Consistent, loving, disciplined

Grace is having another moment with her swimming lessons. She has been resisting going, saying "No go swimming, no go swimming," and so on, but only with regards to her lessons. Swimming with me is a-okay, let's do that everyday, as far as she is concerned.

Other than the "No go swimming," there is also the crying and unhappiness when we get to swimming and when we start. Normally Grace will settle in and engage once she is in the water, but today she couldn't quite settle. We've been through this all before, so it is a familiar situation.

There is definitely that sense of, "Ugh, do we really have to go through this all again?" Grace knows the situation, she knows and is comfortable with the instructor, and knows that the routine is fixed – we follow the same process each week, which was part of getting over this last time. But things have gotten progressively worse over the past few weeks.

At this point I really believe that it is something that we just need to ride out, a phase that we need to gently work our way through, without losing our way.

A friend summed it up amazingly well. We have to be consistent, loving and disciplined. Consistent not just in our actions, but in our thinking, infusing everything with love, and being disciplined to work through the process, regardless of how difficult it may be.

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