Upon the second week
of my first daughter’s entrance to kindergarten I got a call
from the Principal’s office. Yes, my KINDERGARTENER had been
called into the office because she had apparently hit a teacher’s
aide.
I felt completely
embarrassed, incredulous, protective and a bit angry. What the heck
happened?
Apparently, the
children were being taken one by one into the hallway for some sort
of evaluation, and my daughter didn’t understand what was going
on. She didn’t know why this “stranger” whom she
had never met was physically pulling her out of the classroom. My
daughter felt threatened and struck out at this “stranger.”
It was very
difficult to avoid taking this incident personally. Here we were at
the beginning of my daughter’s entrance into the world of
schooling that would be her main activity for 13 more years at least,
and she/I/we had already failed.
I know, it sounds
melodramatic.
But, isn’t
that how we parents often feel? We feel that when our children mess
up or fail, we must somehow be partly to blame.
In my last ward
there was an older mother—all her children had grown up and
mostly left the home—whose son was a heroin addict. This has
caused her no end of grief and pain. She is always afraid of getting
that awful call—the one that says her son is dead in a ditch
somewhere.
I remember her
expressing in Relief Society one day how she wondered if other people
thought she had failed somehow as his mother; that she was to blame
for the terrible turn his life had taken.
She is a good woman,
a strong woman. She serves faithfully in the Church. She taught piano
lessons for all the neighborhood children. She is opinionated and
intelligent. And, I am sure she is not to blame for the vast majority
of her son’s issues.
But, this is often
the course of our thinking—both about ourselves and others. We
tend to think that, as the parent, everything our child does is a
reflection on us.
It is true: we are
our children’s first and best teachers. They likely learn more
from us than from anyone else. Also, God has charged us with the duty
to rear them up in righteousness.
But, and this is a
big BUT, they are not us. They are not even an extension of us. There
is a line between what we have given them and what they choose to do
with it.
When we blur that
line—when we take everything they do personally, it can feel
very threatening to us.
In my experience,
taking our children’s choices personally often results in
either being overly harsh and critical, or in “helicopter”
parenting—parents that always hover with the intent to prevent
a child from ever making mistakes.
Taking a child’s
mistakes personally leads to thoughts like “how could you do
this to me?” and being angry for a child’s mistake
instead of calmly explaining the consequence of their mistake and
enforcing that consequence without disparaging comments or ridicule.
In reality, when we
are overly critical of a child, or expect perfection OR ELSE, this is
really a reflection of our own insecurities. We are worried we
are not perfect enough—our example has not been enough, our
parenting knowledge is not enough; we have failed them somehow. That
is why they are messing up.
Maybe our example
hasn’t been enough; maybe our parenting knowledge is slim and
hard-won; maybe we have failed them. However, we cannot take our
guilt out on them.
One of the best
things that ever happened to me as a parent was my first daughter’s
kindergarten teacher. (Not the aide she hit. Sigh.) As my daughter
continued to have some difficulties adjusting to school life, this
wonderful teacher treated her with more patience, forbearance, and
love than I was using at the time.
I saw this, and I
realized that I needed to take my ego out of the equation. I was
being too hard on my daughter. She was just 5 years old for crying
out loud!
This wonderful
teacher arranged a meeting between us parents, herself, and the
district school psychologist. I admit, at first, I felt rather
threatened by this gesture.
The psychologist
helped me see my daughter’s behavior in perspective. Nothing
was wrong with her. She just has a hard time with change (she comes
by that honestly—my husband is the same way!). She needs
boundaries spelled out for her in very plain language—she
doesn’t really “get” passive cues.
Between this meeting
and the teacher’s continued love, I saw that I too could relax
and love my daughter. We didn’t have to “fix”
everything about her overnight. She has time to learn and grow into a
wonderful person.
That process is
going to include mistakes. She is going to disappoint me sometimes,
but I hope to never disappoint her by taking her mistakes as though
they are a personal threat to me. I hope to let her experience her
failures, knowing I love her anyway.
I have faith that
being an anti-helicopter mom will work best in the end. That might
mean some smirches on her report card, watching her do things that
embarrass me, and taking a deep breath once in a while to remind
myself that love for her, not fear of what her choices mean
about me, is the answer.
As the words of John
say, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out
fear” (1 John 4:18).
Emily
Jorgensen received her bachelor's degree in piano performance from
Brigham Young University. She earned her master's degree in
elementary music education, also at BYU. She holds a Kodaly
certificate in choral education, as well as permanent certification
in piano from Music Teacher’s National Association.
She
has taught piano, solfege, and children’s music classes for 17
years in her own studio. She has also taught group piano classes at
BYU.
She
is an active adjudicator throughout the Wasatch Front and has served
in local, regional, and state positions Utah Music Teachers'
Association, as well as the Inspirations arts contest chair at
Freedom Academy.
She
gets a lot of her inspiration for her column by parenting her own
rambunctious four children, aged from “in diapers” to
“into Harry Potter.” She is still married to her high
school sweetheart and serves in her ward’s Primary.