As a working Mother (of the two most precious baby boys on the planet), I have experienced a whole roller coaster of parenting emotions — and I know many of you can relate. Guilt, jealousy, pleasure, excitement, stress, pride, gratitude, and most importantly — love have all been mine throughout this working-mom adventure. As a teacher, I have been blessed to have summers at home with my babies, as well as long holiday breaks throughout the school year, so I’m not a stranger to the stay-at-home-mom lifestyle. And as much as I enjoy my days at home, I look forward to and thoroughly enjoy my working days, too.
The biggest decision for we families who have two full-time working parents lies in childcare arrangements. Matt and I have been blessed tremendously with wonderful parents (his and mine) who have gladly fulfilled our childcare needs throughout the school year, along with our third adopted parents, Bob and Nana (dear friends from our church who also give of their time to care for our boys). So, in our family the time that Mommy and Daddy have been working has been special bonding time for our boys with their grandparents (all 3 sets!). We have been blessed beyond measure to have such wonderful childcare arrangements.
Around the time that Jay turned 3 (last November), parenting became increasingly difficult. I have mentioned before about Jay’s strong-will, but I don’t know if words can adequately describe his level of “willfulness.” In retrospect, I know that my little Jay was doing a whole lot of learning about life around that third birthday (about 6 months after his new baby brother joined our family). Thinking from his perspective, here are the questions he was dealing with around that time:
Why is everyone (my caretakers and parents) holding baby Jonah so much? Why do I need to try to be quiet when the baby is sleeping? Why do I have to try to take a nap — I’m not tired. Why doesn’t anyone like to change my diapers anymore? Why am I supposed to stop playing to try sitting on the potty? Why doesn’t Jonah have to sit on the potty, too? Why do I have to share my toys with the baby? Why can’t I wrestle Jonah like I wrestle my toys? Why can’t I pick Jonah up and carry him by myself? Why does my Mommy have to feed Jonah all the time? Why doesn’t Jonah just eat at the table like me?
Yes, 3-year-old Jay did a lot of learning around the time that his brother came into the world. And being such a strong-willed child, Jay met the frustrations and changes coming at him with strong reactions. Okay, let’s call it what it was — temper-tantrums. Arms flailing; feet kicking; throat screaming; fists punching; head butting. Our super-sweet, smart, and lively Jay could throw a fit that Mommy physically could not restrain — and heaven help anyone who would try to hold him down in a tantrum. In desperation, I began researching, reading, reflecting, and closing off my world as much as possible from others. You see, it’s not “cool” to be the parent of the kid who has tantrums. For some reason, our society has taught us that “good parents” have children who sit quietly in church, who share their toys, who potty train early, and respond with sincere tears when they are disciplined. My child didn’t display any of these qualities, so my self-worth as a capable parent quickly went down the toilet. The truth is, “good parents” meet each obstacle with a determination to succeed.
Since that time, I have done a lot of reading about coping with and parenting strong-willed children. One thought that resonates with me came from Dr. James Dobson’s book, The Strong-Willed Child. While I am parenting my strong-willed child, it is important that I help shape his will, not break his will (my own paraphrase). After prayer, research, a child psychologist consult, pediatrician visit, and more prayer, Matt and I decided that the best change for our Strong-Willed boy would be daycare. This was a drastic change for all of us, but I wholeheartedly believe this was the answer for which I had prayed.
