I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I kept running a potential conversation with my son in my head. He’s an adult, but I will always be a mom. When I get into this kind of emotional place where I am worried about something, it can be torturous. I do this to myself. Somehow I seem to think that if I just said the “right” thing, everything would be resolved. That wasn’t true when he was 12, and it isn’t true now either.
I finally did get to sleep and woke up this morning on the other side of those feelings. I still have my concerns, but he can figure this out. I don’t want to say or do anything that would alienate him from me. I am grateful to have “slept on it,” giving me a chance to think and to realize my powerlessness. And my arrogance. Where do I get the idea that I know what’s best for him? He has been making his own choices for many years now, and he is the one who has to walk in his life.
I believe this stepping back starts early on. We step back when our toddler is climbing a little higher than we think is safe, standing nearby to catch her if she slips. We step back when our preschooler is squabbling with a playmate, trusting that they can work it out together. We step back when we let our child learn from consequences. He left his homework sitting on the table at home, even after we gave a reminder about getting it into the back pack. There are many examples. We can say things many times, but often the lesson comes when they are immersed in the experience and feeling the consequences.
As much as we would like to prevent children from having to go through the hurt, the disappointments, or the difficulties that we went through ourselves at one time, experience is often the best teacher. I’m not saying we should throw our hands up and give up. Children still need lots of guidance and support, whether they are toddlers, teens, or young adults. But, one of the hardest lessons for us adults is to learn to step back. We want to fix it and make it all better, but beyond kissing the “owwie” on the knee after she has fallen down, sometimes the fall is what is needed to figure out how to avoid this next time.
1 comment:
Yes, Glo, you're right: we DO have to learn to step back. Not only are we arrogant in thinking that we know what's best for our now-grown (or almost-grown) children, we sometimes overlook that what they want in life may be different than what we want for them---or for ourselves. Why were we sometimes at odds with OUR parents? Perhaps because they couldn't accept that we wanted to follow different paths than they had.
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