As a parent, I often feel anything but wise. You might think, because of my work, I would be great at parenting. Ha Ha….I’m great at giving parenting advice, taking it is a whole different ballgame! To give myself some credit my children were almost grown before I officially became a social worker, but I still am pretty good at screwing it up now and then. They will happy to tell you about it.
That being said, I am getting better at it and one thing that really has helped is when I am practicing Wise Mind. Marcia Lenihan creator of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy defines Wise Mind as a combination of reasonable/rational mind with emotional mind into a state of “knowing” that feels right. For this to happen you must be aware of and comfortable with your emotions and integrate them into your rational thoughts.
We cannot parent without emotion – unless we want to bring up a bunch of robots or possible serial killers. We need to be rational and keep kids safe…yet they must experience emotions to learn and grow. So Wise Mind is the target.
When my children were born my husband was a company commander in the Army and he was not only responsible for us, but for 25 other families as well. We had to lead by example and I can remember chatting with the other officer’s wives about rather or not our little boys could have toy guns. (As I nodded in agreement I was thinking “Seriously? We are living on an army base where we can hear artillery rounds going of in training exercises and we are worried about toy guns!”)
I have recently been studying a lot of Brene Brown’s work regarding living whole-heartedly and identifying shame in our lives. Of course I started pondering what my own shame gremlins might be and one that I have identified is a common one about being a “perfect parent.”
I have two children and think they both are amazing people and will contribute to the world in some great way. That being said, I realize that over the years I may have spent too much time worrying and identifying what is wrong with them and what I or some other person needs to fix.
Why? I think it is because I am afraid of other people’s judgments on my parenting and that they may be rejected and hurt (and somehow I can prevent this!)
When I analyze this I can see that some of it comes from my own parents and their parents. Both my parents grew up in small towns (I’m talking small, populations under 2000) where their parents were leaders in the community. They both have stories of their mother’s knowing about any trouble they got into before they even got home from said event. As leaders of the community a lot of pressure was put on them to have “perfect” children. My grandmother was known to say "If you don't want to see it on the front page of the newspaper, then you better not do it."
There are so many parenting books out there and so many horror stories of children getting hurt or killed due to negligence we are constantly on guard. Many of us diligently snap on those uncomfortable bike helmets while thinking “somehow I survived riding a bike without a helmet and not having a seat belt.” But we do it out of fear of not being able to handle loss and concern for what the neighbors think.
My car seat was a cardboard box and I have spent many fun times riding in the “way back” of the station wagon or the bed of a pick up truck with my cousins. But I could not drive out of the driveway without making sure my children were buckled in. And the first time I left my son alone with his grandparents I left a two page note with minute by minute directions!
So are we all parenting from a place of fear? For me the answer has been "YES", much of the time. But what does that get us? From the number of teenage clients with anxiety I see, my guess is with a bunch of anxious kids. But you say, "Holly, these safety things are important!"
I don’t disagree, we do need to buckle our kids in and put on those helmets. But can we be flexible enough to let them ride across a beautiful farm or ranch in the back of a pick up now and then?
Where this gets to be more of a problem comes in when we start protecting children from emotional pain. Emotions, good and bad, are part of life and resilient people (as well as wholehearted people, according to Brene Brown, PhD) become resilient by experiencing difficulties and learning how to deal with them. We know that if you are numb to negative emotions you cannot experience joy either.
A lot of us have been parented to be “tough” and “suck it up.” I heard a guy tell his three year old to “stop being a wimp” on an airplane the other day. Message – if you are frustrated that you cannot reach your cup there is something wrong with you.
Being tough can be an asset, but we also need to be comfortable with emotions and not fear being called a “wimp” if we cry or become frustrated when things are difficult. Otherwise, we stop doing things that are difficult! And brain science tells us that our brain grows when we try new things.
When we live mindfully, we recognize emotions – we have awareness. We acknowledge them before we react and learn to be at ease. “Oh sadness you are here, I feel you, I know you will move on, let me be patient with you.” Instead of “I am sad, sad is bad, what can I do to get rid of it NOW!”
As parents we need to be in wise mind to teach this skill. If we are in emotional mind we fall apart or try to jump in and fix things to “save” our children from experiencing the emotion or us having to see them in pain. If we rely only on rational mind we cannot validate our children’s emotion and we send the message that emotions are not important.
What might this look like?
So you are sitting on a plane with a 3 year old. He starts whining and stretching his hand towards his cup in the seat pocket but can’t reach it because of the seat belt and the fact that he has short little 3 year old arms and doesn’t really buy into the whole seatbelt thing either.
Emotional mind: You are embarrassed because he is whining and worried what people will think – you respond with “stop being a wimp” and grab the cup and shove it in his face. (Message: Being needy is bad.)
Rational mind: You ignore the frustration and say “Son, you cannot reach the cup because you have short arms and there is no reason to be upset.” Then you hand him the cup. (Message: Your feeling of frustration is wrong and you should know that.)
Wise Mind: “Oh, son, how frustrating to not be able to reach your cup. I can see that that upsets you, let me help you out.” (Message: Your frustration is justified and it is okay to need help sometimes.)
Of course we can’t do it perfectly every time so don’t beat yourself up when you make a mistake. But if you want to teach your children to be resilient then take the time to attend to your own emotions and learn to model Wise Mind for them. Be honest about your feelings. It is okay to say “Mommy is sad right now, but I will feel better later, a hug from you will sure help!” Or even: “I am so happy right now, it feels really good to be happy and share this time with you.”
Having a regular mindfulness practice can help you do this more. If you have already started, good for you. For anyone looking to start, begin with short, 3-5 minute sessions every day and work up from there. I will add some links (very soon I promise! - my webmaster is busy finishing college and applying for jobs) to great websites with guided meditation clips on my web page to help you get started and to allow you to explore different teachers and types of meditation.
When parenting the first step is ALWAYS to remember to BREATH!