My Spirited Child

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment and left Brayden with his Aunt Starr. I took Lucas with me since it is easier to just let Lucas sit on my lap during appointments than it is to hold Lucas and chase after Brayden in the room keeping him out of the drawers and off the equipment as he's a curious little boy. When my appointment was over and I had returned to retrieve Brayden, Starr was telling me about what all they had done and that he changed activities quickly (one thing many spirited children do). Then she got to see a normal Brayden moment when I spoke to him and he sternly replied "NNNOOOO!" and gave an ugly face while doing it. She then proceeded to ask me how I didn't lose my mind right then. And I just shrugged it off. Well....

Discipline for us is a little difficult as when he gets in trouble he forgets real quickly why. There can't be any "time" between the activity he did to get in trouble and the consequence/reprimand/discipline. It wouldn't work for me to be out shopping and see my child do something wrong and have to walk him to the restroom to spank him. He would already forget why he's in trouble and getting the spanking. Then two days later he'll remember. He also has a hard time determining his emotion during discipline. Many times he just laughs at me and his daddy. Which makes you even more mad but you cannot continue to punish him just based upon his laughter. If so you may leave bruises you don't mean to. (For the record, yes my son gets popped/spanked. I don't have a problem with it. It is in the bible. There is a difference between my popping/spanking my child and someone beating theirs. It's usually just one pop or three swats. I know my own strength and NEVER take it out on my child.) He also has difficulty determining how he should feel when he sees someone else's feelings. Sometimes he'll laugh when he observes someone else crying. It's not because he is mean, he's just unsure. So yesterday when he acted out I decided it wasn't worth the battle. Another observation I've made is you have to pick your battles. It's not always worth it because you'll wind up with a situation that makes you really embarrassed in the end. For example the other week at church which lead us to finding some explanation of our child and why he was acting this way. This is the what it's like...in the good moments it's like being in paradise. He's sweet, kind, cuddly, and playful. During the bad, you're stressed, don't know whether to scream or cry, and he's abusive towards you, mean, hard to control, and "prickly."


We didn't just decide to give our child the title "spirited." Accepting the title came after research and a quick quiz to determine if he was just testing his limits given his age and should then be considered spunky. He definitely fit into the spirited portion of the descriptions.

I wouldn't trade either of my boys for the world but I just had to get this all out there. Brayden will always be my little man. And as he grows he'll learn more and more how to control himself. Spirited children grow up to be great adults and many times we as children were spirited as well, we just were give the titles argumentative, difficult, hard headed, etc. I'm choosing to stick with spirited for mine as it's a more positive label. I'm glad I get to see him make these observations about himself and help to guide him during his growth.