A slip of character

We did not allow Caeden to wrestle in the meet against Prairie Central and Heyworth tonight, or even to dress for it and sit with his team at the side of the mat.  

Last Wednesday evening, I asked him to do something and he whined and argued, so I added something else for him to do.  He continued whining and arguing with me until I had added about 5 things to his list of things to do--practice guitar, empty the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, etcetera... Then he had a couple hours of time alone at home to get it all done. He was angry with me, and even though he did all the things I left for him to do, he also decided to create an Instagram account (which we do not allow any of our kids to have right now) with a vulgar screen name and hide the evidence of it on his iPod.  

Saturday, while everyone else was gone, I checked my Instagram account and saw a friend suggestion named Caeden, and a post on the account declaring that "parents don't know I have this account."  Clearly, our son did not understand the ways of the Internet, and also underestimated the fact that his mother tries to stay on top of these things!

For about 2 hours, I cried and tried to keep myself from vomiting after I realized it was definitely Caeden who created the account.  When he and his dad came home and I told Jeremy what I had found, Caeden endured some pretty intense anger from both of us.  He also experienced guilt, repentance, forgiveness, grace, and then encouragement to be who he really is.  I helped him delete the account, which he said he created on a dare, then immediately wished he hadn't done it but didn't know how to delete it.  He felt awful about the whole thing, but understood that he would need to be punished.  As punishment, we took away his iPod indefinitely, and told him he would not be wrestling this week.  We also talked for a long time about being confident in who he is no matter what others say about him, being true to himself no matter what others call him, and always, always, always, ALWAYS being the person he wants to be known as and who God made him to be no matter what.  We all came away from the situation feeling better after talking it all the way through.

However, there was still the punishment to be served... I went to the wrestling meet tonight, and Caeden sat with me. He endured many questions from teammates and even more from parents of teammates wanting to know if he was injured or academically ineligible, or why a team captain wasn't with his team.  He did not enjoy any of that, but I think he did learn his lesson.