One of them will grab his brother’s hat and run. Or snatch a quarter from his little brother’s hand and sprint around the living room. Or steal his brother’s favorite stuffed animal and dash downstairs with it.

And that’s wrong. I get that. It’s frustrating and annoying. It’s no fun when someone takes your stuff just to upset you.

However — what really makes me crazy is the reaction of the wronged son. And they all do this. And it makes my head want to explode!

As soon as the hat is grabbed or quarter snatched or stuffed animal stolen, the victim begins to chase and scream, “Mom! MAAAAHHHHHHMMMMM!! He took something from me! Make him give it back!”

Usually by this point, they are running in circles around the downstairs. “Mom! He has my thing! He took it! Make him give it back! Mom! MAAAAHHHHHHHMMMMMM!”

And then he will turn to his brother, who always has an evil smirk on his face as he runs for his life. “Give it back to me! You can’t take my stuff! I hate you! Give it back!”

Then he screams back at me, “MAAAHHHHHMMMMM! Why aren’t you helping? Make him give it back to me!”

And, of course, all of this happens in less than two minutes. And because of all the screaming and running and chaos, I can’t really say anything and be heard.

Over and over, I explain to my sons that if they want my help, they need to come to me and ask with respect and then let me handle it. If they are screaming and chasing and trying to wrestle their possession from a brother, then they are making it harder for me to handle the situation.

As I have been reminding my boys of this, I have begun to think. Don’t I do this same thing with God?

I have a problem, so I frantically pray, “Help me, God. Work this out for me. Hurry. Work it out quickly.” And then I worry and fuss and complain. I try to wrestle out the solution on my own. I practically scream for God to help me, but then I plow ahead as if it all is up to me.

All the while, He is saying, Be still and know that I am God. . . . Be still before Me and wait patiently for Me. . . . Wait patiently for Me, and I will incline and hear your cry. . . . Wait on Me and I will strengthen your heart. . . . Wait for Me, and I will provide at the right time  (Ps. 46:10, Ps. 37:7, Ps. 40:1, Ps. 27:14, Ps. 104:27). 

Today, I am going to quiet myself before Him. I am going to stop screaming and fretting and fussing and plotting and scheming. I am going to be still and wait.

Do you ask God for help and then forge ahead as if you had to handle it all by yourself? Do you have any idea why my sons think this is a fun activity? Is it possible for my head to actually explode from their antics? 

He squints his eyes and shakes his head rapidly back and forth. He lifts his knees to touch the top of his thighs to the underside of his desk. He lifts his toes up and down inside his shoes. Discreetly, he tries to turn some arm-flapping into a stretch. And every time he reads a cool word, his brain repeats it, rolls it around and around in his mind, silently focusing on every syllable.

The head-shaking, knee-lifting, arm-flapping tics are repeated over and over again as he tries to listen to his teacher, remembers not to repeat any cool words out loud -only inside his head- and makes sure his arms don’t actually hit any kids sitting near him.

ThingFour has Tourette Syndrome and some mild OCD. And while it’s often an annoyance, it usually isn’t horribly disruptive to life. There are worse things, we remind ourselves.

But during state standardized testing days —– Well, Tourette Syndrome and standardized testing aren’t the most compatible.

The compulsion to repeatedly check and recheck and recheck every answer has tripped him up on tests before.

Reading test questions, looking at maps, lining up math problems while squinting up his eyes and shaking his head from side to side can be especially challenging.

Holding in tongue clicks and remembering not to whisper-repeat any fun-sounding words, like Ponce de Leon and Antarctica, requires mental energy that could be put toward answering test questions.

So today and on the other test days, I’m praying for ThingFour and for ThingTwo, his ticcing sister. I’m praying for focused minds and calm bodies. I’m praying for understanding teachers and neighboring classmates who are not easily distracted by knee-lifting and head-shaking.

And I’m bracing myself for some serious opera-singing tics when ThingFour gets home from school. After holding in tics and focusing on test-taking today, Tourette Syndrome will probably really let loose when his school day is over. Anyone have any song requests?

This child – my ThingThree, my first-born son – is a poster-child for the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy.

