"Am I going to mess up my child's life? Will I give them a good enough life? Teach them enough?
Love them enough?"
This is a fear the runs through the minds of parents everyone. However, it is a fear that does not need to occur.
Remember how often I say that all stress is a conflict between belief and reality?
Well fear is the belief that you (or someone else) might miss out on something and life won't go right.
However, when we expand our attention out and look at the bigger picture, the reality is that life can't go wrong? Big statement huh? Well let me explain.
No matter what direction your life takes it will always be filled with highs and lows, goods and bads, wanted and unwanted. You can't escape that. It's just a fact of life.
If you think life is going wrong because it hasn't gone to plan, then you are essentially saying that everyone's life has gone wrong, because no one's life always goes to plan.
Our job as a parent is not to get their lives right, but to help them deal with life when it doesn't go right.
You are doing the best you can with the information that you have, the beliefs you hold about life and about what you believe is a 'right' life. You cannot predict what the future will hold, nor the challenges your child will face. Of course you will try and help your child avoid major potholes in their life, but you won't be able to protect them from everything.
Nor do you want to, because EVERY event we experience holds value - it teaches us something and helps us to learn and grow as human beings, especially our adversities.
So don't fear that you are going to mess their lives up, because the reality is, you can't!
However if you do feel like you are not parenting in alignment with your goals, values or wants, that's when you can turn your attention towards how you are going to learn to do it differently...because you WANT to experience that connection with your child, not because you're scared their life won't go to plan.
The best thing you can do for your child is help them learn a reality-based approach to life where they learn how to handle life's challenges with an accurate view of reality and self-worth, which is exactly what I passionately teach parents in my online Stress Free Kids, Stress Free Parenting course.
We need to teach children not to fear life going wrong, but to embrace ALL challenges and see the value in them. But often, we first need to learn this for ourselves.
Life is a journey…
Jackie