When It’s Hard to Enjoy Your Child

A friend asked me a good question in a roundabout way. Let’s say my child is in one of those seasons when they’re hard to love.

…Or even being a jerk. 

Um, I thought. Definitely a strong possibility in the lifecycle of a parent.

How important is it that I show them they make me happy?

Maybe you’re smack dab in the middle of your child causing you a lot of heartache. (Along with deep happiness and gratitude–kids do bring a lot of pain.)

You might think things like, This is not the kind of kid I’m raising you to be. Or, They didn’t really tell me about this part at the baby shower.

Perhaps you wonder–like I have–if acting like you enjoy them right now would just encourage bad behavior. Or would be kind of like lying to them. 

Maybe your child’s running hard from God, or hasn’t really shown much interest in the first place. Maybe you’re still working through that behavioral diagnosis, or in a season where your child embarrasses you at playdates or in public.

I can relate.

And I think God can, too. I’m thinking of places in the Bible like the book of Hosea (i.e. “the way Israel loves me is kind of like being married to a prostitute”). Or the story of the prodigal son. Or God’s newly-freed-from-400-years-of-slavery kids complaining in the desert and saying he’s not worthy of their trust.

God knows that to love people, especially immature ones, often leads to a whole lotta grief.

Delight, when it’s tough

A friend told me recently that from some major caregivers in their life, they felt like those caregivers were obligated to love them.

That struck me as really hard. Does any of us want to feel like the people “in charge” of loving us are doing it because they have to?

I understand this, too, from a season as an adult where I felt alienated and misunderstood by the world at large. (Forgive me; I’ve mentioned this once before.)

Later on in that time, I picked up the yellowed album of childhood photos of me, tears blurred my vision when I saw a black-and-white photo tucked inside. My mom wears a hospital gown, and I am newly born, naked on her chest.

And the look on my mom’s face is wonder.

Her mouth is slightly open, perhaps speaking to my raisined face. She maybe even looks besotted (and my mom, a thinker, is not usually the openly besotted type).

In our kids’ hardest seasons–as well as their youngest and it’s-a-normal-Thursday days–we carry a unique position as their parents to express our delight in them.

I think there’s a certain extent to which God shows us delight isn’t always earned. 

Why enjoying our kids (right now) matters

I see a mom, say, who’s baby’s been born with a deformity, choosing delight in her child. Some delight is natural. But at least for my friend whose child was born with a cleft palate, there was some loss they needed to look past.

Loss they chose to look past, surpassed by no-matter-what love for their child.

Marriage, too ideally reflects God’s covenant love: in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse, as long as they both shall live.

Even on your child’s hellion days (or in their hellion seasons), they need delight.

But to get there, they may need you to find it. To look for places where it genuinely can be cultivated.

Covenant love looks for delight when delight is hard. 

And that’s ultimately what Jesus did, I think. When we’d chosen to be his enemies (Romans 5:8), he chose to endure coming toward us “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). He chose to see value despite our attitudes and rebellion and blindness.

And he absorbed the cost, even when we were rewriting the narrative between us.  

How to enjoy your child when delight is hard

Maybe you’ve heard that smiling can actually trick your brain into happiness.

PositivePsychology.com also points out that in acts of kindness, “Whether you are recipient or giver or merely just a witness you can feel the benefits of an increase in oxytocin”–the bonding chemical dubbed the “love hormone” (also released after nursing or sex).

Acts of kindness, they continue, can even decrease your anxiety and/or depression, increase your endorphins, lower your blood pressure, and create emotional warmth. (Check out all 22+ benefits listed!)

I’m hearing that extending kindness toward our kids when our relationship is fraught can help heal us both. 

So sometimes doing things that a delighted parent would do can help us cultivate delight in our kids. Maybe that’s

• Celebrating your child on a special occasion.

• Buying them their favorite Starbucks.

• Inviting them on a trip with you.

• Asking them about things that excite them right now: that new Lego creation, or Taylor Swift’s latest hit, or her latest art project.

• Making their favorite snack on a bad day.

You don’t have to be an extrovert to express delight in your child.

It’s about communicating to our kids, You are more than what you do. There is hope to be had for you. Joy to be had about you. 

Try this: “I love that you’re so ____. Who you are makes me happy.”

Hopefully, even when it’s hard to like our kids, we can see God’s beauty in them. The way he cheers them on and finds hope.

In that way, delight’s a great discipline for our own souls. And a great reminder of the mind-blowing quality of God’s love for us on our worst, undeserving days.

Like this post? You might like

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When Your Child is Different from What You Expected

When Your Child’s Weaknesses Feel Overwhelming

I’ll find you: What we long to hear

When Change in Your Child is S-l-o-w