Demanding / complaining child

--what would you do?

I've got one of these. It's an incredible emotional drain. This child is a serious the-glass-is-half-empty kind of person.

I use 2 strategies : 1 - swift non-emotional consequences 2 - huge amounts of slathering love & compassion. For a disrespectful tone of voice or words, she gets sent to her room until she shows me a submissive attitude. She's spent whole days up there with me checking every so often to see if she's "ready" - and she's not "ready" for a long time. Some days she doesn't go up at all. Progress is measured in years, not months or weeks. The key with her is that I can't show much emotion at all when I discipline. She considers it a "win" if I loose it either in anger or frustration.

The other key is that I fake compassion. Before she comes down from her room we sit on the stairs and discuss what was the trigger that set her off, what she could have done differently, etc. I express tremendous empathy (weather I feel it or not) for her frustration. We hug and I show her I'm not the enemy, but her advocate. I even sit below her on the stairs to allow her whatever dignity she needs to be able to see things through my eyes. I've told her 137,276 times in a very loving voice, "Sweetie, I love you so much and your maturity in Christ is so important to me that while it puts me in pain to fight you -- you are worth the fight. And until you're willing to fight yourself, I will continue to fight you -- but what I really want is to show you how much I love you."

If she complains, she gets more work. Period. Saturday school for any child who didn't finish their school during the week is a huge punnishment (for me, too) -- but it drives it home that your work won't get done by someone else if you don't do it. It took almost a full year of consistently doing these things until we saw any improvement and she'll still have really bad days (or weeks). I just take heart in the knowledge that this was God's choice for our family so I'll just do the best I can and pray and pray that He'll parent her in the ways that I'm incapable.

Discouragement & being worn down are the tools the enemy uses -- guard yourself from them. And, although it goes without saying, sometimes I still need to remember, to pray constantly for that child and my own heart to be conformed to the heart of Christ.