health}
We’re all just learning. There’s something about relationships and parenting that reminds you just how clueless you really are. If I’m being honest, being a partner and a parent is pretty much one of the most continually humbling experiences I’ve ever encountered. Just when you think you’ve hit a flow and figured things out, all the variables change and you realize you’ve got to redo your math in order to come up with a workable solution. 38. ardentforlife.net - winter 2024
By Anna Osborn, LMFT, Relationship Therapist and Coach
And I sure think that parenting school-aged kids does this to you over and over again. The sheer number of new sayings and words they’re constantly coming home with only highlight just how in the dark I am. It’s enough to bring one to their knees. I don’t even want to tell you how many questions I had for my daughter when she told me two kids got “shipped” at her school. “As in relationship Mom, like they’re in a box and shipped away together.” I’m still lost, but whatever. The point is we’re constantly learning and if we aren’t open to different, we can really damage our relationships. If you don’t know how to allow for change, and the input of new knowledge, you are sort of dead in the water.
But it has to be safe enough for you to admit that you don’t have all the answers or that you need support.
Which is probably why one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone asks a question or admits they don’t know or haven’t heard of something and they’re met with… ‘WHAT?!? You don’t know what that is?!?’ or ‘WHAT?!?! You’ve never heard of that?’ It drives me absolutely bonkers. I mean in what stretch of the imagination is that helpful? When someone is brave enough to admit that they don’t know something and they’re faced with ridicule? I know I’m less likely to speak up if I’m laughed at or mocked for acknowledging what I just don’t know.