A Tale of Our Three Sisters

Charlotte is 6 years old, going on 15 I think. Recently she has been wanting the best of both worlds: childhood and adulthood. For example, she wants to ride in the stroller, but also wants to stay up late. All this comes with a lot of grunting and attitude. Sadly, I think she alone controls the overall feeling in the home. That should belong to the parents right? Well around here if Charlotte is happy and cooperative, so is everyone else. When she is mad, everyone else is too. It frustrates me having a child who is in charge of me... >:( 
Jari has reminded me that when she was born, and we blessed her in church as a baby, part of the blessing I provided to her was that her attitude would have a strong influence on her siblings. That seemingly small blessing has proved to be true.  


The other day Charlotte was not willing to eat her dinner any faster than a bite every 5 minutes. She received ample warning that bedtime was approaching. All the kids were bribed that night with a bowl of Magic Stars (another brand of Lucky Charms) if they finished their dinner. Hazel and Zachary had finished but Charlotte did not, even after numerous reminders and chances. So the 2 younger children received the cereal and Charlotte did not. She was NOT happy with this and proceeded to blame us and stormed off to her room where we later found this sign. She told me she wished she had different parents and everything else she could think of to make a point. 

I know this is not uncommon behavior for girls this age but it does not make navigating it as a parent any less difficult. In general conference Elder Uchtdorf gave a talk about three sisters. As we listened to this Jari and I looked at each other and suppressed laughter (Charlotte was in the room and would want an explanation or assume we were talking about her and be mad) and we did not want to explain why we were laughing. We have in our very own home these very three sisters:

A Mad Sister: Charlotte 
A Sad Sister: Hazel
A Glad Sister: Camille

Since that time, we have prayed a lot and tried to figure out what to do with the mad sister. I listed to the talk again and read King Benjamin's address in the Book of Mormon. I realized that while yes, our kids struggle with different things, they are still young and Christ's Atonement covers all their mistakes until they are baptized. Our role as parents is to teach by example. If we want Charlotte to be glad then we must be glad. If we feel down and sad and allow our concerns to consume us, it will only create fear and worry which is the opposite of faith. We simply teach, lead, love and live with gladness and pray our children will follow our example. 


To be fair, even though we struggle with this one being so mad all the time


And this one being so sad all the time - the truth is they are all really good kids and simply have their moments. We love them dearly. We are just trying to figure out how to deal with our three sisters


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