Wise parents learn quickly there are some control battles you never win.  From the time children are born, there are some control battles parents will never win.  For example, you can’t ever make a baby go to sleep.  Or for that matter, you can’t ever make a baby eat when he doesn’t want to eat.  You certainly aren’t in charge of when a baby poops.  There are some control battles you lose from the time your children are born.  Parents who try to force their children to eat, sleep, or poop are never going to win the battle.  Parents can encourage these behaviors and provide an environment that encourages these behaviors, but they can’t “make” a baby eat, sleep, or poop (without being abusive at least).

I remember a food control battle with my mother when I was probably five or six years old.  I had a lot of food allergies as a child and there were foods I couldn’t eat, especially breakfast foods.  As a result, I ate oatmeal frequently for breakfast.  One morning, I wanted what my siblings were having for breakfast, but my mom couldn’t let me eat it because I was allergic to eggs.  I refused to eat my oatmeal.  Mom had had enough.

She told me that if I didn’t eat that oatmeal for breakfast, I would have it for lunch that day.  I refused to eat my oatmeal.  Mom served me that same bowl of oatmeal for lunch that day.

Mom told me that if I didn’t eat that oatmeal for lunch, I would have it for supper that day.  I refused to eat my oatmeal. Mom served me that same bowl of oatmeal for supper that day.

By the end of the day, my mom recognized that she had chosen a control battle she could not win without becoming abusive.  Blessedly, my mom was willing to admit she had chosen a control battle she could not win.  Mom and I have talked about the “oatmeal incident.”  Mom readily admits that she should not have served the oatmeal to me for lunch and supper.  She also recalls that she had become frustrated with constant issues about the foods I couldn’t eat.  As a child, I didn’t really understand that all the “fun foods” (like eggs) could make me sick.  I just saw that my siblings got to eat foods I couldn’t eat.

My mom has repeatedly cautioned me about getting into control battles with children.  Once you get into a control battle, you need to win it if you are the adult.  However, wise parents don’t engage in control battles because they realize that they can’t win most control battles without becoming abusive.  Children will continue to raise the stakes in control battles until parents become abusive or back down.

Wise parents avoid control battles they cannot win and recognize that they can’t win most control battles.

One of the hardest lessons to learn in dealing with children who have been abused or who have experienced trauma is how hard it is for them to trust adults.  Once the trust of a child has been violated by an adult, that child does not trust adults again easily.  Even if a child has not been hurt by adult caregivers, the trust of a child is violated when adults are unable to protect a child from trauma.  Once children do not trust adults to take care of them, they have difficulty attaching to parents and other caregivers. 

In my experience working with children, they have generally trusted consistent rules, boundaries, and consequences long before they have learned to trust parents or other caregivers.  Children don’t trust that a person is safe or can protect them until they can trust that adult to provide consistent rules, boundaries, and consequences.  Children who have experienced trauma need a much higher level of consistency than other children.  They trust rules before they trust relationship.  They trust boundaries before they trust bonding.  The trust consequences before they trust cuddling. 

Literally, the greatest gift we can give children who have experienced trauma is consistency, so they can learn to trust their world again.  Once they learn to trust that every action has a consistent consequence, they can begin to move closer to trusting that people will be consistent with them. 

Consistent rules, boundaries, and consequences provide safety for children who have experienced trauma.

When children begin to feel safe, they can begin to trust again.

No junior high boy should have to be an emotional roller coaster, but one of my clients has been on a deluxe roller coaster ride the last several weeks.  First his placement with a relative disrupted and he returned to a group home, then his birth mother told his two younger siblings they are coming home to live with her in two weeks. He got angry because his mom rejected him.  To top it off, his caseworker tried to clear up the situation by having another conversation with him.  His caseworker told him he is not going to live with his mother or another relative because he will grow up in a group home.  No junior high kid should have this kind of information dumped on him in just a few weeks.  I don’t know many adults who could process similar conversations without losing emotional control.  My kiddo did go ballistic for a short time immediately after the conversation with his caseworker, but actually held it together remarkably well . . . even at school . . . sort of.

When I went to school to see my client this week, he was wearing a pair of jeans with a huge hole just above the knee.  When my client walked into the office to meet with me, the principal immediately noticed the holey jeans and told him that holey jeans violated the dress code and he needed to wear more appropriate jeans to school.  My client has had some discipline issues at school since returning from living with his aunt.  I asked the principal if there had been any other issues, she reported that my client had skipped class last week and been having difficulty remember to bring his school supplies to classes.

The principal told me that my client was sabotaging himself at school.  The day he cut his reading class, he actually walked by the class room, so his teacher could see him.  He was trying to get caught.  Same thing with the jeans.  The jeans were obviously too short for him and belonged to someone else in his cottage. My client and I had a brief conversation with the principal and he shared with the principal what had been happening in his life outside of school.

The principal’s response demonstrated an amazing amount of grace.  She told my client that she didn’t know how he was able to handle his experiences and spent several minutes assuring him that he had people who cared about him at school.  Then she went on to tell him that she would not accept his attempts to get in trouble and to sabotage his success.  She told him that he was living in a group home because of choices his parents made, not choices he made.  She made it very clear to him that he had an opportunity to make better choices than his parents and it was her job to make sure he made those good choices.

I don’t know what will happen with my client in the immediate future, but I feel sure that he has a lot of people supporting him. I suspect he will occasionally try to get in trouble and get punished because he thinks he deserves to be punished (even if the rest of us know he is a great kid who does not need to be punished).

I do know that I saw a little bit of God’s grace in a principal’s eyes this week.  Like God, she was willing to love my client, but like God she expects him to make good choices.

Funny how a holey pair of jeans lead to a conversation filled with amazing grace.