For a few years now, we have been on a path to give our kids more autonomy and personal freedom. We allow them to make choices for themselves based on what they feel is best, not necessarily what we feel is best. This doesn’t mean that they do anything they want any time they want. It just means that we have conversations with them rather than just make decisions for them.
I wish I could say that it’s always easy to do this, but in reality it’s not. Although, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The growth I have seen in both them as they have learned to trust themselves and determine what their needs are has been nothing short of miraculous. The most difficult part is stepping back and allowing them to do this even when it might be easier to do it myself. Trusting them is the easy part; trusting myself to trust them is the hard part.
I have just recently discovered the term “peaceful parenting.” You can find various similar definitions but to me it basically means that instead of controlling my kids and telling them what to do all the time, we have a mutual respect for one another and have conversations to figure out how their needs and my needs can be met in any given situation. No, we don’t drone on about every little thing all the time. But, we probably do talk more than most.
It also doesn’t mean that we never disagree or argue. Of course we do! I have a 12 and 13 year old, lol. Their main objective right now is to figure out who they are and challenge ideologies – and let me tell you they are great at it! Sometimes I wish they could just do exactly what I want when I want it because it would make me feel better and be so much easier. But, that defeats the purpose of letting them become the people they are meant to be and letting them lead the way in a manner that suits them as individuals.
Here is an example that happened just yesterday. Monday nights are Boy Scout Troop Meetings for my son. He has been working on his next rank advancement and only has a few more requirements that he needs to get before the upcoming deadline to receive it at the next Court of Honor (that’s an awards ceremony in scouting). These last few requirements have been dragging on forever (in my mind) because they require him to do a little extra work and he has been too busy ranking up on his video games instead of figuring out how to get them done (hey, it’s his choice, priorities, am I right?). We had been discussing these requirements for a few days and he had a plan to do them at the meeting.
And then he looks at them and sees the one that has given him the most stress – identify 10 native plants. To me it doesn’t seem like that big of deal even though he has made two other attempts to get this one done (he found pictures online but that didn’t count; he took photos on a walk we took in a park but he said he didn’t know what any of them were and he wouldn’t use them). He says “well I guess I can’t get it done until the next camping trip.” Just like that he has decided he can’t do it. Well, he is missing the next camping trip because of a soccer game and the usual winter camp has been cancelled so there are no trips on the schedule right until January 2021. I got mad, I started talking in a loud voice telling him that he needs to figure this out. He talked loud back at me. I talked louder (ok, so now I am yelling) and he talked louder back at me (yes, he is now yelling too). This went on for about 30 seconds, we were both red faced and fuming and nothing had been figured out.
I took a moment to calm myself down, made a silly comment about how useful that all was, we snickered and smiled and moved on. A few minutes later I apologized for yelling and he did too. I suggested he reach out to one of his scout leaders about making plans to go on a hike where they could identify native plants. He liked the idea and agreed. During the scout meeting, I reached out to the leader about scheduling a hike and told him what the requirement was for. He said, “Wasn’t he at summer camp? We did that one and I can sign it off for him.” After all that he had already done the requirement and it’s now signed off as are the others.
I guess the point of all this is to show that although I do my best every day to stay calm, it’s just not my nature and sometimes I have trouble regulating my emotions just like my growing children do. Instead of beating myself up over it, I learn from it and I always apologize. I think acknowledging that I make mistakes let’s them see that it’s ok for them to make mistakes too. And at the end of the day, we keep the lines of communication open and just keep living joyfully.