4 minute read
Navigating the inbetween
Story by Lori-Ellen Grant.
Parenting trends and styles have always ebbed and flowed. Around thirty-five years ago, the approach to parenting was often paternalistic based on control and doing things that were ‘for our own good’ with a clear power differential. This would be coupled with its opposite – a ‘free range’ approach with children roaming, no helicopters in sight.
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More recently, parenting has become something that many spend time agonising over, reading books, trying hard to do right and wishing to make amends for the wrongs personally suffered. We all fall short sometimes and have been quick to point out our own parents’ failings as we grapple with our own.
When a new family member arrives, one of the biggest personal changes for new parents is the shift in focus from self to other, as we prioritise our child’s needs. If and when more children arrive, the balance of everyone’s needs continues to change as we begin to define family – our family. Many parents refer to their own childhood for guidance, what they loved, the sports they were into, going to the places of good memories. Underneath the choices and decisions made day to day are our values – what’s important to the family – like kindness, courage, respect, hard work. When a family has clarified its values, how we act is clear. The shifting ground of life has some stability we can take with us.
‘Amid the simplicity and the consistency, All right and in its place. A haven from a world unknown And many a toy for a child sewn.’ As children reach early adolescence there is a transition from a carefree (hopefully) childhood to a new balance of personal freedom and control. Our paternalistic tendencies will need to change. Maybe telling them the story about what it was like for us at twelve isn’t what our teenager needs to hear right now, lest we become another member of Monty Python’s Yorkshiremen reminiscing about life in a small shoebox.
Rebecca Paul from Fleurieu Counselling and Wellness, suggests a different approach: listen twice and speak once. Sometimes if we can be a little quieter, we might hear our teenagers and see them as they are. Given that we learn more from imitation than from instruction it’s good to get out of our own way as parents. To put it clearly your child is their own person, in their own right, and a part of adolescence is actioning this separation. They need to push everything away – and at times that includes you – so they can see who they are. Can you stand in the face of rejection?
It isn’t easy to hear about the difficulties they are having; our desire to leap in and help can be overwhelming. We can extend the circle of trust to other trusted adults – aunties or uncles, close family friends. Giving our children the opportunity to express themselves and see themselves reflected anew in the community they are a part of.
This is possibly when we can breathe a sigh of relief, we are all in this together. We too may be good people, imbuing our children with what we aspire to and keeping our shortfalls at bay. Whether parent or child, the all-too-close reality of being human is that we make mistakes. But then we adjust our behaviour, remember what we value and what’s important, grow and then learn again.
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