The biggest problem with your child's behaviour might actually be your own expectations.
This might be a hard pill to swallow. It is common, perhaps normal, to have high expectations of our children - we want them to fulfil their potential and experience the best that life has to offer them. In a world where we have a vast array of information telling us what our child ‘should’ be able to do by a certain age, and what the age-appropriate milestones are, it’s not surprising that we forget to listen to the child right in front of us.
Just because your child can do something doesn't mean they can always do it, or always want to do it.
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If you’re new to Yes Parenting, it can be quite challenging to know when to say Yes and when to say No. If you’re a member of Discovering Yes (my free Facebook group) you’re likely already familiar with my posts that aim to help you begin to integrate the process of finding a Yes for everybody. Remember, when we talk about finding a Yes, we’re not looking for a Yes solely for our kids - we’re looking for a Yes for us as well.
When it comes to finding a Yes for everyone, we begin by looking at needs. Then it’s a Yes to interests and preferences and finally it’s a Yes to desires.
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Just in case no one has told you today, I want you to know that you are enough, exactly as you are.
We have such high expectations of ourselves. We have such high expectations of our children. We might have high expectations of others. Combining these expectations with the perpetual use of the word “should”, we find ourselves further and further away from the truth that we are enough, that our children are enough. Where you are, today, in this moment is enough.
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Have you ever heard the saying, “What you resist, persists”? This is one of those lessons that the Universe brings me back to time and time again.
I find that when I am most in need of something for my own development, growth, healing, etc., I will, more often than not, resist it. This brings us back to “what we resist, persists”. I find often that the things we need most are also the things that we resist most.
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A really important part of Yes Parenting is our willingness and ability to say Yes or to respond with a Yes to our children's desires (and our own desires) as much as we can or as much as possible.
There are, of course, natural limits that will prevent us from being able to say a full Yes. These could be money, time, geographical location, practicalities of science, etc. However, there are still many ways for us to find playful, exploratory, imaginative and wonderfully expansive ways to say Yes to desires within these limits.
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I want to talk a little about interests and preferences. Sometimes when I talk about this topic, there’s a bit of confusion around interests and preferences and how they differ from desires. As a general rule, interests and preferences tend to be the natural way we meet our own needs. Desires, on the other hand, are much more about leading us into the life that we want to live. In order to live that life, though, our needs have to be met first and our interests and preferences will often help us get there.
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Let’s talk about needs. We all have them. We all have basic needs. Regardless of the parenting or life situation, it always comes back to needs. Are we meeting our own needs? What about those of our children?
Needs are a foundational part of Yes Parenting. In fact, the first Yes of Yes Parenting is to your own needs, starting with a practice of self-care.
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My sister has two boys. One has just turned two and the other is not yet three months old. She remarked the other day that, with small children, “The days are long and the years are short”. As a Mama of two boys who are hurtling towards adolescence I know this firsthand.
It seems only yesterday that it was my son who was running around bare-bottomed as he learned to use the potty. I can also vividly recall those days when it seemed I did nothing except focus on settling a baby who just wasn’t quite right and I had no idea why.
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A while ago I had a conversation with a gym member who I see most days. He was asking me about Yes Parenting. He asked how I managed to stick to my guns despite the response from the media and those that comment on the media. I said it was because I believe in Yes Parenting, my children demonstrate the effects of Yes Parenting and my clients rave about Yes Parenting.
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•••• Do you say Yes to ideas, no matter how crazy, out of the blue or impractical they might be?! ••••
Saying Yes to an idea does not mean you then have to go ahead and fulfill said idea. It means opening up to what that idea might offer. When we say Yes, and we open up, it is incredible what magic is able to unfold.
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