Have you ever tried to hold a handful of sand? If you close your hand too loosely, the sand falls out; too tightly and it squeezes through your fingertips....either way, you lose the sand. (Try it if you don't believe me....the only way to hold onto the sand is to cup it gently in your hands....now try applying this principle to parenting.)
I am experiencing something similar with one of my children at the moment. We are locked in a battle of wills (unnecessarily, I might add, given that we both want the same end goal), and neither one of us is willing to budge. I know I am holding on too tightly, running the risk of losing that which I am trying so hard to hold, but I am afraid to let go....
This is the most difficult part of parenting for me. The knowing when to release my children just enough to allow them stand at the crossroads and make their own decision about which direction to go. The
But it has to be done. He's suffering, stagnating, suffocating...and the only remedy is for me to just let go of my unreasonable need to control the situation. I have to trust that he knows how to get from where he is to where he needs to be.
Because I'm not building a sandcastle here. I'm helping to construct a man.
1 comment:
Quick get a jar and put all the sand in there so it can't get away!!!! :) Hard stuff, for sure. If it helps, I have rarely known such amazingly brilliant and critical thinkers as your children...you've done your job so well. You've given them real wings, not melty old wax ones--they'll be able to fly as high as they dare. They are all good through and through!
Post a Comment