So, let's review where I am. I'm a little bit broken... I am starting to see how deep my fear and shame really are contained within me, and I am starting to see how my actions are tied into all of this. And then, I begin to see something different...the aftershocks that might actually be more dangerous than earthquake itself.
My child is my life. She is the reason I was born, the reason for everything I do. When she was born, so was I. My job is to make this child's life better than mine...to keep her safe from the hurt and the pain of it all...to fight off those demons until she is strong enough to fight them herself, and to teach her how to fight them in the meantime.
But what if what I have taught her so far is how I learned to fight them...and what if that is the wrong way?
Let's face it, I've learned that my method of coping is not exactly sound.. I strive for perfection, beat myself up over every single failure ( or even perceived failure) and blame myself for not being good enough. Worst of all, I tie all of this into how much I am love by everyone else. Fail, and I am not lovable...succeed and.... well, I'm not even sure there is an option to that, because even success is never really successful enough.
I have been seeing the edges of it for a long time. I have this little girl, my heart in human form, and I can see her struggle with fearing failure. She struggles when we go over spelling words...she takes an uncomfortable stance and even though she knows the answer, seeming scared to answer. She stumbles over things before she tells me that she's afraid she's wrong. I can see her desire to please people...her almost desperate desire to have people approve of her. Worst of all, I can see how badly she beats herself up when she makes a mistake. When she doesn't clean up after herself, or she makes a mistake on her homework, she is sad, and says things that just absolutely break my heart. " I'm a terrible kid".... can you even imagine the heartbreak that I feel when she says those things?
Not long after my discovery about myself, I realized that I had, inadvertently, imposed this idea that only perfection is acceptable to my child. That ranks highest in the growing list of battles that I have to fight.
So, now prepared with some tools, I look toward this idea of vulnerability...the lessons of Dr. Brown.
If you have watched the videos I posted, you know what Dr. Brown says about children... but here is a review.
Children are not packages of perfection, and it is not our job to be keep them perfect. They are, as Dr. Brown says, "hardwired for struggle". When I think about these things, I think about why we set children up for...what I had set my child up for. The truth is that I did set my child up as a mold of perfection. I don't know what it is... maybe the concepts of tabula rosa had let me to this idea. She was a perfectly mold-able blank slate. She arrived into my world as perfection, and it was my actions that would make her into what she would become. Looking at it, it's a terribly unfair thing to do... to her and to me. I see parents struggle with this all the time... wondering why their children can't just be a reflection of the perfection they see in them. We don't mean to, but we tell them that perfection is what they are, and then crush them when they aren't perfect.... and at the same time, we take all of that onto ourselves... another failure to add to the growing list of failures. If I was a better parent, my child's room would be clean. If I was a better parent, my child wouldn't struggle at school. If I was a better parent, my child would eat all their vegetable, hate sugary sweets, and would never ever cry. In my own head, she was perfection, and all of her failures and struggles were a direct result of my failures.
What Dr. Brown says is correct. My child is not perfect. Strange thing is that I agreed with this idea before I was introduced to Dr. Brown's work. I would joke about how children are not 'special snowflakes' and that we shouldn't treat them like that. But, thinking this and internalizing it are two different things. I saw treating children as 'special snowflakes' as setting them up for thinking that the world owed them all the privilege that being special would entail, and that is a dangerous thing. But, this concept is so much more than that. Dr. Browns explanation of children is right- they are not perfect... they are hardwired for struggle..... and they are worthy of love.
Worthy of love is a big concept that I will likely deal with in another post, but here is the basics. Being worthy of love is likely a key to all of this. It is the difference between guilt and shame. It is the difference between " I made a mistake" and "I am a mistake". It is a reason for self-motivation based on worth, instead of based on fear. I think about all the problems I have faced in my life, and if I look at them through the lenses of feeling worthy of love, I wonder how many things I would have done differently.
And, in looking at the struggles my child faces most often... fear of failure...allowing others to treat her badly because she wants people to like her.... thinking that she is a terrible kid... all of these things come back to one idea. My daughter does not feel worthy of love.
Of course, I can't help but take this back onto myself. I've worked so hard to tell my daughter how much she is loved. There isn't a day that goes by where she's not told 100 times that she is loved. There isn't day that passes where she isn't hugged and kissed at least 20 times. My daughter has never closed her eyes to go to sleep where she hasn't been told " I love you". But maybe being told she is loved is different that being told she is worthy of love.
So, we are trying something different. Inspired by some friends of ours, David and I have started telling her that she is worthy of love. More specifically, we say " You are strong, beautiful, smart, independent, and worthy of love." Our new stance on struggles is to teach her how to "cash in" on her worthiness. We talk to her about working hard and not giving up in terms of her happiness being WORTH it. We are teaching her that she is worth the effort, and that what we do everyday is because we know she is worth those efforts.
Our shift in perspective comes with other conversations. I have started talking to my daughter about how she doesn't have to be perfect, and she doesn't have to be afraid of failure. We tell her about our failures... we have let down the walls and allowed her to see us struggling. In my young daughters eyes, mommy and daddy are perfection... the thing she should be like. It's not unusually for parents to hide their imperfections from their children. I can see the reasons. You need your child to respect you... to live by rules and ideas...even if only to keep them safe. When I tell my daughter to stay in the yard and not talk to strangers, I require an amount of " because I said so" in that. The mistake we make is the mistake we make on the larger scale...
..Imperfection does not equal not being respectable.
Again, that's a post for another day, but here is where we are. We are owning our mistakes and talking to our daughter about them. We tell her what we struggle with and why we struggle. We tell her we are going to try to learn from our mistakes, because we are worthy of that...and are acting as models of what we are expecting from her. Our new goal is not perfection...it's not perfect grades or a clean room. Our new goal is focused on one thing... teaching our daughter that she is worthy of love...regardless of mistakes...regardless of things not being perfect... regardless of the struggle.
I'm sure this is not the last post I will make on this subject, but let me end it with this. Parents, be aware of what you are putting on your kids. Be aware of how much you hide from them, and that respect without vulnerability is setting up the idea in your kids that they will never be worthy of respect. Being a child is a vulnerable position...they are smaller, they don't have all the tools, and they are constantly being forced to admit they are wrong. We have choices... and too often, our choice is to take advantage of their vulnerability...leading them to that terrible place of EXCRUCIATING vulnerability...instead of the healthy place of emotionally honest vulnerability. Be careful they you are not teaching your child that perfection is the goal, and that imperfection needs to be hidden away. Be careful that you are not just teaching your child that they are loved, but that they are worthy of being loved by anyone. Our job is to send them out into the world prepared to take on all of the struggles that life brings... and teaching them now that they are worthy of love can change so much for them. Teach them how to handle the struggle..not just how to hide it.
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