Lisa Whelchel's Reality Check
When Lisa Whelchel was on the TV sitcom The Facts of Life her character, Blair Warner, seemed to have it all together. Then Lisa got married, had a family of her own, and shared her expertise on disciplining children with her book Creative Correction. It's refreshing to see that even someone who seems to be so perfect has a rough day every once in a while. Lisa's latest endeavor, writing the upcoming book Finding God in America has produced a number of adventures. To research the book, Lisa and her husband, Steve, are now traveling across the country for a year in a motor home with their three home-schooled children: Tucker, 11; Haven, 9; and Clancy, 8. Below is a recent entry from Lisa's travel journal:
It is time for a reality check! I realized after writing yesterday's journal entry that I wasn't giving you the whole picture. I wasn't lying, or even coloring the picture; I was just leaving out some parts. And it's not that I wanted to hide anything, I was simply hitting the high spots.
So, today we are going to fill in the blanks. Yes, we had a wonderful time at this fabulous RV Park. The kids have spent hours playing in the sandbox and riding their bikes. We've visited Patrick Henry College, the Clara Barton Museum and the Nanticoke Homes Factory Tour. I've had a productive week getting caught up on office work and Steve has put the finishing touches on making this new RV feel like home. There have also been many fun family nights.
But underneath all of this fun stuff is the not-so-fun stuff. Let's put it this way: Monday afternoon I called up the airline and made a reservation to send Tucker to Grandma and Grandpa's house in North Carolina. His attitude was unbearable. Haven couldn't do anything right in his eyes and he had nothing nice to say to her. Steve and I were the idiotic parents who didn't know what we were talking about. And Clancy was his own personal wrestling buddy. (Of course, it was all in fun, but she inevitably got hurt and would end up crying.)
Which brings up the whole other issue of confining an 11-year-old ADHD boy in a 40-foot space for hours on end. Everything about Tucker is big -- his voice, his humor, his movements, his emotions, everything. Subsequently, the motor home just got too small for the five of us and the Tribal Council chose to vote him off the island.
It was Steve's and my hope that being so dramatically isolated from the family -- and the trip -- would speak to him about how serious we were about him needing to make some better choices in the future. We had tried all the usual parenting strategies, yelling, lecturing, reasoning, praying, spanking, guilt and even creative correction. Nothing was making a difference.
Serious times called for serious measures. We sat him down and explained to him that we loved his sister too much to allow her to be treated unkindly. We argued that if he was going to continue making choices that affected the whole family, he left us little choice but to remove him from the Family Dream to give him the time and space to re-evaluate what was important to him. We gave him three days to make some changes before we made any airline reservations.
Come day 3, we started the morning off with a loving and heartfelt parent/child pep talk between Steve, Tucker, Haven and me. We ended our time in prayer and then asked the children to pray. These were Tucker's words (in front of Haven, mind you), "Dear Lord, help me to survive Haven for one more day. Help me to overlook it when she picks her boogers and wipes them off."
That was it. He couldn't even pray without jabbing his sister. I found a flight that left that evening. We cleared the dates with Grandma and called back to make the reservation. That's when we discovered that, in addition to the quoted fare, there were additional taxes, fees, and a charge for an unaccompanied minor. We wanted Tucker to learn a valuable lesson, but it wasn't worth THAT much.
Thankfully, the scare alone was worth something. Tucker settled down a bit, until we had to change the sleeping arrangements. Haven is just too tall to sleep on the j-sofa anymore. She kept hitting her feet on the back of the chair at the end. We knew this going into the trip but we thought it would be easier for her to scrunch up a bit than to have to sleep with her brother.
But it got too uncomfortable. So, we had to make the switch to Clancy on the sofa and Haven on the Magic Bed with Tucker. Can you believe the timing of all of this? But, we had to do it. The first two nights were awful. Just use your imagination. "She's on my side." "His breath stinks." "Her feet are in my face." "He's making mouth noises." This brings up a good point. Haven is not without fault in this situation. She has a penchant for stirring up strife until it's a bona fide bon fire.
Last night was a miracle. They went to bed, went to sleep, and didn't make a peep. Maybe something is getting through after all.
You've heard me brag about Tucker, and the girls, for months now. And, it's all true. They are incredibly fun, and Tucker brings truckloads of joy to our family. He has a good heart and he loves his parents. But he is a normal 11-year-old boy. And my daughters are normal little girls.
It is very important to me that you know that. It's important that you know that my kitchen is messy much of the time, (pictured at left.) It's important that you see me stressed and without makeup, (pictured above.) It's important for you to know that you are not the only mother in the world who feels like sending her kids away every once in awhile. T
Thank God His mercies are new every morning.
By the way, I read this entry to Tucker first before I posted it. I wanted to make sure he felt OK about me talking about him so openly to so many people. He laughed his way through it and exclaimed, "Preach it, Momma", when I talked about Haven. At the end, he said, "You just need to add one thing. Tell them, 'Tucker said Hi!' I want to be able to say that I spoke to multitudes at one time." Tucker adheres to the philosophy that any publicity is good publicity.
Click here for more journal entries from Lisa's website: www.lisawhelchel.com