Do You See What I See

All too often, our world view shapes the way we perceive situations and the people in them. Being a casual observer of ones own life is not a skill most people possess. A while ago we discussed taking advice and talked about how to accept advice from others (and model that for our kids to do in their own lives). Today I want to take a bit of a different angle - seeing this topic in a different light. 

Try to answer these two questions honestly - 

1. Are you the type of parent who can hear criticism of your parenting and accept it?

2. Are you the type of parent who can hear criticism about your child and be honest and open about it?

Yes, I said HONESTLY! Of course we would all like to say YES to both - but it’s not so easy to hear your own faults.  We often own our children’s faults to such a degree that we feel responsible for their shortcomings.  Embarrassed by their weaknesses…embarrassed by our own fallibility … possibly feel that people judge us and our parenting based on our children’s behaviors.   

The most important thing to remember is that we are all human.  If we were perfect, our job would be done here.  There is always room for growth and improvement. 

Another  important thing to bear in mind: your kids are individuals - you are no more responsible for their successes than their failures. You can steer, tweak and assist their development but you cannot control their choices.    

I was recently talking with my niece who is training for her first marathon. She’s reading a book about how to train and the mental game. She told me about this concept where if you are getting fatigued, you visualize getting to swap legs with someone. I loved the idea, even have been using it on some pretty tough runs when I’m about ready to give up. But it made me think - could we utilize this technique when hearing criticism about ourselves or our kids? Could we pretend we are someone else, listening (or better yet giving) this critique and how would we feel about the situation if that were the case?

Assume the advice is coming from a good place. Most people aren’t trying to personally attack your character - they’re trying to help you see what you can’t easily perceive. It’s always easier to see things from an outside POV.  

Be honest with them about your ability to hear It. It isn’t always a good time to be given advice. 

Don’t feel the need to respond. Sometimes just listening is enough. Think it through on your own terms and time.   

 The key here is to do our best to be casual observers of our lives and try to be able to step outside of the situation and hear what’s behind whatever message you’re getting.  We all want to improve, grow and becoming better people - and to do so sometimes we need to step out of our comfort zone and experience a bit of our own growing pains.      

Personalities

 I need to start today's post with some personal news - I became a Grandmother last week.  Its still settling in and quite weird to actually put that in print.  Life moves so fast sometimes and its amazing to see how quickly we go from changing our own kids diapers to changing a grandbaby in diapers.  I have all kinds of amazing feelings about this that are impossible to put in writing.  Bottom line, no matter how intense and insane whatever stage you're at right now is, remember the good stuff comes!

On to today's topic - personalities.

It is kind of inevitable that at some point, you and your child will have a personality clash.  Yes, some kids have the type of personality that just flows with yours, but more often than not you'll have a child who just doesn't.  Or doesn't for a time.  This can happen at any point from toddler to teen but most parents experience something of this phenomenon as their kids hit their teen years. Personality clashes can happen in small and big ways.  I recently read an article about the types of "Verts" - it described the different types of people:

The “verts” are categories we put ourselves and others in, based on our personalities. There are generally three types:

• Introvert – a person who likes their own company, ponders their own thoughts and can tire quickly in social situations. They are stereotypically quiet and even lack confidence.
• Extrovert – a person who thrives in the company of others, enjoys sharing and caring for others. They are typically loud and confident.
• Ambivert – a little mix of both.

(5 Types of a Personality Clash between People and How to Handle It - Learning Mind (learning-mind.com)

I think this is a good starting point to understand personality clashes.  (I'm not sure I completely agree with their assessment of confidence, but that is a side point).  Sometimes, understanding your child's personality is as simple as realizing your child isn't necessarily the same type of person as you are.  You like to share and discuss, your child prefers to keep it to themselves.  You are quiet and thoughtful, your child feels a need to fill every room with words and noise.  However you see this, it is difficult not to put your own personality type onto your child.  It might be enough for them to say the day was good and move on, you don't necessarily need all the details, no matter how much you want them.  

Most of this part seems fairly elementary.  Once you take a step back and assess the type of personality your child has, it is easier to meet the needs of their personality.  It is important not to put your needs onto them.  For example, your need to know the minutia of their day shouldn't be imposed on them.  If that feels like an interrogation to their personality type, take a step back and realize they will share when and what they want.

The biggest challenge of understanding different personalities or personality phases is when the going gets really rough.  Your child is at a point where you can't relate to some of their needs (or lack of needs).  

For example, you are a clean and neat person.  You want your child to have a clean and neat room.  In their current phase (or personality, depending which it is) they want to have freedom of expression.  To them that means not being told how to live in their own space.  This is a huge challenge for most people.  On the one hand, you want them to live in a hygenic clean environment.  On the other, you don't want to have constant battles.  This requires more than a little patience (and frankly saintliness) on the part of you as the parent.  Yes, you can explain your thought process and ask them to be considerate of the houses standards but no, it may not work.  You can probably talk until you're blue but that likely won't change the reality.  In this situation, you can either decide to clash constantly or you can take a step back.  Yes, it is against your personality type to allow this type of thing but the battle might not be worthwhile.  More than likely, at some point they will outgrow this phase.  Hopefully fast.  

I am by no means saying not to try and teach them some flexibility in their own personalities.  After all, they need the skills to learn to live and thrive with other types of people.  But I do think that sometimes we get lost in the details here and constantly try to push our children to do what we need and less what they feel.  Respect their feelings and their personality type and find the boundaries that feel appropriate in the situation.