The Art of Repentant Parenting

Hello, and happy Labor Day, tender friends!

I hope you’re all enjoying your day off! Anthony has his first day off in weeks today, so we’re soaking up the family time.

I’m also getting Jacob ready to start preschool in a few weeks. He just isn’t entertained at home anymore and is begging to be around other kids everyday, so he’ll be doing preschool from 9:00 to 12:00 on Tuesdays through Thursdays starting soon.

Since he’s starting preschool, I figured it was time that I teach him to write his name. I know, I know, kids are writing their names by the time they’re three years old nowadays. I just wasn’t particularly worried about it and didn’t make it a priority. But I figured it was time to do so in case they ask him to put his name on papers at school.

We started two weeks ago with the “J” since it’s the first letter of his name. Cubby initially resisted because he “would rather play with his dinosaurs,” but got into it once he got going.

The problem is that I let frustration get the better of me. Sometimes he would draw a letter perfectly, and I would instruct him to keep practicing while I did the dishes.

I had plans.

My plans were disrupted when Jacob drew some letters perfectly and then just got all willy-nilly. I have a hard time discerning if Jacob is struggling with something for real or just playing around often. He plays around a lot pretending that he doesn’t know how to do things that he actually does.

Then he told me that he only wanted to write “Pooh” and “Eeyore” instead of his name.

I lost my patience. “No, do it like the one you just drew!” I implored him. “You’re going to finish this page before we do anything else! It’s more important that you learn to write your name than character names!” I knew that it wasn’t the right approach even as it was happening.

Cubby shut down. He told me that I was chastising him too much and that he didn’t want to practice writing anymore. He capped his pen and crossed his arms.

Sigh.

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes kids just have to shut up and do what you tell them to do. But the truth is that I was insisting on my own way because I had a plan I wanted to follow. And I knew that I was being too harsh and impatient.

The next day I asked Cub for a fresh start. He refused and told me he wasn’t going to practice writing anymore.

I told him that I wasn’t going to chastise him, apologized, and we prayed together. I apologized to God and explained that I knew that I had erred as his mother.

God is so funny. Right after I prayed that prayer, this happened:

Here I was insisting that Jacob follow my formula so that I could have a few minutes to finish chores. I was getting frustrated because I was afraid he wouldn’t learn to write his name properly on the timeline that I had determined.

I know that that’s not perfect and there are many kids writing their names much neater. But my fears and frustrations were so misguided. Maybe he knew how to write his name all along. I’m not really sure.

What I am sure of is that repenting openly to my son and praying to God together shifted something.

We like to think that kids need us to teach them lessons. We like to think we’re fulfilling our role as a mother by teaching them their letters and practicing penmanship.

But I was definitely the one who needed the lesson that day. How amazing is it that God showed me I already had what I wanted as soon as I let go of my own agenda? How amazing is it that God is such a redeemer that he showed me how powerful it is to model repentance to him and to your own child?

Okay, that’s all for today, tender friends! I hope you have nice weather for this lovely day off. Thank you for stopping by, and thank you for sharing! Oh, and thank you so much to the new subscribers- I will pop by to say hello soon!

Please click here to return to the homepage.