You know how it goes if you have been a parent...If our kid is not growing well, we blame ourselves...
If our kid is not healthy, we blame ourselves...
If our kid does something wrong, we blame ourselves...
If our don't like us, we blame ourselves...
If other people dun like our kids, we blame ourselves...
If we hit our kids, we blame ourselves...
If we never talk to them, we blame ourselves...
And the never-ending list goes on...
But it is just impossible for us to become a perfect parent... we just need to recognize that and stop attacking ourselves. Because in actual fact, we are all perfect parents in that we do our best and did the best that we could.
Appreciate our parents
Some time back, I wrote about appreciating our parents... because whatever grievances we have against our parents, we will eventually act it out on our kids and blame ourselves for being bad parents.
Likewise if we loved and forgave our parents, our kids will forgive us too for the 'bad' things we have done and we, as a family can get closer and more bonded together :) And when this happens, we can start to believe again.. tat we are GOOD PARENTS.
Beating our kids
But sometimes, when our kids react in certain ways and we react... it is usually because their behaviour has shaken out a bad emotion that we have been suppressing. Sometimes when the emotion is very strong and we do not know what to do, we lose control and then we hit them.
But whatever we were feeling, we had a different choice... We could choose to be brave, feel that bad feeling and burn it away and heal it instead of beating our kids.
Because whenever we hit our kids, we beat the same bad feeling into our kids and they inherit it. During our workshops, usually when when people talk about how their parents beat them and make them feel worthless or valueless or helpless.. it is always because their parents were feeling the exact same feelings and did not know how to deal with it. So they raised their hands and hit their children, in the end, giving them the same feeling as well.
Be Yourself
While it is true that parents have a huge impact or influence on a child's life... be aware that your child is also the one who chooses his own experiences.
There was this story about a reporter wanting to write a story about children and how their parents would influence them.
He interviewed this really bad person who committed all sorts of felony in prison and the bad guy said, "What could I do, it was the only thing I could do because my dad was also a jailbird and in my family, there was mostly no one who cared for me or loved me..."
And then he interviewed a very successful and famous lawyer about his childhood and the lawyer says, "What could I do, it was the only thing I could do because my dad was also a jailbird and in my family, there was mostly no one who cared for me or loved me..."
Turned out that the two of them were twin brothers!
Don't blame yourself for everything that went wrong with your child and just be yourself! You do not need to behave in a certain way or become a certain something for your child to love you. More often than not, children are here to bring more love to us so tat it is easier to heal and easier to find courage to heal. And they will love us.. whether we are perfect or not... whether we behave in a certain way or not.
In my workshop experiences, I have found that even the most badly scarred children (hit till whole hands and legs also bloody, or due to parent's neglect got badly injured, scarred or abused) will still ultimately love their parents DEEPLY.. no matter what they said or did on the surface.
Be your kid's best friend
So in conclusion, Jeff said that all we needed to do is to provide guides to our children. "They know best what is their purpose in this world" we as parents just need to guide them and show them wat a beautiful world this is so that they will be motivated to live to their fullest and live their purpose.
"Don't tell your kid what to do.. let them contribute in the family. Sometimes we learn lessons from our kids as well... don't tell them how to contribute to the family.. most of the time, they know what to do and how to contribute and they know it better than us..."
And last but not least, he repeated that we should always treat our kids like we treat our best friends. "You wouldn't scream and shout at your best friend and commanded that he cleaned up his room, would you?"
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