“She is brainless, does she not realize what she is doing” I went on like a Banshee…
Sunil my coach from Landmark curriculum for living let me vent patiently. After which he asked me gently
“Who is speaking”
“a mom of course”
“What sort of mom?”
“worried”
‘But listen to yourself, you are sounding like a controlling parent and not concerned.”
It was like a bolt from the universe. Yes, I sounded so obnoxiously domineering. More intimidation was not what my needed at that moment. She needed support; she needed that launch pad that allowed her spring back.
Think of this the birds let their fledglings fly by casting them out… the first time the fledgling does not know to spread its wings and fly. But third or fourth time it is able to do it. If it cannot it is left to fend for itself.
Parenting is a blend of providing, protecting and nurturing. Human parents are somehow confuse providing and nurturing with pampering and protecting with controlling. In the process we tend not to hand out life skills to our kids.
The pressure on parents today is quite high they learn from books, workshops, seminar. Sometimes two books mutually contradict each other.
Then there are rules and regulations handed by obscure or obsolete people. In the entire episode we totally forget to acknowledge and listen to the most important pointer to it all. “The intuition”.
A better place would be, “what do you need from me right now?” this immediately lifts the boundaries of ‘should’ and the rest of the rules. Your instinct can take over from here.
Its okay to ask for inputs and advices, but a gut check will help us get to the right parenting path. New age parents call this ‘attached parenting’.
Somewhere we realize that the stress of implanting rules eases out. Of course advices are well meant, but the gut check is what you need.
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