Strong Enough (An Older Brother Story)

Easter (Flashback) Part 2

Clayton's POV:

Sophia's response is not at all what I expected. She pulls away from me and yells at me "You are a liar! You are a liar and I don't have to listen to you!" then she throws herself on the floor and does something she has only done a handful of times in her life, and not for a couple of years, she starts throwing a full blown tantrum. She is screaming and crying and pounding her fist and feet on the floor. I was already pretty frustrated and I can feel myself getting even angrier. I really just want to yell at her that she is too old to act like this. But I don't, I take a deep breathe and try to compose myself. I am supposed to be the adult here and if I can't control my emotions in order to handle this situation then I don't know how I am supposed to expect a 9 year old to be able to. She is not a bad kid, and it is not like she is doing this to get a new toy she wants. She only acts up like this when she is really overwhelmed and doesn't know how else to handle her emotions. Kids have to deal with overwhelming emotions too, but they don't have the same coping abilities that adults do. Not that all adults handle overwhelming emotions very well either. There have been a few times over the last few years when I have been really overwhelmed with missing my parents and raising Sophia and trying to keep up with school. My solution was buying an old TV from a pawn shop and taking a baseball bat to it. That was probably not the best way to handle it, but it's all I could think of at the time. I'm not sure that throwing a tantrum is really any worse than that. It is hard sometimes, but I have to remember that my job is not to punish her for not knowing how to cope with her emotions, it is to help her learn how to handle them. At least that is what I read in a parenting book when I was an overwhelmed 18 year old trying to deal with a 6 year old throwing tantrums, and it seems to be working so far. It is not the way my parents would have handled something like this, but I know I have to make my own choices about how I raise Sophia. And I don't agree with the idea that spanking an overwhelmed and upset little kid does any good. Plus, I am just not comfortable with that, even if I thought it would be "good for her". I get down on my knees next to her on the floor and I pick her up so that she is standing. She keeps screaming and crying and starts pounding her fist on my chest instead of the floor. I grab her hands gently and say "Sophia, baby, I am going to need you to look at me." She looks at me, but she is still sobbing. I say gently "Okay, we are going to take some deep breathes. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Okay, are you ready?" She nods, still sobbing. I say "Okay, breathe in for 5 seconds... 1...2...3...4...5... and out for 5 seconds... 1...2...3...4...5..." she is half sobbing and half breathing, so she is gasping for air a little bit. I say gently, "Good job baby, let's do that again" and I count for 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out again. She is a little calmer this time, still crying but able to breathe. It breaks my heart to see her like this. I want to be able to protect her so that she never hurts this much, but I know that I can't actually protect her from everything. We do the breathing a few more times until she is mostly calmed down. I pick her up and sit back down on the bed. She puts her arms around my neck and cries "I miss mommy and daddy! It's not fair!" I rub her back and say "I know baby, I know. And it's okay to miss them and it is okay to be sad. But you can't throw fits like that, you have to control yourself." She cries into my shoulder "I can't bubby! I just can't! I try! I really do! But sometimes I just feel like I am going to explode!" I say "I know you are trying, but you can do it, I believe in you, it just takes practice." She ask "You promise?" I nod and say "Yeah kiddo, I promise." Then she ask "Bubby, why did God let mommy and daddy die?" Wow, what a question. I'm not sure I have come up with a satisfactory answer to that question for myself yet, much less for Sophia. I say "Honestly kiddo, I'm not sure." She just says "Oh..." I think she was expecting me to have an answer, but I am not going to pretend to know something that I don't know. I continue "Sometimes we don't know why God let's bad things happen Soph. Everyone has bad things that happen in their lives, but we also all have good things. And we need to be thankful for all of the good things God has given us. She ask "Like what?" And I ask her in return "What's the best thing in your life that you can think of?" She scrunches her nose and eyebrows and makes the cutest little thinking face, after a few moments she exclaims "You bubby!" I smile and say "We are pretty lucky to have each other, aren't we?" She nods again and I say "I wish I had the answers to all of your questions Soph, but I am not sure about a lot of things. However, I am sure that God exist and that He loves us. I see and feel God's love in you all of the time." She ask "God's love is in ME?" I respond "Yes it is baby. God's love is in all of us and in the world around us." She responds in awe "Wow. I didn't know that. I guess I don't hate God. I don't know bubby, I'm just not sure, I am really confused." I say gently "Right now you just have to have faith and trust God Sophia. And trust me. Maybe when you are a little older we can try to figure out some of your questions together." She ask "Do I still have to go to church?" I say "Yes you do Soph. When you are older you can make the decision about whether or not you want to go to church for yourself. But for right now it is my job to guide you." Then I ask, trying to lighten up the mood a little "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. What verse?" She makes her little scrunched up thinking face again and says "Umm...Proverbs?" I nod and she continues "22?" I nod and ask "22 what?" She thinks for a second and then says excitedly "22:6!" I say "Good job Soph." and then add "Alright, get dressed for church kiddo." and kiss her on the top of the head. She says "Okay bubby." I walk out of her room and close the door and then lean against the hallway wall and sigh. Jeez, sometimes it feels like this whole parenting thing is getting harder and more complicated everyday. I think this crisis has been averted though, for now at least.