The Joys of Raising a Strong Willed Child

What a marvelous invention the internet is! We can use it to research just about anything; I think google has made it into the dictionary! We can shop online, order our pizzas, medicine, groceries, snapshots, you name it. We can use the telephone through it, instant message friends a world away, renew old friendships, make new friendships, and even video teleconference. There is music, movies, games, virtual cards and flowers, and so much more. Today I shall use it to do something Moms have been doing since the days of Eve: embarrass my oldest child!!

I was thinking of Andrea's struggles the other day as she was growing up with chemical sensitivities. Back then I caught Dr. Lendon Smith on the Donahue Show as he talked about children with a "low stress threshold," and looked at the baby in my arms and knew my first child was such a child. I found the book _Improving Your Child's Behavior Chemistry_ and read every word, adapting things in the household to promote a place of peace for my little one.

Dr. Smith listed some things they found to be common in children with a "low stress threshold," such as (only listing the ones applicable to our situation here):

~Born after a high risk pregnancy (I had severe toxemia)
~Premature birth or birth before 38 weeks (They ruptured my membranes at 37 weeks because I was already in labor and to hasten her birth before complications of pre-eclampsia escalated)
~Cord around neck at birth (It was wrapped so tightly they had to unwrap it after delivery of her head to deliver her shoulders)
~Extremely fair skin, blue eyes,blonde hair: Andrea was born with a "cotton top" of blonde hair (evidently this is unusual and the nurses would ask where I hid the peroxide as most blonde children are born with darker hair that falls out and grows back in blonde. She is still a natural blonde at 30 years old. Her skin was translucent at birth, and she is still very fair. She has our blue eyes.)

According to Dr. Smith, these things are insults to an infant's nervous system, so they are born ill-equipped to deal with the stimuli around them. Most parents in that day had a brightly colored nursery with lots of auditory and visual stimuli, which I did, and these things are painful for such children. It was bizarre in that we could get her to sleep but putting her in her room in her crib, she would immediately begin screaming. We quickly learned the only way she (and us) would get any rest was to allow her to sleep snuggled in her dad's armpit. During the day she would sleep in her carrier because it had sides that were closed in.

At one week of age, you could put her in the center of a bed with head and feet pointed at the floor and somewhow she would find her way to the floor. At 2 weeks she could roll over and over back to front and front to back. And cry? She constantly cried! When she was tiny, a visit to SC to relatives was punctuated with one very unhappy baby. My mother deduced that she was in pain from being held by so many different people and so much "excitement" around her. She took her in a quiet, dark room and rocked her 'til she quieted and finally slept. Visits to the mall or stores, even church, resulted in one screaming infant or toddler. She liked to be held but not tightly and not swaddled. She wanted to know there were close boundaries around her (like the carrier with the sides) and she wanted to smell Mom or Dad, but not be kissed or rubbed.

Andrea was the kid who went to church with the Tupperware cup of apple juice for snack time since she could not have the red koolaid so prevalent in the 80s Sunday School classes. She had homemade whole wheat honey cookies for her snack.

Out of all this, emerged a child with an astonishing strong will. Thinking about it the other day, I realized this is how she coped with the tricks her body was playing on her. She set her mind to survive her environment, to weather the storms inside her body, and to make it.

And she did!

Today, the beautiful, accomplished, talented, graceful, kind young lady is a woman of dignity and integrity and high principles. She sets her mind to something and look out! It will soon be done!

So in thinking more, I can testify if you are blessed with a strong willed child, you have the opportunity to raise this kind of adult. Your little strong willed person with your guidance can grow up to be a mighty arrow in the hand of a mighty God. These children can become the adults who will not waver or wishy washy in their loyalty and commitment to God, to home, to family, to community, to friends.

Further thinking, I decided that God had honored my prayers over the years to send my children enough suffering and trials to make them into pure gold. So my gleaming, golden haired child with the heart of gold, I love you as we approach your 30th birthday.

(Here you have proof I am your mom! I embarrassed you on the internet!!!!)