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 sending her the message that I don't thi