Pardon my French, but I couldn’t find a better title. You probably know what I’m talking about. We go through our lives having expectations of people and making assumptions about people. And generally that ends is disaster.
We are supposedly adults. We grew up, we found partners, we have jobs, we found a place to live, we had kids, we get them ready for school in the morning, we feed them, we bathe them. We pay the bills. And so, we know we’ve arrived at adulthood.
When we were kids, all we wanted was to be grown-ups. And now we wish we could have the care-free life from before. We are all shaped to a bigger or lesser degree by our own experiences. Growing up is a tough job. And so we build ourselves into adults, moulded by the internal and external influences we have had since birth.
What invariably happens when we, ourselves, become parents is that we end up doing some things exactly like our parents did with us, and some other things exactly the opposite.
When I was growing up I had a sense of never being good enough for my Dad. I have some memories of being a very naughty child, and I can see the same behaviours in my daughter, Miss Z. But I was also the best in class, from kindergarten to university. And not once, not even at my university graduation when I got a medal for being the best in my class, did my Dad tell me he was proud of me. He never said sorry if he was wrong. He never said I love you. He was also very aggressive when we were kids and any misbehaviour was met with either shouting, smacking, or both.
I promised myself two things – when I have kids, I will always tell them I love them no matter what, and I will never be aggressive.
When Miss Z was a baby, it was very easy to stick to my promises. She was a lovely baby and even as a toddler she was well behaved and always helpful. But after she went to nursery at the age of 3 everything started to change. Outside influences came into play, and our little bundle of joy became her own little person, with things we like and things we don’t like.
In come the expectations. I expected Miss Z to always follow my rules. I expected her not to misbehave and to be respectful to us all the time. I expected her to stay the same as before. Alas, the only permanent thing in life is change itself. And there was nothing I could do to stop this new phase in her life.
That was 3 years ago. I can say I have kept one of my promises – I tell my kids I love them all the time, even when they’re naughty. I tell them sorry if I was wrong. But for the life of me, I can’t stop myself from being exactly like my Dad when Miss Z starts throwing her toys out of the cot. I shout, I smack, I put her in her room.
In turn, I have watched my little baby turn into an aggressive little person who handles every little problem by shouting as well.
I ask the teachers how she is at school. They say she’s an angel there. Always polite, always cooperative. Never creates problems.
There is no other possible person I could point the finger at than me. I’m at fault here. For a while I followed the rules of discipline I thought were the best (time out, naughty step, take away toys, reward charts, etc.). And then, in what seemed a blink of an eye, I became my father. And Miss Z became me, an angry child, with loads of aggression inside of her, who takes it out by shouting or being aggressive with her little brother, with the nanny and with us.
I assumed that if I did everything by the book, that my kids would be nothing like I was as a child. I wanted to do better than my parents did. And I expected better results.
What I didn’t expect was all the other influences that happen in a person’s life as they grow up, other kids, other adults, teachers, etc.. And I also didn’t count on me being unable to handle those changes, and reacting in the same way as my parents did.
There are some parents that will say it’s their kids personality. They’re just like that and there’s nothing they can do. I’m not one of those parents. I honestly think that our kids are shaped primarily by us. Not so much by our words, but mostly by our actions, our examples. Yes, they will have outside influences, yes they will have their own personalities and ways of being, their likes and dislikes. But for the most part, they learn how to handle the things life throws at them by the way they see us handle the same things.
I didn’t manage to keep my second promise, and that taught Miss Z to be angry when she doesn’t get what she wants, frustrated when things she makes aren’t as perfect as she expects, and shout whenever she’s irritable and one of us tries to ask her something.
They say awareness is the first step to change. Every day I wake up full of intention and determination to be a better parent, a parent that can handle problems with calm, patience and excellent communication skills. Some days I am successful, some days I’m not.
But it’s ok, I’m not perfect, and it’s important to me that the kids know that as well. And so onwards I go, trying to expect and assume less, and go with it more…