I have a twelve year old daughter.

I adore her.  I am so afraid she does not know how much I love her. She is intelligent and beautiful and an talented artist.  She will read any book she can get her hands on.  Her imagination is limitless.  She is sensitive and loving and attentive to others.

Yet nothing has prepared me for her.  Not those three year old tantrums in Target.  Not even her fourteen year old sister.  She resonds differently to me. She is by no means an easy child.  Her moods flip like a switch; one moment she is happy and chatty and the next she is angry at everything.  It can be the most simple thing which will set her off on a spiral of anger and negativity.  Once this happens she will not back down.  She will not listen to what we have to say to her.  She will not give in to me or my threats.  She is so stubborn, I have no idea where she gets that from!  A small incident can spiral into hours of yelling, shouting and screaming on both our parts.   It is an emotional rollercoaster and it is no fun.

I wonder if I made mistakes when she was little.  She was such an easy baby and little girl.  She never demanded my attention like her twin brother or older sister.  She was always happy to play or to read or to watch without much interference from me.  The life of a military child is hard, she is in sixth grade and has been in six different schools.  It is not easy to make friends when you or they always have to say goodbye.

My biggest problem is that when she has one of her “episodes”, I have a tendency to react instead of respond to her.  Why can I not just listen to her?  To listen to her heart with my heart, not just my ears and my presumptions.  I know she needs more from me, and I feel like I am failing her.  I remember being twelve and I know that I was more like her than I would like to admit.  I know that I too was angry at the world and did not feel like I could be heard.  This world is hard, especially for a twelve year old girl.

In my heart I realize that she is not actually angry at me, that the one she is really angry at is herself.  I need to teach her that it is OK to be who she really is; she needs to allow herself to feel how she really feels.  I need to offer her an unconditional safe place to fall and fail.  When I do this, then I will be doing my job as this girls mother.  Unfortunately, doing this does not come naturally to me and I have a lot of work to do.

I know that this child needs me to love her in the way that she requires love;  in a way that is special just for her.  This is no “one size fits all” kind of love that she needs and what I am trying to figure out is how to do that.  I need to start by simply listening to her.  I need to accept her just the way she is.  By understanding that it is not the end of the world when her room is a little bit messy (it can get pretty bad!).  It is fine if she does not want to dress the way I think she should dress, or play a certain sport because I think that she should.  It is alright if she just wants to be her own crazy quirky little 12 year old self!

When we start our families, without even realizing it, we place so many expectations and assumptions upon these unborn children.  I was a fantastic mother before I ever had a kid, believe me…. In my naivety I thought  I knew what I would and would not allow or accept from my perfect child.  If my plans had actually come to fruition, I would have two beautiful daughters with blonde curls and blue eyes and they would excel at all sports and musical instruments and be in the all honors program at school….

Instead I have four loud, obnoxious and crazy children.  My home is messy and did I mention it was loud?  Not one of them is the smartest, most talented or most beautiful child in the world……but each of them are mine and I love them so much.  In my eyes they are perfect.  I could not imagine my life any other way.

My goal from now on is simple….

It is to remove all these ridiculous expectations I have imposed upon her and to parent her out of nothing but love……..

This girl deserves my best.