Posted: Monday, July 29, 2013 11:32:05 PM
I once attended a baby shower and one of the activities was to pass around a little spiral book and write down your best piece of advice for the soon-to-be new mom. Then everyone would vote on the top three for door prizes. I won with the following piece of advice: Do not try to give your kids what you feel you missed out on or lacked in your childhood. Raise them in the moment because they are not you and will not have the same wants and needs that you did. If you try to fill your voids in your children, you will just create other voids they will have. Just pay attention and listen to your kids - they will let you know what they need.
For some reason we still do it. We try to protect them from things we hated when in reality that thing does not faze them. We want to buy them what we did not have…but in reality we are disappointed when they do not find joy in it because they never really wanted it.
Why is this so easy in theory, yet so hard to do? Why do we see our children as an extension of ourselves instead of what they are…individuals on loan to us for a short time. While that short time sometimes feels like an eternity, in reality it passes in what seems like a moment. It is a short time to instill in them our core values, to teach them right from wrong, to help them stand on their own, to catch them when they fall and to send them out into the world.
While we never stop caring about them or worrying about them, how will you spend the few years you have to mold and shape them? Trying to make up for your lost dreams or helping them grow in a way they can reach for theirs?