I have consulted with a few different psychologists in my life. One of them uses Transactional Analysis (TA) in their therapy. According to TA, a human being’s personality consists of three parts or ego states: a Parent, an Adult and a Child (the Child state is split further into Natural Child and Adaptive Child). I’m not going to go into detail about how this works, but suffice to say that each person develops their personality from childhood to adulthood and will have different measures of these 3 ego states, i.e. some parts bigger and some smaller.
So for example, I am a person that has a much bigger part Adult than I have of Child. What this means is that I am very responsible, I do everything by the book, I follow the rules, I’m a goody two shoes. My Child part however, is quite small – I guess I let that happen along the way due to life’s events.
The Child part of someone’s personality is where you find things like playfulness, silliness, creativity, imagination and even sexual freedom.
My husband has a big part of Child in his personality. And I think this is actually a very good thing – because we complement each other.
“What does any of this have to do with Motherhood?” you ask. Well, I have come to acknowledge my own challenges as a Mom. I think I’m pretty good when it comes to having techniques and rules and following them and enforcing the kids to follow them, but I am not so good at letting go, at playing with them, at guessing messy. These are things that don’t come naturally to me.
So, if you are like me and know exactly what I’m talking about, then let me tell you that there is hope. There is hope that you will get past comments from your kids like “I don’t like you! I like playing with Daddy!”
I made a conscious decision to “let it go” with the kids at least once a week. So, on Saturdays, I try to take them out and go visit somewhere we’ve never been before, or just take them to the park or the coffee shop. If the weather doesn’t allow, I force myself to do some activity with them indoors, like colouring, playing with Legos or baking.
Now, you may be shocked that I have to use words like “I force myself to play with my kids”. Well, what can I say, I had to grow up too quickly too fast, and the resulting me doesn’t naturally get in there with the fun and games. I know plenty of Moms that do, and my hat off to them. However, at least I am aware of my shortcomings and I’m taking steps to improve. And I give myself a pat on the back for it (even if you don’t ;))
The results are that the kids are much nicer to me as a result. They know that there are other people in their life that play more with them, but they also recognise my efforts in playing with them “sometimes”, and I now get comments like “I love playing with you Mommy! You’re my best friend”. And that is priceless!