Thursday Thinking--Lesson Learned . . . again.

A couple of weeks ago when family was here for my niece’s wedding, one of my sisters and I were talking about parenting. I told her about a realization I’d had a few years ago: Cali and I were out walking and she had a problem on which she wanted advice. Since it was a decision between good and good and she would be the one living with the result, I felt the best counsel to give her was to tell her I believed in her ability to make a good choice, would support her decision and that forever, for always and no matter what, I would love her. Cali got very frustrated with my response and said, “You’re always doing that. I already know you believe in me and love me and think I can make good choices, I want REAL advice.”

It occurred to me then that I was the parent I had warned the kids about becoming. I had seen parents who might have been monetarily deprived in their childhood lavish products on their own kids past the point of wisdom: if they were embarrassed of their shoes as a child, they made sure their kids wore the most expensive shoes; if they had wished for a bigger Christmas as a child, their children were inundated with gifts; if they were embarrassed of their car as a teenager their kids had a new one—that type of parenting. And it wasn’t limited to money issues but also cropped up in discipline. Without looking at the pros and cons of spanking, time-out or grounding, some parents followed a preconception or fad. I told the kids that rather than seeing what their children needed, some parents tried to fulfill their own unfulfilled wants through them and so “we shouldn’t make the same mistakes, now should we?” We had this discussion more than once through their adolescent years because our kids grew up on hand-me-downs, modest Christmases, old cars, as well as spankings and no grounding. I thought it our responsibility to warn the kids to be prepared to meet the needs and teach the truths to their children rather than living up to a preconceived or popular view.

So, that day Cali told me she needed more than what I gave I realized I was doing the exact same thing to her that I had warned the kids about. Not in a physical way, not in a disciplinary way, but in an emotional way. Instead of parenting her like she needed to be parented I was parenting her like I wished I had been parented.

In this same conversation with my sister, I also said that I wished I hadn’t used the distraction technique so much as a parent, for though it created temporary harmony it had the potential to create bigger problems down the road. I said that I now recognized that sometimes you just had to work through the un-comfortableness rather than constantly trying to get the kids to avoid or forget about it.

Then we changed the subject and my sister and I talked about the price of rice in China and other important things.

A couple of days ago Ande was frustrated with a project she is working on. Not being a perfectionist like she is, I often have a hard time empathizing with her and fell back into old parenting. I kept trying to distract her frustration by suggesting alternatives, changing the subject or laughing at the situation (thinking she’d see the humor if only I laughed often enough). It didn’t work. It made the situation worse by adding new elements. Finally I quit “helping” and let her work it out on her own. She left for work madder, more frustrated and with even less of a solution. But, she did come home with this:

It may be an “I’m sorry” bouquet to her, but to me it’s a “remember what you learned in parenting and don’t keep making the same mistakes” bouquet.

If I'd only realized earlier that less distracting might have led to more bouquets.