I've always said, raising children is a lot like being a leader who can choose to lead his/her people in a positive or negative way. It's a little, ok a lot, like mind control. Our kids mimic our behavior, rely on us for support, look up to us with unconditional love regardless of whether we are saints or sinners. We have the power to set them up to be prepared for life or to be complete idiots. In the old days, I feel it was much simpler, even though I know life was harder in many other ways. There was a very linear way of life. Parents told you what to do, you listened. The world was very much contained to the home and town in which you lived. There were a set of rules that you followed and you knew what would happen if you didn't follow them. Many didn't question what was asked of them or told to them. That is not to say there weren't people who bucked societal norms and questioned why. These were usually those who changed history and the world as we know it.
Nowadays, kids are not limited to their home and town. Raising kids is not linear. We have both parents working outside of the home, single parent households, same-sex parents, the internet opens the world up to children from their home. We live in an amazing time! But we have to figure out how to support our kids with all of these added influences. I see a lot of people who are waking up to the realization that things don't change if we continue to do things exactly like our parents. I've met a lot of people who have taken the time to research the past and find the negative repetitions and consciously make changes to avoid making the same mistakes with our own children. In a sense, learning from our history by not following in certain footsteps. I don't think this is a new concept, I just think that it has been a rarity in the past and is more openly talked about in this day and age.
I have struggled with how to teach my children to be empathic and emotional, but not let it consume them and not let it put them in dangerous situations (being taken advantage of). How do we teach our kids to moderate their empathy and emotions? They don't have the experience in life to know when to let things go and how to manage their emotions. I think the answer is helping them to figure out what they need to be ok on their own, while still being available as backup support.
In my personal experience, I was hell-bent on doing things different than my parents. In retrospect, I realized that in one aspect of my mission to break the "cycle", I may have gone too far and done my children a disservice. Growing up I felt very much on my own. I had to figure out a lot about life without much direction. I was often thrown into situations and expected to figure it out. Which, I admit, has made me extremely self sufficient and able to handle hard situations. But as a mother, I've wanted to give my kids more and help them avoid being ill prepared for certain situations. So I've been right there with them to go through every hard situation. Well, I think it backfired a little. By always being there for them to fix their problems, they (my son mostly) haven't learned the coping skills needed to self soothe, to see that something sucks and figure out how to be ok with it and resolve the problem on their own, or at least try to solve it on their own before coming to me. I've been working on some exercises with my son to try to help him gain the skills he needs to handle situations in his life and in his head. I say "in his head", because my son struggles with depression. My son is extremely hard on himself emotionally. He's what you would call a people-pleaser who tends to give too much of himself and then realize it too late. He hasn't learned the skills of self soothing. Up until this point he has relied on me to sort through it. Which I've been more than happy to do of course, but that is setting him up for failure in life.
I started doing something to attempt to help him learn the necessary skills to manage his emotions a while back, that thing was gratitude. When he was really upset at himself and falling apart emotionally, I'd pull him to the side and ask him to make a list of 10 things he's grateful for. Then we'd go through each item on the list and I'd ask him to tell me why he's grateful for those things. By the time he's on #10 of the list, his mood is always lifted. But this tool is still too reliant on me to walk him through it. So I've started something new. I had a talk with him about how upset he gets. I let him know that I love him and that I want him to be able to help himself when things get hard. I also let him know that I'll always be here for him, but I can't be by his side all day, every day. I let him know that it's important for him to learn how to make himself ok so that he can be empowered enough to feel like he can handle daily life. I let him know that there are certain things that people do to "be ok". I gave him some examples so he could relate. I told him that when I'm feeling overwhelmed or sad that I like to go for a walk, watch a movie, listen to music, call a friend, read, etc. This helped him put it into perspective and give him an idea of what I meant. I let him know that when he got so upset that he would start being mean or taking it out on his sister and myself, that I'd be asking him to think about what he needs to be ok. I ask him to go to his room to think about it and to come back down when he's figured it out. So far, it's been working. He's been feeling more empowered and in control, while still feeling supported. I think by teaching him these skills more directly, it will in turn give him the skills to know his own limits.
After reading this, I could see how someone would see me as a helicopter parent (one of my biggest fears) and see my son as completely helpless. I want to clarify that he's a great kid. This post magnifies one aspect of who he is and doesn't define him. He's a thoughtful, dynamic and responsible 11 year old for the most part.
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