He started at a small, private school half-way through first grade. By the end of his first week there, he had been told he was behind the other students and that he would have to work hard to catch up in reading.

During that school year and the next, the ideas that he couldn’t read, that he was slower than everyone else, that he was behind, that he should be held back, that he would fail if promoted — all of those thoughts were imposed upon him at school. Often the help he received made him miss out on other classroom work, work that had to be made up, which perpetuated the idea that he was never able to catch up with the rest of his classmates.

By the end of second grade, he declared he was not made for school. He would drop out and travel the world.

The next year I homeschooled him. I learned everything I could about teaching reading. I learned everything I could about kinesthetic learning. And I taught him reading and math and grammar and social studies and science.

But mostly, I worked my tail off to rebuild my broken little boy. Every day, I told him he was smart. Every day, I told him he was becoming a good reader. Every day, I pointed out his successes. Whereas at school, the focus had been on his weaknesses; at home, we highlighted his strengths.

It was sort of like this

Years ago, his teachers said he was slow, a poor reader, behind everyone else. And, for a while, he believed them.

Now, his teachers tell him he is a fluent reader and great at math. His classmates tell him he is a rockstar artist. And he believes them.

Seriously, this kid might be the next great comic strip artist! At least, I’m telling him he can be if he wants.

What messages are we giving the children in our lives? What labels are we putting on them? Because they believe us. And they’ll live up to whatever we expect of them. 

It spoke to my heart, and I wrote the following response to it. 

I love how Rich Mullins put it –  ”I would rather live on the verge of falling & let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some kind of pietistic illusion of moral excellence.”

How many of us live in a pietistic illusion of our own moral excellence?  I know I’ve been guilty of that.

Then he said, “My faith isn’t in the idea that I am more moral than anybody else. My faith is in the idea that God and His love are greater than whatever sins any of us commit.”

Let that sink in.  I have been thinking about it all morning.

When I focus on my own behavior, even my own good behavior, then my focus is not on God.  We Christians can make an idol out of morally good behavior.  We can behave as if our faith is in our own morality.

Whereas, if I live on the verge of falling, then I am constantly aware of my own weakness.  I am constantly aware that I am fully reliant on God.  I am constantly aware of His love that far surpasses the extent of my sins.  And that’s a good place to be.

If I live on the verge of falling, then -to paraphrase one of Rich Mullins’ songs- then if I stand, I stand on the promise that Christ will pull me through, and if I fall, then I fall on the grace that first brought me to Christ.  Either way, my focus is on Christ and He gets the glory.

I’ve been pondering this thought lately. If God’s kindness leads us to repentance, then why do I think it’s going to be my yelling and nagging that leads my children to repentance?

This week, I will be more kind and loving when I speak to them – firm, when necessary, but kind. Even when I’m tired or hungry. Even when they are ignoring me or disobeying me or fussing with each other over something stupid. Even when they are being unkind.

I want my interactions with my children to be marked with this loving kindness, the same sort of kindness and goodness God shows to me.

All around me, there are signs that my home is filled with boys.

* Sometimes I find baseballs in the fruit bowl.

* And cowboy boots in weird places.

* When they come in from playing outside, my entire house smells like sweat and dirt and grass.

* I’ve heard myself saying odd things like, “We don’t play with mousetraps!”

* Or “Who put the Webkinz hamster in the freezer?”

*Or “Please don’t draw a picture of a man bleeding on the birthday card you are making for your friend. I don’t care that the invitation had camo on it; bleeding men do not make appropriate birthday greetings!”

* Or “NO! You may not wear rollerblades while riding the scooter! Take those off!”

* This toy roach regularly scares the bejeebies out of me!

* My dinner-table rules include decrees like, “No burping or farting at the table!”

* And “No talking about burping or farting at the table!”

* And “No putting the grape tomatoes up your nose!”

* My living room is often the set for costumed wrestling matches.

* Any reference to the words “balls” or “nuts” is met with raucous laughter.

* I have actually walked by the bathroom door to find 3 -THREE!- sons standing around the toilet peeing at the same time.

