Recently, I thought my child the word “RESIST’. I think we could be talking about ice-cream or chocolate milkshake or marshmallow (something sweet I’m sure!) and I suddenly ask, ‘Can you resist?’ We then started exploring ways to understand this word and it was quite confusing when you try explaining ‘Can Resist’ = ‘Can Don’t Have it’ versus “Cannot Resist’=‘Must Have!’. It then occurred to me to ask myself if there’s anything I cannot resist in life, am I being tempted by anything? (I’m just going to let this question ‘hang’, cos there’s no way I’m telling it to you, on the world wide web!’)
As I’m not the one with eczema, I don’t know if there’s a point when scratching becomes one of these ‘Can’t Resist’ things in life. A blog post that I wrote 3 years ago (that’s how long I’ve been keeping on at this blog!) is titled ‘Scratching feels so good, but is so bad.’ Scratching may feel good because it temporarily blocks off pain information, thus getting rid of the itch feeling. The exact mechanism between how itch and pain (from scratching) gets processed from our brain is not entirely clear. When we think about it, scratching is like say ice-cream, it may feel good for that moment but really is bad for our body.
Bible verse:
1 Corinthians 10:13 : No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Oh Lord, help me guard my heart (and also my mouth, my actions) against temptations. There are things we can’t resist in life. Help our children also to resist doing things they should not (scratching, tantrums and pride). Help us to be patient, loving, kind and exercise self-control in our parenting. Extra help for us with eczema kids!
God help us to resist the ‘bad’ and grace for more of ‘good’
4 replies on “Mom E-votional : Resist”
Let me let you in on a useful piece of information. As a 36 year old woman who was born with eczema, and has been hospitalised on several occasions due to its severity, scratching is not a resist/not resist thing. When eczema is bad, and when itching starts, nothing will stop the urge because it’s an animal instinct. I scratch in my sleep and I scratch, often unconsciously, when I’m awake. If your child has eczema, you will *never* understand what s/he has to endure on a daily basis, I promise you. I understand that it’s horribly frustrating as a parent to watch your child hurt themselves, but very often there is no discernable choice. Even if it causes pain and infection later, scratching is better than ice-cream, better than treats, better than sex. Nothing will change that. Sorry!
Thanks Vicky for sharing that! It’s true I can’t fully get the itch and scratching since I’m not the one with eczema and thus, I have to be careful not to say ‘stop scratching’ too much! But it’s agony too from mom’s viewpoint and lack of sleep as well 🙂
Hugs,
Mei
One reason why to “resist” gets difficult can be that a response or behaviour under certain circumstances has become a habit – through being repeated often enough in certain situations (triggers) and being rewarded by certain consequences (pleasure), a behaviour gets “hot-wired” into us. This is great if it is “muscle memory” when practising playing the piano, but not so useful if the result is the skin lichenification of chronic atopic eczema, which is caused by habitual scratching. Understanding, wanting to change a response, having an effective method and then appropriate practice – habit reversal training – is great for learning how to “resist” a habit, because no “resistance” is required! Lots more about this at atopicskindisease.com
😉
Good analogy DrB! It’s definitely a habit thing, why else suddenly the word ‘bedtime’ = ‘scratching’ time! Hopefully for all eczema kids, their skin get better and they get better at controlling the scratching too!
Have a good weekend!
Mei