April 20, 2016
Parenting during life’s more challenging moments
Parenting is not just giving our children the shiny, happy times, it’s buckling down and guiding them through life’s more challenging moments. That includes teaching them how to face difficult times head on, rather than running away, or losing their confidence, or feeling too scared, and wondering if they’re doing the right thing. (Regardless, they’re still human. ALL of these things will happen. Just as they happen to us.) It’s about empowering them to stand up and say, no matter what: “I’ve got this.”
A recent Scary Mommy article entitled “10 things I want my daughter to know when things get real” touches on this very subject, and so beautifully. It’s a reminder of how much our kids will go through, that the world they are primed to inhabit is indeed very real, and that the sweet, pure, honest innocence of their youth will not last forever. The article hits everything right on the head and should be required reading for any parent. In addition, here are a few tips for handling these tougher moments, keeping our kids strong and encouraging them to be the very best possible versions of their sweet selves.
Push them.
Are they afraid of something? Push them through it. Make them encounter it. Attack it with them. Teach them that fear is normal, and will be a part of their lives forever—fear is one of the most natural instincts we have. But it should not hold them back from what they want, desire, aspire to be. It can be there, should be there, but it doesn’t need to paralyze.
Go for the gold, baby.
Stand behind them and help them create a world where there is no limit to their aspirations. Where their creative urges are nurtured and encouraged, where even a tough world can still be an inspired one. If they want it, they have the tools the get it. Teach them to live in a world where their ambitions come to life.
Show them what happens when things don’t work out.
What kind of a world would we live in if things always went right? How horrible! Truly. Where’s the push? The challenge? The fight? The notion that you can achieve something even when it seems completely impossible? When things don’t work out it’s not failure. It’s not time to throw in the towel and wallow in self-pity. So that wasn’t the right path? That’s okay. The world is a wide, open space. There are a million more paths to try.
