Everyday Blessings

There are many different ways to view what we often call 'difficult' or 'negative' behaviors in our children. What might be completely unacceptable to someone else might be normal behavior to me, and vice versa. Very often we're locked into seeing things in only one way, conditioned by views and feelings that are frequently unexamined, and that often put social decorum--what other people might think, or how embarrassed we are feeling--above the emotional well-being of our children.

How we see things will completely affect what we choose to do. When a baby is crying, do we see it as a willful attempt to control us or as a cry for help? When children begin crawling and exploring the world around them, do we view their unstoppable curiosity as a sign of intelligence, strength, and spirit, or as a threat to our control, as an act of disobedience? How do we view it when a son is wildly teasing his sisters, or when a teenage daughter is moodly and distant, critical and demanding, or when a child is so angry that she threatens to run away from home?

Accepting our children as they are. It sounds so simple. But how often do we find ourselves wanting our cildren to act, look, or be different from the way they actually are in that moment? How often do we want them to be, or look, or relate the way they were in a different moment, at a different time, and not accepting--despite all the evidence--that right here, right now, things are not the way we want them to be but are undeniably the way they are?

Everyday Blessings
Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn