Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4
If you have daughters, you will have heard the line "sugar and spice and all things nice, that's what little girls are made of." Well that line was written by a boy who was trying to get a girl - not by a man with daughters! To be sure, there is plenty of lovely things about daughters, but there is no doubt that they are full of all sorts of things that are not all nice. My daughters are a bundle of emotions, even at the tender ages of 7 and 5. They go from playing nicely together one moment, to screaming, physical violence and "I'm not your friend anymore, and I mean it!" the next. They can go from happily relating a fun night at the school disco to a complete teary meltdown because said disco ended 15 minutes early, and said daughter didn't get a spot prize.
I am not a particularly emotional man, so when the emotional whirlwind hits it takes me way outside my comfort zone. I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto!
My default position (to my shame) is "shut it down". I reach for whatever it takes to switch off the emotional storm - whether sending the offending child out of the room, or back to her bed, or bribing her with treats, or caving in to her requests. Although I know that this is not a good way to raise my daughters, I resort to this tactic all too often. When the crisis hits, my parenting range is too limited to change.
In the last couple of weeks, though, I have started to see a better way. It's nothing to do with me - it has entirely been the Holy Spirit prompting me. God is gracious even in my tiredness and inability to respond immediately to my girls - it has meant a precious few seconds of silence when I can hear the better way that the Spirit is leading me to. He has shown me that the better way is to weather the storm with my daughter, rather than to shield myself from it.
So the other day, when Eldest's voice was again raised in rage at her sister, I could encourage her to use words to express why she was angry, rather than relying solely on her tone of voice to convey the fact that she was angry. (Thanks again to Ross Campbell's book How to really parent your child, and particularly the excellent chapters on helping your children to nullify anger.)
And the other night, when my sleepless child melted into tears hours after the great disco disappointment, rather than blowing my top, I could take her in my arms and talk through her disappointments. I could tell her about similar times I'd had growing up. I could reassure her that she was normal, that she was precious. We could pray together about the tumult in her heart.
And as we weathered the storm together, we both found that indescribable peace that Jesus promises.
