Our son is 21 and in Florida on Spring Break right now. Fifteen years ago, we never would have believed that we would let him that far out of our sight. He was, to be nice, ornery. His attention span seemed to be completely opposite from mine. He would converse nicely and then would ignore me. He would do as directed and then do whatever wasn’t directed. He would be brilliant and then would be mindless.
I was worried.
You need to understand something about me. My approach, in parenting and in the rest of life, is to live inductively. I have things happen and then understand them.
Half the time, I was sure that I was a failure as a dad. (Nancy was doing great at the mom part of parenting). I couldn’t figure out how to anticipate what he would do. I couldn’t maintain my temper. I was trained in communication (three degrees worth) and none of it made any difference, I was, I was sure, completely incompetent.
Half the time, I was sure that he was a complete failure as a child. (To say that, of course, would be demeaning). What I really mean is that I thought there was something wrong with him. He probably needed counseling, or medication, or something that would help him settle down and focus.
Of course, since I live inductively, we never got around to diagnosis; I just lived in frustration.
Until one day at church.
One day at church I ended up being with the children. I watched Andrew and the rest of the kids in his class. I ran around with them. And I had a revelation:
It’s not me, it’s not Andrew, it’s six.
There are characteristics, on average, of six-year-olds. And I know that they don’t apply to everyone. And I know that some kids are 5 and some are 7 when they hit these characteristics. And I know that every child is unique. But I also know that I was assuming that something was wrong when something was exactly within the bounds of typical.
Since then, I’ve regularly expected too much or too little of myself and of Andrew. I’ve expected him to be an adult at times, and expected myself to be an adolescent. But I’ve learned to remind myself as often as possible that there are stages of development which can help me lighten up.
Unfortunately, of course, I haven’t learned exactly what those stages are called.
by Jon Swanson
[tags]parents, parenting, kids, children, six, stages, perspective, characteristics, worry[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by the author, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
2 responses so far ↓
InTheFastLane // Mar 10, 2008 at 6:54 pm
That pretty much describes life with my middle child, who is now 8. He might be on the difficult side of the spectrum of normal, but he is normal and sometimes it is hard to remember that in our frustration.
Debbie // Mar 12, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I tend to realize that somebody in my family is in one of those “stages” only right after they’ve left it….
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