The Thing They Didn't Tell Me About...Raising a Strong Little Girl (Part 1 of many)
What a long and emotional week. Not more emotion than we could handle, but how to handle it? The emotions were coming from my 10 year old daughter, and I was trying to figure out how to teach the very valuable lesson of how to handle those emotions without completely cutting them out of her life. Wowza, what a difficult thing to teach and talk about. That is why I am choosing to share with you
The thing they didn't tell me about...raising a strong little girl
I am sure there are many things I don't know about raising a little girl, despite being in the middle of raising one. I encounter surprises every single day with these children and I learn all the time. One of the things that I also have to do, as their parent, is to teach them or to at least seek the teachable moments when they appear. This week, one appeared. In fact, a teachable moment reared it's ugly head on Thursday after school with my daughter.
She came home and was frustrated and overwhelmed because due to the short week in school (they had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day) she ended up with some math modules that normally get completed during the school week, but did not therefore they became homework that was due the very next day. Of course we talked about why I was just hearing about it for the first time if we had all week, which I should have let her tell me on her own instead of jumping right into asking that question. I know I don't always do this parenting thing right, and I shouldn't have pushed any more buttons than necessary, but I did and her anxiety escalated quickly because of it. We got started on one of the modules, which was a struggle for both of us and her agitation was becoming increasingly out of control.
SIDENOTE: A bit of back story that you need is that Thursday is also her horseback riding lessons. At 5:30pm. She gets off the bus at 4pm. Not much time for this math homework. 5 modules.
So it is about 4:30 and we are working on 1 of 5. I already told her that we would get 1 done and then pause the whole thing to get ready for lessons, setting a small and achievable goal she could get through before her lesson. We struggled through it, she was tearing up and getting angrier. We finished it and I sent her upstairs to change into her riding clothes. I went up a few minutes later to see if she wanted me to put her hair in a ponytail and she had tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked at me and said,
"I can't do this. I can't ride today. I have too much homework and not enough time. If I ride then when I get home I will have to shower and eat and STILL do my homework and it will be so late and I"m already so tired..." She was getting more worked up and crying harder and in shut down mode. I kept brushing her hair and calmly told her to stop a minute, look at me in the mirror and listen,
"I cannot take away your frustration, your tears or your stress and pain about this. I want to so badly, but I can't. What I can do is let you know that when you face a struggle in your life, I will not make you face it alone. I will not make you deal with it alone. Do you understand what I am telling you?"
She looked at me with those tears in her eyes and nodded yes and I continued,
"We are not skipping your horse lesson. No good will come of us staying here to work on that math while you are so emotionally charged about it. You work hard all week to reward yourself with this lesson and you deserve it. You don't punish yourself, by taking away the one thing you absolutely love, because you are afraid you will run out of time. There is always time for the thing you love. You need this today."
We went to the lesson. She was off. She was still emotional from the hour before the lesson, which is understandable. Her trainer knew she was off and I briefly explained why. She had the utmost patience and needed to remind her that she was a great rider, she just needed to refocus her efforts. As I said, her emotions kept her distracted, but she fought through it. We finished up and took the 20 minute drive home. She said,
"I can't believe you talked to her about my homework and emotions earlier Mom."
I took another opportunity for a teachable moment when I explained,
"I wasn't telling her anything to embarrass you, I wanted her to know to be patient. You had a rough afternoon."
"I thought I was going to cry on my horse tonight, Mom"
"I know you did. If you did, that would have been ok Callie. You see, everyone has bad days and sometimes our emotions get the best of us. Some days I don't even want to get out of bed. I just want to stop and do nothing and quit. But if you had skipped that lesson, if you had quit when you had a struggle, you NEVER would have come out on the other side like you did. You wouldn't have even seen your success at all, because you would have been too busy NOT being proactive. I am proud of you for handling yourself like a big girl, but you have to know that your emotions and how you feel are ok. It is always ok to feel."
So often we want our girls to be strong and not emotional. We value emotions, as long as they aren't the kind that show weakness like tears, frustration and sadness. We value the strong emotions, but teach our children to keep the others at bay. Fight through adversity and don't show signs of "weakness." The thing is, feelings aren't weak and they are ok, but it is not ok to deny that you have them and hold them inside. It is difficult to not be affected by the emotions you have about certain things and it helps no one to ignore them or pretend they aren't there. I have to let my daughter know that she doesn't have to hide a part of herself, nor should she be ashamed of it. Mental health awareness is important and all feelings are as well. She can't deny feeling. Others can't deny your personal feelings either, so it is best to have them and learn from them. Learn how to use them or at minimum try to understand exactly how you work and how you need to conduct yourself in order to function alongside your emotions.
