Monday Madness

My oldest daughter, Jourdyn is a gifted child. While being gifted is truly a blessing, it does have it's downsides. Her mind tends to wander. She tends to think about things that don't really concern her, like quite often she will make decisions for me and never tell me about them. She did this many times with school sports opportunities. She'll get a paper about it and because it costs money, she'll assume that I won't let her do it or that we couldn't afford it or something like this. There are many more issues that exist, however, I concerned all of them a blessing and a gift from God. What is happening now is what's driving me crazy. Take all of the gifted child issues, add puberty and it's lovely attitude and don't forget to add the general bull-headedness and always right attitude she gets from me and you have a glimpse of my life with a middle-schooler.

Right now grades are the issue. They are slipping. They aren't horrible. She's not failing but she's gone from a straight A student to a B/C student. There have been a lot of changes this year: puberty, entering middle school, a public school, me going back to work part-time, the list probably goes on. So some of this is just adjusting.

Her GT teacher said I should give her consequences for not doing her homework, cause that will work....I really love how the assumption is that Jourdyn hasn't had consequences up to this point. As if, they have been in my home and know my procedures and parenting techniques. So here's my question: What else do I take from her? What additional consequence do I give her for not doing her work? (Which is typical of some gifted children - they feel they don't need to do it because they know it or just because they are bored)

There are no video games in my home. There is limited TV time. There is no phone calls to take away. The computer has already been taken away. There's her piano but that isn't really able to be taken away. There's Caravans, Bible Quizzing and youth group...but honestly, I believe Jourdyn's spiritual welfare is more important than her grades. So to some extent I can use these activities as enticement to do her work but in the past when I've done that it hasn't worked. So what? What do I do with her?

It's Monday today. And it's the beginning of the school year, which means a new year of MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). Today, I picked up Melissa and Izzie and headed out for MOPS. Once I got there. Many of my friends began to ask me how things were going and how Jourdyn was adjusting to public middle school. And I couldn't help but just cry. I hate crying and I especially hate crying in front of people. But I am at my whits end with the whole situation. And I don't know what else to do.

We had a presentation today at MOPS about Moms in Touch. Moms in Touch is a prayer group of moms. The video was all about the power of prayer changing the lives of our kids in school, the lives of their teachers and administrators, etc. It really spoke to me. I pray. I pray a whole lot. But I was left asking myself: do I really pray enough? Or am I praying the right things? Or am I praying for the right person? Maybe it's me or maybe I need more prayer for her about specific things? Or maybe I'm just not praying and expecting? Or maybe...well I don't know...but I know that even with prayer...there are things that I have to do and things that she has to do to move in the right direction. So I definitely need to pray more for guidance as a mom. Because God knows that on some level each day I fail miserably at this blessed task He's assigned to me.

This was my Monday morning...my afternoon is a different story....