* I am forever shouting things about not running with sticks, not kicking soccer balls in the house, not crawling into the metal drainage pipe with the jagged edges and not shooting Nerf darts at a sibling’s face.

But there is something about sweaty, stinky, sticky hugs from a little boy. There is that moment when a son comes running full-force, nearly knocking me over with a powerful hug that cannot contain his love.

There is something about reading I Love You, Stinkyface and Snuggle Puppy and tucking in my own stinky, snuggly boys.

There is something about hearing, “I love you, Momma” from a little boy’s voice that makes all the anxiety-ridden dangerous feats, the nasty bathroom clean-up, the grass-stained jeans and the smelly socks worth it.

I am the mother of 4 sons.

At a parent-teacher conference in March, ThingFive’s teacher told me that he would completely freeze when given a writing assignment. Not wanting to spell any words incorrectly, he would become paralyzed by perfectionism.

His teacher encouraged him to check his second-grade word list. She encouraged him to stretch the word out, make his best spelling guess, then circle it so he could come back later to find the real spelling. The poor kid just could not get over his fear of making a mistake.

So he wasn’t completing any writing assignments. This cutie spent 20 minutes at his desk wondering how to spell “chocolate,” unsure if he should use a “k” or a “c.”

During the conference, his teacher and I brainstormed ways to help him take risks with his writing, ways to help him feel comfortable just writing and not worrying about perfection. We came up with this idea of the Super Secret Notebook.

I write a secret message to ThingFive, ending with a question or two. Then I hide it under his pillow.

He finds it, reads it and writes a message back to me, answering my questions and telling me anything he wants me to know. Then he hides it in my nightstand.

I assured him that I used to teach second grade, and since some of my students were not good spellers, I can decipher misspelled words.

It took some encouraging and some very short test-messages to me, but he finally relaxed. He writes in our Super Secret Notebook. He even attempts very challenging words, like “lasagna” and “favorite.”

His teacher says he has become quite the risk-taker in his writing. He often finishes writing assignments so quickly she doesn’t even have time to walk back around the room to check on him before he is done.

Oh, and the other day he spelled “chocolate” correctly in a message to me.

Have you had any great ideas that proved to be an educational turning point for your children? Or maybe you remember some strategy that provided a learning breakthrough for you. Will you share your ideas here?

As I watched the children demonstrate their climbing and flipping abilities on the monkey bars, (“Watch me!” “Look at this!” “I take gymnastics; look what I can do!”) another mother came and stood beside me. We introduced ourselves and pointed out our sons and laughed about the competitive nature of second-grade girls.

As another little boy ran by, this mom motioned to him and told me that her son and that little boy had “an issue” earlier in the year. She saw that boy’s mother across the field but wasn’t sure if she should go talk to her or not. Certainly that boy’s mother thought she was a horrible mother because of what her son had done. She confided in me that when the incident first happened, she worried that maybe she was doing everything all wrong; maybe she was an awful mother.

I tried to be reassuring. I tried to encourage her. I said some of the right things — that most mothers worry about that, that even really excellent parenting cannot guarantee perfect children, that children will make mistakes and it’s our job to help them learn from those mistakes, that really horrible mothers wouldn’t even worry about being horrible mothers.

And I believe all those things. I think I spoke truth to her. But I didn’t tell her what I should have told her. I didn’t share my own most embarrassing parenting moments, which would surely have made her feel much better about herself as a mother. I wish I had chosen to respond to her vulnerability by being honest and vulnerable with her.

I wish I had told her about the time my son helped himself to candy from a teacher’s desk. Many times over the course of a few weeks. I was horrified that my child would do such a thing! Upon discovering what he’d been up to, I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t about me, and getting my pride all caught up in the situation wasn’t going to accomplish anything. With much prayer and humility, I dealt with the situation and hope my son learned some lifelong lessons in the process.

I could have told this mom about the time my sons were sliding down a banister from the third story of a building and when another adult told them to stop (because it was dangerous!), they looked her in the face and said, “You’re not our boss! We don’t have to listen to you!”

