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They may surprise you.
Give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sometimes I feel that God sent me my fourth child because he knew I needed to be humbled.
After three sons who were very much normal little boys but were relatively straight-forward to discipline, my fourth child threw me for a loop from day one. He felt all the feels deeply and expressed them all externally.
There was a period when we would go to Mass, and it felt like a roll of the dice. Some weeks we would go up for communion and all would run smoothly; on others, he would throw a knockdown, drag out tantrum, and we were forced to pry him off the floor to take him out until Mass was over. For weeks, we could not figure out his behavior. There didn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to it.
Then we figured out that this only happened with a visiting priest who didn’t bless non-communicants during communion.
My son wanted his blessing and was not going to tolerate being denied it. We were able to talk to him and assure him that if the priest didn’t bless him during communion, he could approach him after Mass, and he would gladly give him a blessing.
And sure thing, after Mass, he would seek out that priest and make sure he was blessed. And he never threw another tantrum during Mass.
One thing that many years of parenting have taught me is that children usually want to please you. They want to be well behaved, and when they aren’t, there is usually more to it than we see at first glance.
Try not to make hasty assumptions about their behavior and motivations. Of course, continue to correct and train. But taking a step back before reacting can provide the space to understand and problem solve.
First assume they are hungry, tired, frustrated about something they don’t know how to express, or simply too young to have the impulse control you wish they had.
I feel terrible when I look back on the times I most completely lost my cool when my older children were young only to have them start running a fever or throwing up a short while later.
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