Most of us really don't like it when someone is angry at us. We don't
like it when people go into resistance to helping us when we need help,
instead of caring about us. We don't like it when people withdraw from
us, disconnecting from us and shutting us out. We don't like it when
people make demands on us and do not respect our right or need to say
no. Many of us will do almost anything to avoid the soul loneliness and
pain we feel when people treat us in angry, resistant, demanding and
uncaring ways.
It takes great courage to stay loving to ourselves
and others when faced with others' angry and closed behavior. It
especially take courage when the people we are dealing with are our own
children. Yet unless we have the courage to come up against our
children's anger, resistance, and withdrawal, we will give ourselves up
and not take care of ourselves to avoid their uncaring reactions. The
more we deny our own truth and our own needs and feelings, the more our
children will disrespect and discount us. Our children become a mirror
of our own behavior, discounting us when we discount ourselves,
disrespecting us when we disrespect ourselves. The more we give
ourselves up to avoid our children's unloving behavior toward us, the
more we become objectified as the all-giving and loving parent who
doesn't need anything for ourselves. When we do this, we are
role-modeling being a caretaker.
On the other hand, it is
unloving to ourselves and our children to expect our children to take
responsibility for our well-being. It is unloving to demand that our
children give themselves up to prove their love for us and to pacify our
fears. It is unloving to demand that they be the way we want them to be
rather than who they are. It is unloving to set limits just to make us
feel safe, rather than limits that support their health and safety. When
we behave in this way, we are role-modeling being a taker.
The
challenge of good parenting is to find the balanced between being there
for our children and being there for ourselves, as well as the balance
between freedom and responsibility - to be personally responsible to
ourselves rather than be a taker or a caretaker.
Our decisions
need to be based on what is in the highest good of our children as well
as ourselves. If a child wants something that is not in our highest good
to give, then it is not loving to give it. If we want something that is
not in the highest good of our children, then it is not loving for us
to expect it. It is loving to support our children's freedom to choose
what they want and to be themselves, as long as it doesn't mean giving
ourselves up. Children do not learn responsible behavior toward others
when their parents discount their own needs and feelings to support what
their children want. Our own freedom to choose what we want and to be
ourselves needs to be just as important to us as our children's freedom
and desires.
On the other hand, if we always put our needs before
our children's, we are behaving in a self-centered, narcissistic way
that limits our children's freedom. We are training our children to be
caretakers, to give themselves up for other's needs and not consider
their own.
The challenge of loving parenting is to role-model
behavior that is personally responsible, rather than being a taker or
caretaker. This is our best chance for bringing up personally
responsible children. However, we need to remember that we can do
everything "right" as a parent, but our children are on their own path,
their own soul's journey. They will make their own choices to be loving
or unloving, responsible or irresponsible. We can influence their
choices, but we can't control them. They have free will, just as we do,
to choose who they want to be each moment of their lives. All we can do
is the very best we can to role-model loving, personally responsible
behavior - behavior that supports our own and our children's highest
good.
No comments:
Post a Comment