I could have told her about the times my children have willfully and foolishly destroyed property — hacking into a tree in someone else’s yard with a tennis racket, peeling paint off walls that were not ours, writing on walls with a Sharpie, jamming a screwdriver into drywall.

Or I could have told her about the time one of my sons bullied a classmate, a boy he really liked, just because he saw other kids doing it and jumped on the bandwagon. Fortunately, his siblings told on him and we nipped that in the bud rather quickly.

But there is one story that would surely have made her feel like Mother of the Year, compared to me. This is the story I really regret not telling her that day. This is the moment that made me wonder about myself, “What kind of mother raises a son that does that sort of thing?!”

One evening my sons were playing with neighbor boys. And suddenly an idea popped into one of my son’s minds. Without any hesitation, he decided to go with the idea. Running into our apartment, he grabbed a bucket and took it to the bathroom and peed in it. Then he took the bucket of urine into the hall and dumped it on the neighbor boy’s head.

Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, it is one of the most disgusting things you’ve heard all week month year.

My son was not angry. He was not upset. He felt no ill-will toward the neighbor at all. He repeatedly told me the idea just popped into his head, and he did it.

Aghast, I wondered, Was my son being raised by wolves? Would he actually be better off being raised by wolves? What sort of mother was I, that my offspring would pee in a bucket and dump it on another child’s head? 

I was mortified. Disgusted. Appalled. Humbled beyond words.

Children have a way of doing that to you. They aren’t little robots. Even if I were a perfect mother -and I am sooooo NOT!- my children wouldn’t necessarily behave perfectly. They have minds of their own. Clearly, they sometimes have really, really gross minds of their own. And their behavior often reminds me that I am not in control.

Yes, I am responsible for teaching them. But when I feel personally to blame for every one of their bad decisions, when I start to believe that their bad choices make me a bad mother, then I am assuming far too much control.

Honestly, it’s pride. It’s giving myself even more credit and blame than I give God. After all, he’s my Father; is He an awful Father when I willfully and foolishly do wrong things?

So I wish I had told that mother that all of us have embarrassing moments when our children do things that mortify us and humble us. And it’s normal to do a little soul-searching and examination to see if we’re doing all we can in teaching and training them. A little bit of that is probably even healthy. But it’s not healthy to berate ourselves and give ourselves too much credit for the good or the bad behaviors that our children display.

I wish I had told her that the sweet, loving things my son does far outnumber the times he has jabbed a screwdriver into a wall or dumped urine on a kid’s head. And that I’m sure that’s true about her son too.

I wish I had told her that just as we give our children grace to learn through mistakes, we also can give ourselves grace as imperfect mothers of imperfect children.

Having my feelings completely invalidated drives me crazy. It certainly never helps bring resolution. Discrediting my emotions does not facilitate good communication, does not draw me closer into a relationship. That’s for sure.

As I have followed the Trayvon Martin shooting in the news and in blogs and on Facebook, I have observed a reaction occurring again and again. White people will comment on blog posts or create Facebook status updates or write entire editorial pieces, arguing that this incident is not a racial issue.

In my mind, these comments wholly invalidate not only one person’s emotions and opinions, but those of an entire segment of our population.

I am a 39-year-old freckled white girl. I was raised in a small town in which any minorities were most definitely a minority. As in – I could use my fingers to count all the people with non-white skin in my high school, and I wouldn’t even need both hands. I went to a small, mostly-white Christian college. I married a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. And we have pale, freckled white children who must wear SPF 50 sunscreen to keep from getting second-degree burns in the summer sun. I have never experienced a moment of racism in my life.

Maybe, just maybe, my lack of experience in this area disqualifies me from determining what is a racist or racial issue and what is not.

As I read about the Trayvon Martin killing (and other similar cases), I notice that all of my black friends, all of my friends with black sons, all of the black bloggers or bloggers with black sons, all of the black editorial writers — all of the ones I have read or heard from — all of them see this as an issue of race.

And these people have far more experience on the receiving end of racism than I. They have a perspective that I cannot have, unless I learn it from them.

So maybe I should be still and listen to them and learn.

Because invalidating their emotions and opinions certainly isn’t going to help foster meaningful communication.