His Precious Heart

January 22, 2008

By far, my son is the most precious gift I have on earth. He just recently turned five years old. And lately, God has opened my eyes to the sensitivity of his heart. Every word, every promise, every tone in my voice is run through that heart of his. I cannot begin to tell you how overwhelming that is to me as I seek to guide him, train him, and discipline him.

Tonight was prayer night at my apartment complex and so my son went to visit a friend. That meant he was up later than usual and when we got home he wanted to play a game. (In hindsight, I think I should have just put him to bed!) He's very, very competitive and doesn't like to play if he loses. We just got this Almighty Heroes game for Christmas and he likes it....as long as he wins. I'm trying to teach him that winning isn't everything. We need to do our best and just enjoy the time we have together doing fun things. So if he wins, I say, "Good game, that was fun, do you want to play again?" If I win, I say the same thing. But after several attempts through the last couple of days, my words seemed to make no lasting impact. My son is more of a show and tell kinda guy, so I needed to illustrate in a more real way to him the idea of good sportsmanship. So when I explained to him that cheating wasn't going to be tolerated and neither was a bad attitude (throwing a fit if somehow I was even one space ahead on the board...), I let him push the line one more time and I put the game away. My son refused to speak to me the rest of the night.

As I tried to talk to him about the incident, I tried to see if he understood what I did and why. It happened kinda fast and I don't like to let things lie if he doesn't understand what I did and why. No response told me he was either too mad, too tired, or too full of himself to try to tell me what was on his mind, so I explained why I did what I did again. Still closed off to me, he went to bed and still didn't speak but a final "I love you" in the midst of yawning and eyes half-closed and rolling into the back of his head!

Can I tell you that as sensitive as that little heart of his may be, sometimes I feel like I hit a stone wall instead. Perhaps I didn't use reality discipline quite the way I should have or perhaps there was something else I could have done, but I did want to show him what my words meant and I know the sentiment I'm trying to teach him is a good one...