Little Stuff

I recognise that I make mistakes in my parenting every day, especially on school mornings when my patience is as thin as tissue paper and just as delicate and I have to get to work. How is it that a child can take 20 minutes to put on 6 items of clothing?

So eventually Unique descends to the breakfast table full of random and quirky conversation, while I am loading the dishwasher and giving the surfaces a quick wipe down. Balancing on the knife edge of cajoling her to move that little bit faster and validating her verbal contributions, while eating my cereal and mentally adding to my to do list, I am fascinated by the countless directions in which her mind travels.

From chanting along to the adverts on the radio, to disclosing the mysterious secrets of her super spy network or asking questions about something that happened four days previously, I choose to be very considered in my response.

I used to get very frustrated with her. The clock was ticking and we had to leave by 7.50 in order to be on time to breakfast club. We rarely managed it and she was usually amongst the last to arrive.

I remember coming across this post on Facebook and it really struck a chord at the time.

I realised then that if I wanted my daughter to tell me the truth, her worries, her fears; if I wanted to share her anxieties and challenges and always keep the lines of communication open when she was older, I would have to begin now.

Listening to her quirky little stories and validating her contributions now, would give her the confidence to share the bigger and deeper thoughts when she is older.

Not being listened to by my mother, as a teenager and as an adult contributed to the barriers in our relationship. While in the middle of a sentence, she would often interrupt me with something unrelated which would take the conversation in a completely different direction. My words would hang in mid-air, only to eventually drop like stones to the ground and roll away.

I am constantly reviewing and evaluating my progress and it seemed to me that I was in danger of repeating my mother’s behaviour. That would be disastrous in itself, but the last thing I want is to alienate my child to the point where she stops communicating with me.

I am sure that in the years to come her need to communicate with me will fluctuate. Communication in the parent child relationship is two ways and I know I will need to keep the lines of communication open and be ready to listen. If I succeed at nothing else, I hope and pray that I will do a half decent job of that.