I could go on and on naming the wonderful things that Jay has learned and experienced at daycare, but I’ll just list a few:
- He quickly potty trained (seeing the other children go had much more convincing power than any sticker chart or prize for my strong-willed fellow)
- He distinguishes most all of his geometric shapes (including pentagon, octagon, and rhombus — this math teaching Mama is happy)
- He is learning phonetics (yes, I can work on this with him at home and I do — but he LOVES doing this at “school”)
- He recognizes all capital letters and most lower case letters
- He can write his own name (okay … three letters … but still — he’s just 3 years old)
- He has learned to SHARE HIS TOYS (this deserves capital letters because it is huge for him)
- He pretend-plays with other children
- He has learned about rejection (when another child didn’t “like” him — it was a struggle, but we’re all stronger after going through it)
- He has learned to eat a better variety of foods (it’s amazing what they will try eating when they see other kids trying it — especially for strong-willed kids)
- He has learned to take a consistent nap (okay — he does this consistently at “school” — he still won’t nap regularly at home)
- He has learned that he’s big enough to have his own little social agenda (he LOVES telling Mom and Dad about his day at school — he’s so proud)
- He has learned to ride a tricycle
- He has improved his coordination with a ball
I could go on and on, but the best thing he has learned is how to control his temper. Jay rarely ever has a temper tantrum now. He has seen other children sit through time-outs in the red chair at school without throwing a tantrum, and now he is able to mimic that behavior — even at home.
Strong-willed Jay will always be strong-willed,however. Yesterday, he had a little slip up at daycare. He pushed another child and so, was placed in the red time-out chair. This is a rare occurrence. Jay rarely ever does anything at daycare that requires a time-out and for whatever reason, he was determined that he would not be put in time-out this time. When I picked him up, his teacher described an arm flailing fit that he had thrown when she told him to sit in time-out. She didn’t have to go into great detail. I knew exactly what that fit looked like. I’ve seen it many times (though it’s not been around much in the past few months). Jay and I quickly left and we had a long talk on the car ride home. By the time we got home, Jay was apologizing to me for behaving badly (it was sincere). He and I together decided the right thing to do would be to do his 3-minute time out as soon as we got inside since he didn’t do his time-out at school like he was supposed to (side note: part of successfully parenting the strong willed child is letting him have ownership in the idea — so… learning to manipulate the situation when necessary to make him think the punishment is his own idea). After he finished his time-out, I went in his room to talk about it again. I asked him what he thought he needed to tell his teacher when he saw her again. He said, “I need to tell her I am sorry for pushing and I am sorry for throwing a fit.” I agreed. Then Jay said, “Mom, I need to go tell my teacher that I’m sorry right now.” So … we loaded back up in the car, drove back to the daycare, and I led him back inside to make his apology. He walked up and apologized like a big boy, then asked his teacher where the little boy was that he had pushed — he wanted to apologize to him, too (I didn’t know he was going to do that). Though the other little fellow had gone home for the day, I’m sure Jay will properly make amends the next time he is at daycare. What a proud moment for me. I’m not glad he threw a fit, but I’m certainly glad to have reached his heart in teaching him that what he did was wrong.
It is truly amazing how a fit that would have left me feeling powerless a few short months ago has turned into such an awesome parenting success story today. If there’s anything I’m certain of about parenting, it’s that I don’t know it all — especially about anyone else’s children — but I’ll work my very hardest to know what I need to know to do the best parenting possible for my little Moon men.
one moon mom 
You are an awesome working Mom and I am so very proud of you and your boys!
I know that Matt and John have talked about the similarities between Jay and Henry. Henry is his own person. He had a lot of emotional issues between the ages of 3-4. We had people at his first school tell us that he was autistic. (This was the first day of school.) He had always stayed with my cousin who took very good care of him. We have sought counseling, talked to his pediatrician, and read every article/book known to man. Finally, we moved him to a Montessori Catholic school full of people who took their time with Henry. Henry is almost 5 and is a TOTALLY different child. His emotional outbursts are a thing of the past. Henry may never act like the rest of the kids, but he is kind, empathetic, and very smart. Henry will be going into kindergarten in the fall. I hope that everything continues to move forward.
I know the feeling of being powerless. But prayer and patience works.
Annie, it’s nice knowing someone else understands the journey we’re on. I’d love to arrange a playdate. I bet Henry is going to do great things and I know God has something special in store for each of our children. 🙂