Parenting a right-brained child

I have blogged a lot lately about the imagination of our right-brained daughter.  I have deliberately been recording some of her creative activities to help me celebrate our differences.  Her creativity is inspiring, and I know I need to rejoice in the way God designed her so perfectly unique and unlike me.  However, there are certain aspects to her creative mind that can drive a tightly wound, left-brained parent bonkers.  Surely, God is using her to refine me.

Right brained girl smiles while eating crackers

  Frustrating Differences

• I thrive in a neat, organized environment while she leaves a trail of clutter and chaos wherever she goes. 

• With homeschooling, I am most comfortable when we follow a schedule and a carefully planned curriculum.  Since subjects often build upon one another, I do not like to skip around.  She can be quite studious but only when studying whatever topics interest her most on that particular day.  She is a perfect candidate for the "unschooling" approach to education, but I just cannot teach her that way.

• When someone in authority over me gives me an instruction, I am usually compelled to complete that task right away.  When she receives a command, she begins to obey but then sees a book she had previously thrown on the floor and stoops to read it.  That book gives her an idea for a fun craft, so she tosses the book somewhere (she will often not remember where she left this library book until it is several weeks overdue and just happens to stumble across it again) and then runs off to the craft closet to collect necessary supplies for her craft.  While looking in the closet, she sees a needle and thread and decides to sew her doll a new dress.  So she drops the craft supplies and runs off to find some fabric and scissors.  When she opens the school supply closet to get some scissors, she sees shiny markers and decides she should make a card for her father. She then drops the needle and thread onto the floor and begins making the card.  While drawing an elaborate illustration on the card, she looks out the window beside her school desk and notices that the neighbors' grandchildren are outside playing.  So, she drops the markers, changes into her play clothes (leaving the old clothes in the floor or stuffing them inside an overflowing drawer instead of into the laundry basket to be washed), and runs out the door to visit her friends.  By then, she has totally forgotten the instruction I originally gave her, and the house is a mess.  When I inform her that she isn't allowed to play until she cleans up the mess she just made and completes the task I initially gave her, she sobs uncontrollably while complaining that such an assignment is just too overwhelming. Then the cycle begins again. 

Differences such as these have caused some misunderstanding.  After reciting the mantra, "right away, all the way, and with a happy heart", countless times with regard to obedience, I have been inclined to view her delays in carrying out commands as willful defiance, rejection, or spite.   However, as a student of her heart, I am learning that she does not purposefully disobey or intend to disrespect me.  She is just a child who is still learning how to to focus her attention and finish tasks promptly.  While I must address the heart issues, I should also patiently and lovingly teach her focusing skills that will help her complete assignments thoroughly, excellently, and promptly.  I may be prayerfully reaching into my business management toolbox from my career days to help her progress in this area.   Instead of becoming frustrated over our differences, I need to celebrate all the wonderful benefits and rejoice over the amazing potential God has planned for her creative energy.

Some Benefits

• She makes friends easily because she eagerly invites others into her exciting, adventurous, imaginative world.  She is lively, joyful, inspiring, and fun to be around.
• She is always making us laugh with her clever drama, writing, crafts, and inventions.  She is quite the entertainer.
• In addition to entertaining others, she can also entertain herself for hours when left alone.
• When she gets an ambitious idea in her mind, she sees possibilities, not obstacles.  She has a "can-do" attitude and will always find a way around the obstacles by thinking outside of the box.
• She is a voracious reader, easily reading several chapter books each day on her own initiative.
• She is passionate, compassionate, observant, expressive, artful, and filled to the brim with love.

Making Progress?

Yesterday, we hosted a dinner party for the six couples who comprise our church community group.  One couple was forced to move here last year so that he could finish his last year of residency as a surgeon.  Even though they did not want to be here and longed for home while they were here, they have etched a lasting imprint into our hearts.  This precious couple is deeply loved by our church family and will be sorely missed when they move back to Arkansas in July.  We wanted this community group meeting to serve as an extra special farewell party for them, so I set out all our formal china in the dining room and prepared my signature creamy pasta dish for the special occasion.

Community Group

Getting the house clean and tidy for guests can be a stressful task when there is an energetic right-brained child whirring about the house.   We invited two of our daughter's friends (one is older and hopefully mature enough to keep the other kids in line) to come play with her during the dinner party so they could have fun on the 3rd floor without interrupting our guests on the 1st floor.  I explained to her that she was not allowed to come downstairs unless there was a real emergency.  We did some role playing, and I hoped the boundaries I had set for her would be respected.

While we were all seated for dinner, my husband saw a paper airplane come flying down the staircase.  He went to investigate and saw the word "notes" written on the wing of the plane.

He unfolded the airplane and found some notes written by our right-brained child.  She wanted permission to use the video camera so that she and her friends could make a movie.  I enjoyed watching their creative movie, complete with scripts and costumes, later than night after our guests had departed.

 

In this instance, our daughter's creativity enabled her to get the tools she needed for her next creative project without breaking the "do not come downstairs unless there is an emergency" rule.  She interrupted us, but by sending the airplane instead of coming downstairs herself, she kept the letter of the law.  That girl cracks me up!