Protection vs Building Resilience

Lately I have reflected on my parenting when I have a moment to think, which if I’m being honest is not while I am actively being a parent.  It’s at night when taking a bath after my son’s asleep.  It is only when I have space that I reflect on my parenting, something that I am sure many mothers can relate to.  

With a three year old boy, I am usually on guard and trying to keep myself from saying ‘careful!’ every other moment.  I of course would prefer to not see him suffer, because who wants to see their child suffer, feel hurt or be in pain?  However, I also wonder how much the suffering, the hurt and the pain create resilient people?  If we protect too much as mothers, whether that is not letting them climb on the scary looking playground equipment because he seems too young or picking him up early from daycare because he hasn’t loved the transition to full days and cries every afternoon for me,  am I keeping him from building internal resilience?  Is it ok to miss mom, to even cry because you miss mom but slowly learn that you can get through those hard moments and you are ok?  Recently after a few weeks of daily afternoon tears at daycare my son just shifted one day, he doesn’t want me to pick him up early and wants to stay longer when I come get him now.  He appears to be loving it and engaging more than ever with his teachers and friends. If I had succumbed to the struggle he was having in school he would not have gotten to this point because he wouldn’t have been given the chance to.  I almost put him back to half days.

How do we support our children in going through hard things and growing from those hard things, instead of always protecting them? How do we decide which challenges to protect them from and which ones to let them experience even if our own hearts hurt for them in the process? 

As a therapist I see over and over again that the times people grow the most, by far, without a doubt, is when they go through hardship.  When something happens that they may not choose or will upon themselves, and they have to pull from the depths, the parts they don’t even know they have in order to get through.  I have moments of wondering when I am working with clients if they will be ok when at the depths of these valleys, but in trusting the process, trusting their process and knowing these moments will strengthen them and heal them in ways nothing else can, I am empowered to let them go through it, instead of trying to fix or pull them out.  I watch them evolve through this process time and time again.

II am not actively looking for challenging experiences for my son to go through, I know he will go through many difficult things I would never wish upon him, but I hope I can be there to support him in learning how to get himself through, to dig deep in those times and know these are actually the most beautiful moments of life, the ones that transform you.