An event

It's 12:30 p.m., and I've just picked up my two children from school and kindergarten. We're happily chugging home in the car, the radio blaring, and the children chattering happily out the window.

An issue is approaching that we as a family have been dealing with for several months now – my son's school enrollment this summer and a planned move.

I've been sensing this for some time now that there's a sensitive issue here. My son loves kindergarten. He almost never talks about school and has no interest in learning more about his future there.
I lean over to him and say: Man, this is really going fast now, just four more weeks and the kindergarten year will be over, the holidays are coming!

At the same moment, he suddenly turns his head to the side and begins to cry bitterly. I don't want to go to school, he says, I want to stay in kindergarten, where my friend is and all the toys that you can't find anywhere else...

My heart feels like it's about to implode. How many of you know the difference in the atmosphere when a child is crying out of pure defiance, or when you sense that real, deep pain is surfacing in that moment?
On top of all that, the child turns his head away. This means there's not only pain, but also shame. Shame about tears, which I never taught him.

This sight evokes deep compassion in me. I feel as if I have to go through this process myself.

reflection

This scene kept going through my head: the sudden outburst, my child's long-standing backward attitude, his desire for security, safety, habit... and my strong inner reaction to his pain.

Days later, it's like scales falling from my eyes.
The pain I felt, disguised as supposed compassion,
was in truth my own pain.
My child has shown me how much I myself sometimes fear life and the future, which holds so many unknowns in the equation.

For weeks now, I've been struggling to be honest with myself in my own inner experience. I'm full of energy and boast about my vision for the future...
but somewhere along the way I forgot my own inner child, who deeply wishes to be able to hide behind my motherly skirt from my urge for change,
longing for the victory of my longing for habit over the desire for something new.

*

We are all confronted with our pain in one way or another at times:
Our world is constantly changing. We lose, miss, miss out, and leave.

For our children, these experiences are new and often for the first time.
For us parents, they trigger old memories. The basic feelings we suppressed in the past
are expressed today in emotions that bring our old, painful experiences back to the surface.

We often unconsciously bring these emotions into the family situation.
A child is angry, we react defensively. They are defiant, and we roll our eyes in annoyance.
It's sad, we react with excessive comfort and don't give the child any space to cry.
We try to keep the other person's feelings at bay and find it difficult to simply be with them.

And now?

Our children are a mirror of our own inner world and beliefs.
Mirror neurons determine that a child learns through imitation.
We can often tell from our children’s behavior where we as parents really stand.

If I notice a behavior in my child that worries me, I take a deep breath
and look inside:
Where exactly might this fear, this concern, or the root of this behavior lie, buried deep within my soul? What triggers my child's behavior in me? What memories are surfacing, what old pain wants to show itself and be seen?

As soon as I am ready to face my fears, pay attention to them, and thus also take care of my “inner child,” the atmosphere in our family can change in a new, free direction.
I remember that my child is a completely different person than I was as a child.
I become aware that their world of experience is different. By caring for myself, I can fully meet my child in their own world and listen, accompany, and encourage them without projecting my feelings onto their experience.

This gives our children the chance to take a different path than the one we took back then – which is what we want in many cases, right?

Now I wish you, too, that you will always find the courage to turn fully to your soul and to continually rediscover how you are shaped, what makes you who you are – and to experience how, through loving self-reflection, you can always take new, exciting and healing paths.

If you would like to learn more about family, pregnancy, mindfulness, nutrition or sustainability, take a look here over.

AUTHOR: SARAH ACKER