Well, it's only 9.30pm and I've got time to write a wee bit before anything else gets done. One girl's heading to bed and the other is heading to get clean. Very self-sufficient adolescents, they are, unlike when they were smaller and simple things like bedtime and bathtime could end up being a huge pain in the neck for me as a mum.
As a parent of young children, we often get so caught up in the routines that we forget to enjoy our kids. Bedtime stories should always be fun and a bonding experience for both parties but some nights I remember grudgingly reading to them a tiny story so that I could make my escape from them more quickly.
Impatiens is a remedy that I could have done with in those days to help me not be so time-focussed and to let me be more patient with their requests for "just one more page." I function at a much slower pace, now that I use Impatiens regularly. My patience is much better and I don't have so many hot-flushes whilst this wonderful Bach remedy is in my mix.
Another thing we forget, as parents of little people, is that we don't always have to be in control. We can be flexible and allow ourselves to be 5 minutes late to playgroup if it means looking at the pine cones en-route and enjoying the feeling of those tiny little hands inside ours. I used to get aggitated at times, when they'd wrap themselves around my legs, instead of relishing every single grip of them not wanting me to leave them.
The need to escape was again too great for me alongside the wanting that my child would be perfectly behaved and simply wave mummy goodbye............Surely that would mean that I was a good parent to a well-adjusted child if he did that???????
Many years have passed since the days of holding those tiny little hands in mine and the reading of bedtime stories has just recently stopped. Over the years I have come to learn that being a good parent is doing what your heart and gut tell you is right and not about trying to make everyone else think that you're a good parent because you x, y and z it.
If you listen with your heart, as a parent (even when it hurts or when it tells you that you are wrong) you will not go far off the right path. There is no perfect path, only the ones that lie ahead. I believe that we need to be curious about what's coming next, instead of being scared that we are not up to the adventure of parenting. Being fearful for our kids is not helpful to either them or us. Trusting that we all have our lessons to learn and our own lives to live, when our kids are small, will be a great gift to them and allow them to explore growing up with more confidence and freedom to be themselves.
I try to show my "failings" to my kids as part of the whole person that I am. We should try not to pretend to our youngsters that we are always brave, confident, right, happy etc. They will mature much more rounded and sure of themselves if they know that it's okay to be livid or sad or wrong. For every "dark" bit of themselves that they can accept, they will have a shining "light" bit that they will also be able to accept.
Wouldn't it be fantastic if this new generation of parents could help their children become shining lights that glow with a comfortable brightness for the whole world to see. And maybe that brightness would be enough to encompass all the wars in the world and extinguish that darkness and pain.
And on that note, I shall say goodnight whilst pondering where the thoughts come from. I had a lovely drop-in with 3 of my friends where the talk was of ourselves rather than of our children and so, logically, I would have thought I would have written about weightloss or next years moonwalk or even the Pink-Night date, which I still haven't set_eek.
But no.........parenting seems to be a pretty strong pull for my thoughts just now and I'll just have to see where that takes me-right?
Have a wonderful week, folks,
Lxxx
Posted on Wed, October 6, 2010
by Linsey Denham