Dear Mama, One Day You’ll Thank God for Your Strong-Willed Child. Here’s Why…

She made a beeline for me at the girls night out.

“You said your daughters are strong-willed, right?” she got right to the point.

We found a corner of the room and I waited. She had a lot to say about her precious and precocious 2-year-old, her first daughter.

“She screams ‘no’! She throws herself onto the floor when she doesn’t get her way. I can’t go anywhere with her. My sons never once acted like this and I don’t know what to do.”

I listened and smiled and nodded my head because I understood. Sometimes the best way to encourage one another is to remind each other This is normal. And This shall pass. And You’re not alone. 

You will survive this hard place.

And most importantly, One day, you will thank God for it.

My own strong-willed girl walked up in the middle of our conversation and my friend said, “Look at your daughter. She loves Jesus. She’s amazing and she isn’t out of control.”

“Not in public anyway,” my daughter quipped and wandered off.

We laughed. Because I’ve learned strong-willed toddlers grow up to be strong-willed teens.