Parenting with Mindfulness; Moving away from systems of control and into more connection
My 5 year-old loves making books, and she recently started writing many of the words herself. She calls from the living room, "how do you spell..." and I attempt to give her the accurate letters while cooking & cleaning with my 2 year-old attached to my leg. The other day we had a miscommunication and she wrote an H instead of an R. She had tried to change it from an H to an R, but didn't like how it looked, and was really upset. I did what most of us grown-ups do - I tried to console her. It looks just fine! Anybody would know that's an R. It's ok! And then we were arguing about whether or not it was, in fact, ok. I wasn't winning. I finally remembered that this is not effective, or wanted, communication, but instead a product of my own anxiety of wanting my child to be happy and easy. Eek. Also by overmanaging her "problem", and attempting desperately to help her feel better, I'm sendi...