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| An Attitude of Gratitude |
 Shannon writes, "In the spirit of the holiday season I'm going to derail a bit and talk about gratitude. Bill Ayers is quoted as saying, "Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them."
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One of the greatest challenges of parenting is finding a way to raise your children which honors your values, beliefs, morals while allowing them to grow into the people they are rather than whom we want them to be. Frequently we parent in ways that don’t fit our child's personality or behavior style, and often we squash the talents and gifts they bring to us just out of the need to get through daily life, without even knowing that's what we're doing.
A child's presence is a gift. A parent's unconditional love, acceptance and appreciation for their child support their growth and development, and their sense of belonging and self acceptance. Our need to feel acceptance and belonging is so great that having that need met somewhere is better than no where. Our emotional state in our interactions with our family is mirrored and expressed even when we think we're doing a good job of covering it up. If we are feeling burdened and resentful or stressed about the tasks at hand we miss the opportunities to express or experience gratitude for what we do have. Often this happens when we have adult expectations of our kids, including teens. When we have these expectations and the child is not developmentally ready to handle them their sense of security and acceptance is undermined.
Here's an example:
You're running late to get the kiddos out the door for school and know you aren't going to make it to an appointment on time. Your child is telling jokes and insists on collecting all of his school things on his own, slowing down the process even further. Rather than escalating to "Come ON, let's go NOW!" and any number of things that come with that you can use gratitude as a way to calm yourself and acknowledge your child's gift of humor and independence / responsibility. "I really want to hear those jokes and I feel like I'm not giving you my full attention since we're a little behind schedule. How about I grab your backpack and coat and you can tell me the joke in the car?" This is really just a little flag to have us look at changing even just one interaction at a time.
As a way of seeing what your child's gifts are, you can do a fun family activity and use it as a Gratitude Chain around your Christmas tree or find a way to tie it in to your seasonal celebration. Each family member takes a piece of paper, and with your help, writes their list of gifts that they bring to the family. Once the list is complete, take colored strips of paper and write one gift on each strip. Secure them in interlocking rings for a mantel display, a tree decoration, or hang over your family room door way, etc.
Give your gifts freely, no strings attached without the expectation of getting anything back, including a thank you. With this others will freely give to you.
Shannon Miles, MFT
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Posted on Dec 08, 2011 10:23am.
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| Comments |
Shannon,
Thank you very much for your wonderful insights into interactions with children and what they need most from their parents. I completely agree with you, and unfortunately the negative patterns you described were characteristic of how I was raised, and I was an insecure and estranged child.
During my first two years of being a father, I realized I was doing the same thing with my children and from now on, I will take your words to heart, and the words of others in my life who love me who have said the same things. I have a daughter who is also named Shannon, and she is already noticing a positive change since I started doing things differently with her.
Truly, it was a huge stroke of luck for me to have happened across your posting! Thank you again. I only hope other parents in my position can find this in the future, and benefit similarly from it.
God bless you.
-- jwhowe80, Jan 16, 2012 02:49am
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