The Goal of Being a Learner

I think goals that parents can reasonably set for ourselves are:

 To enjoy our children

 To learn something every day

 To treat ourselves and our children like learners.

Deciding to be a learner can help take the internal pressure off of us, and off of our children. Learners have permission to make lots of mistakes, learners get to ask for help, learners often don't know what to do or how things work. Best of all, learners get to laugh (or cry) when their project turns upside down and flops in front of everyone. We understand. This is learning.

If we are learning, then we know how to be in charge of some things, and we are figuring all the rest of it out in a sometimes messy, haphazard way. As parents, some "I'm learning, not controlling" strategies can be immensely helpful.

 Actively notice what's fun, what's good, what is working well. Our minds get so fixed on the tasks at hand that we lose sight of who we like, what goes well, and the little things we learn. It may help to put a list on the refrigerator or the bathroom mirror, where a few words of what was good each day can be written down for all to see. Some families start dinner with a round of "what was good today?" so that the children get to join in, and have the chance to have the whole family listen to their experience.

 Welcome your children's feelings. Feelings are a big part of children's lives, and expressing these feelings is how children recover from the hard things, big and small, that happen to them. Crying, tantrums, and laughter all are deeply healing for children. Expressing these emotions at length gets rid of children's feelings that their lives aren't good enough. When they're finished, they regain their sense of loving and being loved. It helps if you can get close and listen to them through the stormy upsets, but if you can't, see if it's possible to keep from criticizing, shaming, hurting, or blaming them while they get the sad or the mad feelings out.

 Find a listener for your own feelings. We mothers and fathers have lots of feelings, too, which we have been taught to tuck away as if they didn't exist. Matter of fact, tucking away feelings is equated to being "in control" of our lives! The problem is that feelings don't tuck well forever. Our worries, our frustrations, our angers mount, we spend more and more effort tucking them away, and finally, they burst out when some small thing goes wrong. Often, they burst out at our children in ways we regret later. Finding another parent and setting up listening time over the phone or after the children are asleep can help relieve the burden that our feelings create. A good laugh, a good cry, a good rant about how many expectations we're trying to meet can do a lot to lighten our step and help us remember that we are good, no matter how many mistakes we make or how many answers we don't have at the moment.