Children and Agency

I've been thinking a lot about agency lately. Recently, I visited with my mother and grandmother. It was delightful. The flow of conversation and laughing went on for hours. One topic has stuck in my mind.

Tantrums seem to be a problem with many young children. I was famous for them, but they were blamed on my terrible temper--not me. I grew up believing that this temper was inborn and just as permanant as my eye color. In effect I was doomed.

My husband had the same problem, but his mother took a different approach with him. When he was about four, she told him that everyone has a temper. They could choose to control it or not. I would always be something that he had to think about and consciously control.

I had a few children with this problem. Before I understood that all our actions could indeed be controlled by choice, I fought and struggled with them. Our old friend Colonel Anderson told me once to stop chewing the fat with the children. In the end, I stooped to locking them in thier rooms during these violent episodes. That way I would at least not be tempted to spank them, though sadly I did that too.

Somewhere between my first and last child, I grasped the concept of agency. "God's children have power to choose; they had this ability even before they were born. In the premortal life, Heavenly Father presented His plan, which included the principle of agency. Lucifer rebelled and "sought to destroy the agency of man" (Moses 4:3). As a result, Lucifer and all those who followed him were denied the privilege of receiving a mortal body. All who have been or will be born on earth chose to follow Heavenly Father's plan. In this life, people continue to have agency; even if their personal freedoms are restricted or taken away, they can choose how to feel and react. Their use of their agency determines their happiness or misery in this life and in the life to come. People are free to choose and act but are not free to choose the consequences of their actions. The consequences may not be immediate, but they will always follow. Choices of good and righteousness lead to happiness, peace, and eternal life, while choices of sin and evil eventually lead to heartache and misery." lds.org

When my last two children had violent screaming fits, I didn't take it personally most of the time. Instead, I picked up the child and gave hugs. They still screamed, threw theirs head back, and all that. But as they raged, I whispered. "You feel __________, because _____________. You want ___________, but can't touch it. It's hard to feel ______." As time went by, they began to listen. I rubbed his back. They would say yes through hot tears even at two years old. Then I would suggest that perhaps they might want to quit crying so they didn't get a head ache. Usually, they quit, hopped down, and went on thier way. It didn't take punishment, isolation, or controlling to make the tantrum stop.

This was way better than 1 hour screaming jags that left us all feeling terrible. I know I felt so much better about the way I chose interact with them. I love all me children fiercely. Without all the hard feelings and drama that went on with some of the others, the last ones don't have all the issues with me and how they were raised. (Actually, I don't know about Katie, because she died at age nine.)

"Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. " Joshua 24:14-15