loving him at that moment looks like stepping in and redirecting.
It gets easier to enforce the rules when you can see that effort as an extension of your love rather than a hindrance to your own independence.
When I view discipline as love, I am less likely to give up when the results are not as obvious as I’d like or when I feel frustrated with how ineffective my communication feels.
Love has nothing to do with what you are expected to get, only with what you are expected to give . . . Which is everything.
Katherine Hepburn – as quoted by Kristin Armstrong in Mile Markers
We did not choose to be parents based in our desire for awesome obedient kids, we became parents to share a love.
And love takes everything.
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P.S. I loved my sister Amanda’s day 5!!
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How do you choose to do the loving thing instead of the easy thing?
How do you deal with it when the loving thing causes more conflict?
Erika Shirk 
How do you choose to do the loving thing instead of the easy thing? I totally did this last night! My girls were both being onery about getting their homework done and the easy thing would have been to just let it slide, let them do it another night. Instead I choose to sit down with each of them, seperately, and help them with it. Engaging them to get them to learn this stuff. It might be tough, but it is so worth it.
How do you deal with it when the loving thing causes more conflict? Pray through it. I can’t say for sure, because it’s a work in progress, but I think you have to tap into that endless supply of love and patience that he has for us.
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So true about having to tap into our source of security in order to give our kids the security of intentional love and boundaries! Thanks for mentioning that!
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Wow, I deal with this so much. By the end of the day it’s so hard to take the time to teach. Sometimes I do let things slide because I’m so tired. I like the idea of training my children as an extension of my love. I need to tape that to my forehead!
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Oh we all need that taped to our foreheads! :) or at least to the back of our brains! thanks for stopping by!
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Great Post!
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Thanks!
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