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Being a Mom
The Baby and the Butterfly: How Struggles Help Your Child Grow
36514 years
Babies enter into the world utterly dependent on their caregivers. Long days, sleepless nights, and year upon year of loving, worrying, feeding, bathing, changing, soothing, and caring conditions us to help our children meet any need and overcome any challenge. The art of good parenting comes in knowing when to help our children grow strong by letting them struggle on their own.
The story of The Man and the Butterfly demonstrates the importance of helping wisely:
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.
So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened!
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
The man is driven by his compassion for the butterfly’s struggle and by his desire to make things easier for the emerging creature. But struggling through its restricting cocoon is the butterfly’s only way of forcing fluid from its body into its wings and it is only after this process is complete that a butterfly’s wings are prepared for flight. In his well-intentioned haste, the man bypassed one of nature’s most efficient and necessary processes, crippling the very life he meant to aid.
How do you feel when you watch your little one face struggles? It is so instinctual for parents to want to rush in and help (and certainly any health and safety-related situations call for immediate intervention) but how do you fight the urge to solve the kinds of challenges that are necessary for your child’s healthy emotional growth?
Sometimes struggles are exactly what our children need in order to grow strong and fly with their own competent wings. A childhood without challenges soothes our parenting minds but stunts our children’s ability to cope, persist, and persevere.
What’s Your Anger Expression Style? Take this Quiz to Find Out
73414 years
by signewhitson
in anger, angry smile, assertiveness, Being a Mom, counter-passive aggression, family members, hidden revenge, husbands and wives, intentional inefficiency, kids, Parenting, parents, passive, passive aggression, passive aggression by children, passive aggression in families, passive aggressive behavior in families, passive aggressive behavior in relationships, relationships
Is your child the type to come right out and tell you when he is feeling angry? Does he stuff his anger inside? Perhaps he is most likely to express his feelings in sneaky ways. Or maybe, when he is mad, the whole world knows about it—and better step aside! Whatever your child’s anger style, chances are he has developed it over the years and modeled it after…gulp…much-loved family members.
Take this Anger Styles Quiz to learn about how anger is articulated in your family: (more…)
Thank Goodness for Teaching My Daughters to be Self-Sufficient
81514 years
I am down and out with a stomach flu today–graciously shared with me by my daughter who had it two days ago.
Though I am feeling awful, I can’t help but be grateful for two little girls who are doing their best to care for me (even making me a bowl of cereal when eating was the LAST thing I wanted to consider…it’s the thought that counts!) and better yet, to take care of their own needs today. I was thinking that even a year ago when I had a similar stomach bug, I had to muddle through despite the sickness, since my two little ones needed me for so many things.
Now, despite my older daughter resisting every step toward learning to do things for herself (i.e. brushing her own hair, making her own breakfast, hanging up her own used towels,), it sure feels great today to her and to me that she has taken on these milestones of self-care–not matter how grudgingly she entered into them. Today, she is proud of herself for all that she can do on her own (my goal exactly!) and I am grateful that I pressed the issue–especially on a feel-awful-day like today.
Paying it Forward with Love Drop this July
814 years
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The Love Drop team is at it again! Last month they gave
over $5,000 worth of cash and goods to their recipient,
the Aubin family, who was struggling financially after the passing of their dad,
and this month they’re ready to do it again and help out another person 🙂
They’ve given out over $45,000 in the past 6 months, and show no signs of
stopping. If you know of anyone yourself that could use their help, make sure
to let them
know.
over $5,000 worth of cash and goods to their recipient,
the Aubin family, who was struggling financially after the passing of their dad,
and this month they’re ready to do it again and help out another person 🙂
They’ve given out over $45,000 in the past 6 months, and show no signs of
stopping. If you know of anyone yourself that could use their help, make sure
to let them
know.
This month they’re heading down to Atlanta to help Felicity, a little 4-year-old girl who was just
diagnosed with brain cancer. Felicity had immediate surgery and is
currently undergoing aggressive radiation treatments for the remaining portion
of her tumor. We want to raise $5,000 for her family to help cover mounting
medical costs, as well as the future expenses a new baby on its way will bring.
With your support and generosity, we can really do something special for
them!
diagnosed with brain cancer. Felicity had immediate surgery and is
currently undergoing aggressive radiation treatments for the remaining portion
of her tumor. We want to raise $5,000 for her family to help cover mounting
medical costs, as well as the future expenses a new baby on its way will bring.
With your support and generosity, we can really do something special for
them!
Here are three ways you can help:
- Give $25 towards medical bills <– Click this link to contribute $25
towards Felicity’s radiation treatments. It’ll help them out a ton! - Give a gift or service– Gift cards are always helpful. Places like Target,
Wal-mart, restaurants, etc would definitely help them out. Services too –
especially those you can offer yourselves, or from your company. - Join our blogger network – Blog about our Love Drops each month like I am 🙂
It’s easy, it’s rewarding, and it REALLY helps spread the word (which in turn
helps our families). Love Drop will give you all the content you
need.
Thanks so much guys! Here’s to a great month of paying it forward!
3 Ways to Help Your Child Respond Well to Anger
014 years
It was the deer in headlights expression on my daughter’s face that I noticed first. Next, it was the angry finger pointing of a girl I did not know that made me think, “I better go see what park mishap is occurring.” By the time I stood next to the two girls, the other girl had put her finger away but explained to me with great feeling that my daughter had climbed up on the tire swing, even though she had been saving it for her little brother.
While her defense of her little brother was admirable (boy, do I wish my big brother would have stood up for me like that when we were kids!), it was also obvious that her toddler brother—sliding down the kiddie slide with his mother at the other end of (more…)
Girls on the Run featured on the NBC Nightly News
105514 years
Girls on the Run is a great group! So happy to see them featured on NBC Nightly News broadcast! I volunteer as a “Running Buddy” for the girls’ program-ending 5K runs and can’t wait for my own daughters to be old enough to participate. I reference Girls on the Run as a great resource for elementary and middle school aged girls in Friendship & Other Weapons.
Check it out:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
3 Ways that Kids’ Anger Bites Back
78314 years
How many of you were told as a child, “Don’t be mad at your friend. She was just kidding,” or even “It’s not nice to be angry with your parents?” How many of you–gulp–have even uttered messages like these to your own children? Don’t worry; my hand is raised also. Despite the fact that I just wrote a book about helping kids accept and manage angry feelings, sometimes these knee-jerk responses just fly out of my mouth–as they do everyone else’s.
Are they the worst things to say to a child? Well, having worked for several years with abused children, I can definitively say (more…)