Source: http://www.mariefrance.fr/psycho/coaching/famille-nos-enfants-sont-nos-miroirs-32628.html
Accepting children the way they are. It sounds normal. It’s what love is all about: accepting others. We are all different and we recognize that our differences are a real chance.
But when it comes to our kids, we tend to have dreams for them; we tend to wish them to be more extrovert than we were, more independent, to be less frightened, less worried than us. We are trying our best to tell them all about confidence and how important it is to share, care, how nice it is to have friends or not to be afraid of others, strangers.
When they fit our expectations, it feels so good. We are the first ones to congratulate ourselves on how good we are at educating them. When they don’t, we start asking ourselves, “what’s wrong?” We start feeling that we are not good enough and put a lot of pressure on us and on them. We want them to fit in, to be like others. It’s so easy.
We do forget easily that kids are independent beings. Just like us. They are who they are, not to make us happy or make us sad. They are unique. Just like us.
I came up with these thoughts around the summer. I got to spend some time with my son. And I used this time wisely, looking at him and understanding many things. He is the kind of child who studies his surroundings a lot. He needs time to let go of my hand when we are with other people. He’d rather like watching a game than being part of it. We can spend hours together at the bus stop, looking at the buses coming and going.
When I was a little girl, I lived in a bubble, one I had created to protect myself from the rest of the world. I was a silent kid, happy, but yet, I felt awkward most of the time. I suffered from it. And obviously, I’d never want my son to deal with the same issues I had. Like other parents, I want to protect him and give him the best to face life in a positive way.
I pushed him and put a lot of pressure on him over the past couple of months to get him to be the way I wanted him to be, thinking that it was the only way for him to find his place in the world. I compared him a lot with other “3 years old” kids. We fought a lot, over things that don’t matter that much.
I feel now more ready to just let him be. And accept that in some situations he may not act the way I’d expect him to.
How is it for you? How do you manage your kids differences?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog written by Marie in France.
Dear Marie, your son sounds a lot like mine used to be. They’re called “slow to warm up” children. 🙂 They need extra time to get to know other people or to join in an activity. There’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with that, and it certainly doesn’t make him sad – pushing him into an activity before he’s ready, on the other hand, causes anxiety in him and even less interest in going out. Don’t worry about him. My son is now 23 years old and he emigrated to Germany (we live in South Africa) where he married a German woman and adopted her 8 year old daughter. This child who used to hang on to my leg at birthday parties, flew to another continent all by himself, learnt a new language (he now speaks German fluently) and (apart from getting married) also has a large group of friends!
My daughter, on the other hand, is the total opposite of her brother. She’s the child that would not only join in to other kids’ games, she’d take over! 🙂 I’ll never forget the one time I took her to a play park when she was around 3 years old. I was sitting on a bench watching her play and she came running up to me with another little girl she was holding by the hand. “Mommy, this is my friend” she told me. “That’s nice, what’s your friend’s name?” to which she looked at the little girl and asked “What’s your name?” – you see, she’d just met her and hadn’t even exchanged names, but she was already “a friend”. 🙂 Our children are blessings and are totally unique. The best thing we can do for them is to love them unconditionally, let them learn from their own experiences and just be ready to catch them when they fall.
Thank you so much Simona. Your comments are always kind and a great help on the way.
It’s definitely like this, more I push him and more he resists. When I give him time to adjust to a situation, without putting any pressure on him, he is getting to a point where he is surprising me.
It’s good to see that kids like this grow up just fine. It’s always a stress for me.
Marie, I can resonate so much with what you have written! And I echo the words of Simona – he will blossom at his own pace, into a person who will leave you stunned and awed 🙂 My son, now a teenager, often prefers the company of Nature, and even technology, to other people 🙂 And now he is living hundreds of miles away from home, at college, sharing a room with others and learning to adapt. What awes me is that he can do so, with confidence and joy. But yes, what you initially worked on (nudging your son in certain ways that you thought would help him) is most natural – we all want to protect our young ones, especially in the light of our own remembered childhood pain. But they will seek and find their own light. And we (the mothers) learn to go easy on our own worries 🙂
Piya, thank you for understanding my worries and doubts so well.
I believe that we too grow as parents. And that sometime letting go is the best thing we can do, letting our kids be free to be who they are, and being confident that they’ll be just fine.
Figuring out what motivates each kid most and helping them run with it, can be one of the biggest motherhood challenges! Both my girls are so different, and they like and don’t like different things from me sometimes, too. I find myself saying, “Are you sure you don’t want to sign up for X?”, more times when it’s something that is of interest to me. I had to let that go. If they are not interested, they are not interested! So then, it’s finding what does interest them…and then helping them run with whatever that is…
Both my kids were shyer than I remembered being as a kid. That was another thing that I had to learn how to respect by understanding how they are feeling in different situations — sometimes different from myself now and myself when I was a kid. We are all so different. Trying to figure out my kids has been part of the fun, but also the challenge!
Thank you for sharing your experience with your son, Marie!
It’s indeed really challenging Jennifer. But at the same time I feel like our kids by behaving a certain way are showing us the world from a different perspective: their own.
Most people say that kids are the perfect reflection of either their mom or dad. And if one is silent or lack confidence, it has to do with who we are. Which in fact is not always true.
Thank you for sharing your experience too with your girls. It shows me that we all have to deal with the same doubts and questions. And that respect, understanding and acceptance are keys for them to grow free and secure.
Well said, Marie!
Oh Marie, SO much truth in this message! I understand that pull we moms have to help our kids be what we think they need to be- and that ever growing awareness and conviction that they are entirely separate from us and to honor that difference and let them lead the way.
Thank you for your honesty and this important reminder for us all. We can surely guide our kids and teach them so many things, but most of all- we need to allow them to find their own identity and be who they are.