"Don't refuse a child if he asks you to tell the same story over and over and over again"

Janusz Korczak

"...The person who came to me was a woman about sixty, a rotund African woman with firm flesh and a pure smile, mischievous eyes, skin as gleaming and smooth as polished mahogany, smelling of smoke and honey, a being so powerful that even the trees bowed in a sign of respect. She looked at me as I looked at you and Nico and my grandchildren when you were little, with total acceptance. You were perfect, from your transparent ears to your wet diaper odor. I wanted you to stay forever faithful to your essence, to protect you from all evil, take you by the hand and lead you until you learned to walk on your own. That love was pure happiness and celebration, although it contained the anguish of knowing that each instant that went by changed you a little and distanced you from me."

Isabel Allende "The Sum of Our Days"

changing seasons

Once upon a time my growing kids united and overturned the pedestal were they put me long time ago when they were babies.

I did not know it was coming so I was not ready. A fluffy feathery nicely clucking chicken-me with still warm belly, just out of the nest, lost comfort of the coop. I fluttered my wings, having forgotten how to fly, pedaled my chicken feet in the air, overturned and landed on a cold floor with a thump.

With this fall two things became clear.

First, the kids do grow into preteens, teenagers and young adults. It is a blessed and natural change.
Second, the parents do change from wise folks into annoying, controlling, narrow-minded persons. I became one myself.

I am in the beginning of a new journey now. A journey on the path towards meeting my kids in a middle and continuing on our separate but hopefully visible to each other in the woods ways.

I love my kids.

precious time

Summer is going full speed ahead. Dreams about doing nothing in the summer, spending all the time in the world with our kids, reading to them, going places - sound usually like New Years Resolutions... After a day at work I come home and I close my eyes to mess, to dishes. I am so happy to see my kids, they are running to meet me, happy that I'm home, telling me what they did during the day and how much fun they had.
Everything in the last sentence except for both "happy" is a lie!
Seeing the mess, I make the kids drop everything they did and clean. It takes so much energy to fight after stressful day. Though I know we should pick our battles, it is not easy to follow this golden advice in reality:)
It always seemed to me that when time is precious, best way to use it is for something worthwhile. Of course, it's important to teach the kids life skills, including cleaning of the house...Still, I found that just like I remember the way my parents were with us kids rather than what was around us, so my kids will likely remember us, the parents. So having written this for the blog, I hope it will help me too :) to spend more quality time with my kids.
As for cleaning, we'll learn it as a family activity!

proud parent moment 2:)

Just a few days ago my son and I went to an amusement park. The lines were long, the sun was hot, so finally, when it was our turn to ride, my son said: "I'm not going!"

"Yes, you are", - he heard from me. "NO, mommy, no, I can't!" "We made it here, you're going!"
"Please, mommy, don't make me, I'm not going" And so on for 15 minutes.

My son heard it all from me that morning at the entry to the Ride. "You're going or we're leaving",
"GO!!!", "So, you're only brave playing playstation?!", "You made me come here all the way and now... this?", "What am I going to do now?!"

To all these he simply said: "Mommy, I'm not going."

A staff person asked him what was going on, and explained to him: "This ride does not go upside down, don't you worry, buddy" My son agreed to try the ride at once! He looked at me and noted, see, I was afraid to go upside down! "You would not think I'd make you?!" I said to no avail...

That's how, lost in a battle of "my way or highway", I never asked my kid a question "why?"
:)

Genuinnes and Spontanneity coupled with healthy motivation

Thinking of the post about kind words ...
Eyes, gestures, tone of voice, may mean more sometimes then the actual words. Actually babies can perceive only that, since they don't understand the words.
So I suspect the younger the children are the more sensitive they are to our true internal attitude rather then reaction that we manufacture in "educational" purposes.

It is much more difficult, I believe, to alter your body language than rehearse and shoot the proper words. Spontaneous genuine expression with love, care, respect, open mindedness motivated by desire to help the child to flourish into their own personality rather than sculpting our ideal goes a long long way.

The expression can be wordless and yet more effective. Comes to mind an old saying that parents teach by their own example .
So, if we want our kids to be : healthy, confident, enthusiastic, curious, open minded, self-sufficient, happy, behaving naturally, not shy to be who they are, with healthy self-esteem, no arrogance and not afraid to make mistakes or look foolish, we need to develop these qualities in ourselves.

But how to do that? This is a bigger discussion but I think ironically, it starts with relaxing into who we already are as opposed to struggling to become "better".
Trusting that we are worthy and capable individuals. We do not have to pretend to be smarter, stronger, more skillful then we already are. We can be weak, might not know many things, and be helpless at times. But the key is to be OK with all that and try not to cover up and look "good". That's the real strength and courage.

I believe setting that example would be much more effective in helping children to be happy and successful adults then giving them lots of goal oriented and competing skills.

Recently my son admitted to his classmates, who were passing a harmless snake to each other, that he doesn't want to touch it because he is afraid of snakes. I hope he stays that courageous.

on (music) lessons

"If you don't practice your violin (flute, trumpet, piano...), there will be no lessons anymore!"
There are two general kinds of response to this "promise": "Whatever!" or "Please, mommy, don't take me out of my trumpet (bassoon, clarinet) class!"

Most parents that I talked to would cancel classes in this situation. Some would then move on to a next thing, try to battle with their child over practice, effort, motivation, and then cancel again.

I always wondered, how many classes or activities an average child would "sail" through in the course of his or her childhood? Who would decide on the interest that "needs" pursuing: a parent or a child? Should we impose educational or recreational commitments on our kids, or is it better to let them look around, become interested (or not) in something, explore it and, may be, ask us for help and support in learning more?

With my two kids i had a chance to respond differently to each of them when time came to decide on the "future" of the lessons. One of them was fine with stopping the classes, even though she was the one who begged me to start. Another begged me not to stop! My idea of "no practice - no lessons" prevailed first time that we stopped his lessons. I say first time, because then we started again! This time it required an adjustment of my attitude towards practice. Seeing my kid who wanted to take this class with this favourite teacher, made me "break down".
I told myself that whether or not he practices, we will continue with the lessons, because it was beneficial to my son's education! It was me who had to change! He continued happily taking his lessons and in the end of the year we played a duet together at his recital.

If this experience taught me anything, it is that our approaches are different for each child, and that things change, and it is good to be accepting. In my case, it was a change in my own attitude!