I'll tell you what, these lessons are much easier said than done. I'm sure the teachable moments are just beginning with regard to this topic and many more with my princess.
The thing they didn't tell me about...raising a strong little girl
I am sure there are many things I don't know about raising a little girl, despite being in the middle of raising one. I encounter surprises every single day with these children and I learn all the time. One of the things that I also have to do, as their parent, is to teach them or to at least seek the teachable moments when they appear. This week, one appeared. In fact, a teachable moment reared it's ugly head on Thursday after school with my daughter.
She came home and was frustrated and overwhelmed because due to the short week in school (they had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day) she ended up with some math modules that normally get completed during the school week, but did not therefore they became homework that was due the very next day. Of course we talked about why I was just hearing about it for the first time if we had all week, which I should have let her tell me on her own instead of jumping right into asking that question. I know I don't always do this parenting thing right, and I shouldn't have pushed any more buttons than necessary, but I did and her anxiety escalated quickly because of it. We got started on one of the modules, which was a struggle for both of us and her agitation was becoming increasingly out of control.
SIDENOTE: A bit of back story that you need is that Thursday is also her horseback riding lessons. At 5:30pm. She gets off the bus at 4pm. Not much time for this math homework. 5 modules.
So it is about 4:30 and we are working on 1 of 5. I already told her that we would get 1 done and then pause the whole thing to get ready for lessons, setting a small and achievable goal she could get through before her lesson. We struggled through it, she was tearing up and getting angrier. We finished it and I sent her upstairs to change into her riding clothes. I went up a few minutes later to see if she wanted me to put her hair in a ponytail and she had tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked at me and said,
"I can't do this. I can't ride today. I have too much homework and not enough time. If I ride then when I get home I will have to shower and eat and STILL do my homework and it will be so late and I"m already so tired..." She was getting more worked up and crying harder and in shut down mode. I kept brushing her hair and calmly told her to stop a minute, look at me in the mirror and listen,
"I cannot take away your frustration, your tears or your stress and pain about this. I want to so badly, but I can't. What I can do is let you know that when you face a struggle in your life, I will not make you face it alone. I will not make you deal with it alone. Do you understand what I am telling you?"
She looked at me with those tears in her eyes and nodded yes and I continued,
"We are not skipping your horse lesson. No good will come of us staying here to work on that math while you are so emotionally charged about it. You work hard all week to reward yourself with this lesson and you deserve it. You don't punish yourself, by taking away the one thing you absolutely love, because you are afraid you will run out of time. There is always time for the thing you love. You need this today."
We went to the lesson. She was off. She was still emotional from the hour before the lesson, which is understandable. Her trainer knew she was off and I briefly explained why. She had the utmost patience and needed to remind her that she was a great rider, she just needed to refocus her efforts. As I said, her emotions kept her distracted, but she fought through it. We finished up and took the 20 minute drive home. She said,
"I can't believe you talked to her about my homework and emotions earlier Mom."
I took another opportunity for a teachable moment when I explained,
"I wasn't telling her anything to embarrass you, I wanted her to know to be patient. You had a rough afternoon."
"I thought I was going to cry on my horse tonight, Mom"
"I know you did. If you did, that would have been ok Callie. You see, everyone has bad days and sometimes our emotions get the best of us. Some days I don't even want to get out of bed. I just want to stop and do nothing and quit. But if you had skipped that lesson, if you had quit when you had a struggle, you NEVER would have come out on the other side like you did. You wouldn't have even seen your success at all, because you would have been too busy NOT being proactive. I am proud of you for handling yourself like a big girl, but you have to know that your emotions and how you feel are ok. It is always ok to feel."
So often we want our girls to be strong and not emotional. We value emotions, as long as they aren't the kind that show weakness like tears, frustration and sadness. We value the strong emotions, but teach our children to keep the others at bay. Fight through adversity and don't show signs of "weakness." The thing is, feelings aren't weak and they are ok, but it is not ok to deny that you have them and hold them inside. It is difficult to not be affected by the emotions you have about certain things and it helps no one to ignore them or pretend they aren't there. I have to let my daughter know that she doesn't have to hide a part of herself, nor should she be ashamed of it. Mental health awareness is important and all feelings are as well. She can't deny feeling. Others can't deny your personal feelings either, so it is best to have them and learn from them. Learn how to use them or at minimum try to understand exactly how you work and how you need to conduct yourself in order to function alongside your emotions.
I'll tell you what, these lessons are much easier said than done. I'm sure the teachable moments are just beginning with regard to this topic and many more with my princess.
Comments
Post a Comment