This is a little bit of a departure from my previous blog posts, but this is one I want to direct to all of the moms out there. What do you when your children disappoint you?
One of my “themes” (and coaching niches) is to help career-oriented women find time in their lives for their children and/or to have a family. That’s one reason I wrote my book Full-Time Woman, Part-Time Career. But my book was written when my oldest was still an infant.
I have asked around and one wise friend of mine said “That’s (the nature of) having kids!” Others told me, “Your children will build you up and then bring you down.”
Experience is the difference between a child’s fear (and emotions) versus an adult’s. Once you have gone through something, you know better how to handle it. Personal growth comes from learning, from successfully trying new things, and from stopping yourself from responding the way you “normally would” by thinking before you speak or act. In other words, stop before yelling at a child, and then handle the situation another way.
When teaching a class, you can’t disparage or be condescending to your students. In other words, you can’t call someone a bonehead just because they don’t know how to do a simple task on the computer like saving a file. But how come so many people treat their kids this way?
Part of being professional is knowing when to bite your tongue and hold back ugly words. Immature people say whatever they want to without considering the consequences or the effect their words will have on others. So how do you accomplish this when you are the parent?
How do you apply the concept of “professionalism” to parenting? It may be more difficult to do because you are more emotionally invested in your kids.
How do you make sure your child learns from the experience and doesn’t repeat the same behavior the next time it happens? Is this even possible?
What is the balance between discipline, expressing your disappointment, vs. giving encouragement to try again next time?
What if the disappointment is more on your end than on theirs? How do you handle that?
These are some very key questions I think. And, they are not easy to answer at that. I think we are all trying to do the very best we can. I often joke and say it is inevitable that kids will end up in therapy because their parents screwed them up….no matter how good a parent LOL… I say it jokingly but the truth is we are not perfect and can only do the best we can. I think when we understand that about ourselves, it gets easier (dare I say that LOL).
So, I think reminaing professional… even with our ids is important. Not getting emotional and yelling is key (no, I have certainly not perfected this). I try my best to explain my upset or disappointment in a calm manner and then provide advice on ho to correct the behavior. If the disappointment is on my end, again, I need to be just as gentle with myself… which can sometimes be even harder than being gentle with the kids.
What a thought-provoking blog post! There are too many questions for me to answer without thinking a LOT! As for my children disappointing me, you are right, many times it’s my OWN disappointment, not theirs that’s the problem. My preferred choices for them aren’t always the ones they pick. It’s hard not to want to make things easier for them but in the long run, I think they just have to learn for themselves. You know, with some kids, you can say, “don’t touch the stove or you’ll get burned” and they won’t ever touch it. Others are going to touch it or die!!! I have both kinds of kids! LOL
Thank you all for your comments! It helps to know that I am not alone in this . . . and that we are all still learning and growing!