Sunday, October 21, 2012

A Boy? Calling the House? For WHO?

  What a fabulous fall day!  It was a perfect time of family fun at the local corn maze, and we were all laughing and reliving the experience as we walked in the door.  I put down my purse and pushed the button on the answering machine.  It was a message for our 13 yr old girl, and it was a BOY... a man-cub, something we don't see much of in our little cottage full of women.  He was so polite and articulate, and wanted to wish the 13 yr old good-luck on her All-State chorus auditions the next day.  How thoughtful, how sweet! So why were the first feelings running through my body alert and caution?  My daughter seemed untouched, and she moved into her room to return the phone call.  I talked with her about it later and she told me that he was just one of her friends.  She wasn't interested in him in THAT way.

  Hmmm...I'd be a fool not to see the obvious changes that have taken place in this girl's body and mind over the past 10 months.  She is a lovely young lady now, with very little of the child clinging to the edges of her being.  She is dressing differently, and actually arranges her hair with thoughtfulness and flare.  I even saw a young man look her up and down as we left a movie theater just a few months back...I haven't felt like hitting a person many times in my life, but I do think that young man was lucky to go home without a black eye.

  So we knew this was coming all these years, I mean we have 5 daughters.  And we have been talking with them about marriage and relationships with men for a long time now, but all of it seemed academic  somehow.  Now we were having to decide how those ideas and principles would work out practically in our family.

  We noticed that this boy was emailing regularly with our daughter, and then this past week, I saw him sitting in her group of girlfriends at a local homeschool group meeting, looking all starry-eyed as she spoke.  On our way home the 13 yr old said the boy wanted her to call him later that day.  I was feeling a little uneasy about it all.  I was torn.  We had always encouraged the girls to be friendly with boys and girls, and not to be afraid of interacting with boys. Wasn't that all she was doing?  There was a difference this time.  We had not encouraged the girls to make intimate close friendships with boys, and all this calling and emailing would lead to the sharing of personal thoughts and feelings and that could lead to a new kind of intimacy in a friendship that wasn't  so free and easy as before.

  When my husband heard about the phone call the 13 yr old was supposed to make that evening, he put an end to it.  "We're not going to be calling boys."  Although I supported him 100%, I felt torn for the girl who had given her word to call her friend, even if he was a boy.  I went to her room and had the "talk".  (She was allowed to email him and tell him that she couldn't talk today, so that, at least allowed her to keep her word.)

  Then, we had to talk about how she was entering an age where boys and girls have a hard time being "just" friends.  Sure, there were lots of fun boys to joke with and hang out in groups with, but once it started to turn into a one-on-one situation, over and over again, it inevitably would end up with one of the two parties having feelings for the other, whether the feelings were returned or not.  She agreed, and trusted that I spoke with experience, and then she reassured me that she didn't have any of those feelings for this boy.  That's when I had to tell her that this boy might have feelings for her, and that his actions indicated this was so, even if he didn't realize those feelings fully for himself yet.  And that our "no calling or spending time alone with boys" policy at this age was as much to protect the boy's heart as it was to protect hers.  She seemed to understand this, and took it with such grace and love.

Although she is paving the way and causing Ryan and I to put our thoughts and ideas into actions and rules, she is handling it all with such grace and kindness.  We are thankful and blessed to have such a wonderful first-born to set an example for her sisters.

We are still on this journey, and we tread lightly into this new territory.  At present, for those who are curious, when the time comes for our daughters to be ready for marriage, she will tell the interested young man to come talk with her father, who will then get to know him and decide if he will be able to spend time with our family and try to win our daughter's heart.  We do not feel that dating is necessary or essential to finding a good mate.  Our experience, and those of others we have known, has shown that more is learned of a person when you see how they treat the people they are not romantically interested in, the needy person, the family members, the annoying little sister or brother, etc.  So that is our present course of action, and we are willing to change it if God leads us in a new direction.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Tattling, Destructor of Sibling Relationships and the Seeds of Pride in the Heart

   Someone has broken a rule, and you didn't see it, but a pair of little eyes did.  She comes to tell you how her sister has broken the rule, and the desire to deliver swift justice is clouded by a dirty feeling that something doesn't ring true with the scenario. You talk with the offending child to find that indeed she did break the rules, and as the punishment is dealt out, her sickening sideways glance to the tattling sister makes your heart hurt.  The sibling's relationship has been dealt a hard, treacherous blow.  You feel the injustice and suddenly realize how to make things right.  You deal out punishment to the tattler as well, for seeking to get her sister in trouble, and for acting with authority where she had none.
   Here is the unspoken truth that we've all known since our childhood: tattling is different from telling.  Telling is motivated from a desire to keep another from hurting themselves or others. Tattling comes from the secret seeds of pride in the heart, that desires another's demise in order to make oneself look better.  If you allow tattling among your children, then you are sowing the seeds of disunity between siblings and allowing the weeds of pride to grow strong in the heart of the tattler.  This is the reason that we hold to a strict policy of tattlers receiving punishment along with the offending sibling. (There have been times when the tattler's punishment was worse than the offending child's, especially if the tattler has a bad habit of tattling. Sometimes we have even said, that since we didn't see the offense, we won't punish the offending sibling, while still punishing the tattler. In those times, we also warn the offending sibling that we will discipline them if we do catch them in the act.  We are big believers that things done in secret will be brought to light, it's just a matter of time.)
  There have been occasional times that we have asked an older sibling to come along side us in the training of a younger child, by giving them the authority to tell us if the younger sibling is doing the behavior we are trying to train out of her.  Then, that older child has been given our authority to help us in training a difficult to see trait, or behavior.  For example, we might ask the older sibling that shares the room with the toddler who has just moved out of her crib, to tell us if the toddler got out of bed without permission.  These times are usually for a short season, and give us a chance to train our older children in the arts of child training for their future lives as well.  (We teach them the graces of not lording over the younger child, but taking on the desire to see her succeed by gently helping her along.)
  We do allow telling, in that a child may tell us when they think a sister is doing or about to do something that would cause her harm, like jumping from too high a height, etc.  But as discussed before, this is a very different thing from tattling.  There is a disgust in all stages of life for the one that goes to the authority to defame a peer.  Very few societies have tolerance for such betrayal, and I have seen many sibling relationships greatly damaged by parents who allow it.  In response to many who have asked us how to build unity and lessen fighting among siblings, I would encourage the intolerance of tattling, by dealing out swift punishment for the tattler.
  It not only affects the sibling unity, but it corrodes the heart of the tattler, as well. She begins to believe that she is better than her sisters, and the seeds of pride grow.  All too easily she becomes more interested in finding the faults in others, instead of busily working to rid herself of her own. After careful practice, she will easily miss the plank in her own eye, while diligently seeking to point out the speck in her sister's. And as she grows, she will resemble the busybody that so many of us know in our lives.
  The heart of the child is a garden, and the wise parent will diligently tend it.