05/09/2024
No one else besides you will deal with the long-range ramifications of your children’s emotional health throughout their lifetime.
No one is as invested as you are in your child. Are you invested in more than their schooling, physical health, and social/extra curricular life? Those are definitely important but just as some of you practice preventative medicine it is equally important to practice preventative mental/behavioral health.
In my book, I wrote that the world needs schools for marriage and parenting. Under that umbrella would fall emotions/feelings/conflict resolution/repair/coping. There is no school for that. Most parents or couples aren’t equipped with this either. We typically repeat what is or isn’t modeled in our families, unless great conscious effort is made to choose differently.
👉🏼How many of you grew up in homes where you were only allowed to be happy? You couldn’t be sad or angry.
👉🏼How many of you could never do enough to please 1 or both parents?
👉🏼How many of you lived under the same roof as your parents but 1 or both were often absent from your life or too stressed with work or addiction to give you attention?
👉🏼How many of you had parents who dictated everything you did?
👉🏼How many of you had 1 or both parents who didn’t allow you to speak your feelings?
Meaning issues were often swept under the rug, never resolved. You learned not to cry. You learned to suppress emotions and as an adult avoid conflict at all costs.
👉🏼How many of you grew up with parents who weren’t capable of allowing you to be your authentic self? Accepting you alone as is, not based on what you did or how you performed in school, sports, or work?
From my coaching business alone and the education I have received on the psyche and childhood trauma, most families/humans operate like this.
Is it bad? Well …define bad. Bad things can turn out to be good things many times, also known as “opportunities”. 😉
Could there be a better way? Yes absolutely.
👉🏼How many of you saw the “opportunity” and shifted your life in a positive direction because of it?
When I found out I was pregnant, my goal then and now, was/is to raise Grayson to be emotionally intelligent, also known as EQ.
👉🏼What does that mean? It is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.
In my words…provide my child life skills re feelings and functional relationships, whether with self, family, friends, or in the future with work.
Our relationship with our mother and father determine all of our relationships in our adult life. Many of us are stuck in unconscious lifelong patterns, addictions, or other habits that don’t best serve us but were necessary to survive our environment at the time.
I’m not seeking perfection. I do see what I didn’t get, I also see what I received. I have done a tremendous amount of self reflection and inner child work on myself first, yet there is still more to do. I see what most didn’t get, and that all can benefit from… if given. I can’t provide everything for Grayson (nor could my parents with me). Some will come from me, some from counselors, programs, some from himself, but much of it from his life experiences and relationships. Preparing our children for the world, relationships, and emotions is a huge critical task that planet earth will greatly benefit from if we parents rise up.
