The Red-Orange Rhino

Every General Conference, it seems that each talk is especially targeted to me. (I know many people feel the same way!) This weekend has been a hard one for me. I have particularly been struggling with one child, with whom I feel I've clashed from time to time throughout most of her life. I've recently learned about and undertaken the "Orange Rhino Challenge", with little success, and have felt angry and frustrated at myself for my failures and instead felt like giving up and lashing out. (I guess that makes me more of a Red-Orange Rhino since I'm still kind of seeing red.) After one such episode of fighting like we were both teenagers, instead of one adult and one small child, I finally got in the shower and started thinking about the first session of General Conference we were about to watch. I said a little prayer that maybe it would include something to particularly help me out with this. As always, Heavenly Father did not disappoint!

Right away I heard this talk from Elaine S. Dalton, general president of the Young Women organization. She talked about how our daughters need mentors and examples - an area where I know I have definitely fallen short. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for this key:

"So how does a mother or a father instill in their daughters the ennobling and eternal truth that we are daughters of God? How do we help them step out of the world and step into the kingdom of God? In a morally desensitizing world, young women need women and men to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places."

I know I repeated that last line hundreds of times in my youth, but yesterday it struck me like a bell (is that a phrase? It is now.) Of course - I need to "stand as a witness of God." I have a testimony, right? So I AM a witness of God and everything He can do, and I need to STAND like one! That is a bit broad, and easier said than done. The next line hit me hard, though:

"Mothers, your relationship with your daughter is of paramount importance, and so is your example."

I think I visibly winced when I heard it, because I know it was directed at me every bit as if I was receiving a personal stern reprimand. She might as well have replaced "mothers" with "KRISTA."

I can't explain exactly what my problem is. Especially in retrospect, at night when they've all gone to bed and the house is quiet. I reflect on my abysmal performance throughout the day and think, "What's the matter with you, anyway?" My favorite line from today's post on the Orange Rhino blog is, "Someone needs to grow up here and it is not them." Seriously - whose behavior is less acceptable given the circumstances and our ages, mine or theirs? Right.

Somehow in the moment I forget to think and just react. I don't know how to stop reactions. I'm not really much of a scientist by nature. Baking soda? Fire extinguisher? We've been using the "DO OVER" card for some time now, but even I am appalled at the occasions that require it. The other day I burst into the room to find Kate playing a game when she should have been doing who knows what else, and I screamed, "Kate! Put that away RIGHT NOW!" in my meanest voice. Before she could even do much more than stare at me, I recovered myself and, like Dr. Jekyll reemerging from his Mr. Hyde persona, quickly apologized in a bit of shocked embarrassment and asked for a "do over." But seriously, how do I retrain these habits that are obviously so deeply ingrained in my Hyde-ian subconscious?

Then we come to today. I thought it particularly poignant (and if I had less faith, I would have been in awe at the coincidence) that the General President of the Primary, Rosemary M. Wixom, was speaking. I openly cried when she said this:

"To speak to a child's heart, we must know a child's needs. If we pray to know those needs, the very words we may say have the power to reach into their hearts. Our efforts are magnified when we seek the direction of the Holy Ghost. The Lord said, 'Speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, for it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment what ye shall say.'"

Sitting there on the couch with my children scattered around me, I felt completely unequal to the task. (Then I watched it again without them later and cried even more.) I had been desperately grappling for all sorts of parenting books and professional advice and even considered psychologists on multiple occasions, but the best answer is the most obvious one. It's not about reading a psychoanalysis of each type of personality or trying different disciplinary strategies - I need to pray to know her needs. It frankly scares me to pieces to think that my "very words... have the power to reach into their hearts." I know this is true - otherwise I would probably not be having problems in the first place, since it's my own words and actions that have molded hers. Now I just have to figure out how to erase the damage and replace it with exactly what I want. Also I have to keep reminding myself that it will take time - and probably a lot of it. I'm not going to wake up one morning with a totally different attitude and magically all my troubles will just float away. It will take effort and retraining, but if I can stay strong and consistent, I'm sure eventually I will see the results.

The scariest part had to be when she went on to talk about a study one doctor did on the topic of what he called "Parental benign neglect."

*GULP*

(Way to pick the scariest phrase imaginable.) That's the part where we (parents) get distracted by everything else around us and the children suffer. She cited some scenarios he evaluated, in which the parents were semi-present but distracted, usually by something electronic, and reported that he observed "a dimming of the child's internal light, a lessening of the connection between parent and child."

Okay, I have to confess that as she was saying, "a dimming of the child's internal light," my first instantaneous reaction was, "Oh, phew, I thought she was going to say brain activity!" And then I quickly corrected myself by pointing out that the child's LIGHT is probably more significant than brain activity, and we don't want to consciously or unconsciously cause either of those to dim. But still, I am so terrified to think of all the building that is going on during these early formative years and how if I miss even a second of wasted opportunity, the guilt just piles higher. I'm sure that if I devote a concerted effort to minimizing that wasted time and unnecessary distractions, at the very least I will feel more like I'm actually doing the best I can. Sister Wixom also said, "One of the greatest influences a person can have in this world is to influence a child."

So that is my resolve. I am hopping back on the "No-Yelling" bandwagon, for starters, and no matter how many more times I may fall off I will chase that thing down and climb up again. For my guidelines, I'll use what Sister Wixom described, referring to the "voice from heaven": "It was not loud, scolding, or demeaning; it was a still voice of perfect mildness, giving firm direction while giving hope."  (Don't worry, I'm pretty much just going to write out her entire talk for you.) We might as well continue: "How we speak to our children and the words we use can encourage and uplift them, and strengthen their faith to stay on the path back to Heavenly Father. They come to this earth ready to listen."

NOT: Loud, scolding, demeaning
USE: Perfect mildness, firm direction, give hope

It's a work in progress, but it's a good Step 1. I'll let you know how that goes. Probably you should pray for me.