Have you noticed a difference between how you feel when you react to your child, and how you feel when you interact with them? Both ways of being will directly impact your self esteem and theirs.
When you re-act, you are acting out again a situation that has happened before.
You are bringing a past situation into the present moment.
Your child's behavior has triggered forward something from your past and often, although what is happening in the present moment really has nothing to do with the past situation, you respond to it as if it does.
I worked with a woman whose teen decided that she wanted to hang out with some new friends in an area of town where a lot of drug addicts hung out.
She was in a panic, thinking she must have done something wrong in her parenting for her daughter to want to do that.
She wondered if her daughter was already in trouble with drugs and she didn't even know it.
This woman had a sister who got into trouble with drugs as a teen and hung around with friends who weren't good for her.
Automatically this mother assumed the past was repeating itself and it was her fault.
She must be a bad mother.
She was reacting to the situation.
When I asked her whether, knowing her daughter as she did, was it likely that her daughter would get mixed up with drugs, I saw this woman shift immediately back to the present.
Rather than thinking about her sister, she realized that there was no way her daughter would be like that.
Her daughter was very solid about who she was and would never get into the drug scene without her mother knowing.
She simply needed to be reminded that the past had nothing to do with her present situation.
She didn't need to react to her daughter's request as if she was dealing with her sister.
That was then, this was now.
Once she cleared herself of the past, this mother was able to interact with her daughter instead of re-act.
They worked out a safe, mutually agreeable way for her daughter to do what she wanted to do.
This woman made sure her daughter had all possible safety precautions in place; she had a fully charged cell phone, she agreed to be on the last bus home and she promised to follow her instincts, and if at any time she didn't feel safe, she would immediately get out of the situation, or call her Mom for help.
Her daughter was allowed to do what she wanted to do but she also felt that she was safe and prepared for any situation.
Most importantly she also knew that her mother trusted her good judgment and her instincts.
That evening her daughter went downtown to hang out with these new friends, and quickly got bored and decided that it wasn't what she wanted.
She came right back home and never needed to do it again.
She'd had the experience, satisfied her curiosity and just wasn't interested.
Both of them came out winners.
Her daughter knew that her Mom respected her and so her own self respect was reinforced.
This Mom got to see the importance of staying in the present so she could interact with her daughter rather than re-act to something from her past.
Together they got to work on a common goal of guiding her daughter to be a successful, self-confident, empowered adult.
Copyright 2009 Marilyn Foreman
When you re-act, you are acting out again a situation that has happened before.
You are bringing a past situation into the present moment.
Your child's behavior has triggered forward something from your past and often, although what is happening in the present moment really has nothing to do with the past situation, you respond to it as if it does.
I worked with a woman whose teen decided that she wanted to hang out with some new friends in an area of town where a lot of drug addicts hung out.
She was in a panic, thinking she must have done something wrong in her parenting for her daughter to want to do that.
She wondered if her daughter was already in trouble with drugs and she didn't even know it.
This woman had a sister who got into trouble with drugs as a teen and hung around with friends who weren't good for her.
Automatically this mother assumed the past was repeating itself and it was her fault.
She must be a bad mother.
She was reacting to the situation.
When I asked her whether, knowing her daughter as she did, was it likely that her daughter would get mixed up with drugs, I saw this woman shift immediately back to the present.
Rather than thinking about her sister, she realized that there was no way her daughter would be like that.
Her daughter was very solid about who she was and would never get into the drug scene without her mother knowing.
She simply needed to be reminded that the past had nothing to do with her present situation.
She didn't need to react to her daughter's request as if she was dealing with her sister.
That was then, this was now.
Once she cleared herself of the past, this mother was able to interact with her daughter instead of re-act.
They worked out a safe, mutually agreeable way for her daughter to do what she wanted to do.
This woman made sure her daughter had all possible safety precautions in place; she had a fully charged cell phone, she agreed to be on the last bus home and she promised to follow her instincts, and if at any time she didn't feel safe, she would immediately get out of the situation, or call her Mom for help.
Her daughter was allowed to do what she wanted to do but she also felt that she was safe and prepared for any situation.
Most importantly she also knew that her mother trusted her good judgment and her instincts.
That evening her daughter went downtown to hang out with these new friends, and quickly got bored and decided that it wasn't what she wanted.
She came right back home and never needed to do it again.
She'd had the experience, satisfied her curiosity and just wasn't interested.
Both of them came out winners.
Her daughter knew that her Mom respected her and so her own self respect was reinforced.
This Mom got to see the importance of staying in the present so she could interact with her daughter rather than re-act to something from her past.
Together they got to work on a common goal of guiding her daughter to be a successful, self-confident, empowered adult.
Copyright 2009 Marilyn Foreman