The long-game of working on the way you relate to the people in your life.
For a while I’ve struggled with the overlap between the relationship work I do, and the parenting work I do, and the work with children and adolescents that I used to do. I think I keep trying to make it neat, so that I work with one part of this ongoing cycle of relationships, BUT I’m a big picture thinker and I cannot stop myself shifting between how each feeds into the other.
I can’t separate them because they are so intricately intertwined that I feel I’d not be doing the best I can with and for my clients if I didn’t help them make these links - their importance seems too huge to ignore.
This evening at dinner Imogen approached the dinner table with her head arched backwards in an exaggerated display of her displeasure at the food I’d made. “I haaaaaate salmon!…I’ve told you sooooo many times that I don’t like salmon” and I can feel my body rising to the bait (unintended pun, sorry vegetarians and vegans). I’m tired, I’ve done a lot of holding together over the few days as both kids have navigated changes to their school days, I had a podcast recording earlier in the day which I’d felt so nervous about (it was actually wonderful), and I’ve got clients in the evening too.
These are the times I have to consciously step outside of the ways I might have been parented - not unusual for their time, but without space for this sort of demonstration. I soothe “I do remember you saying that, but I also remember that you’ve ate a little last time and loved it mixed in with your rice. You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to, you can always leave the things you don’t want to eat.” More head arching and sighing then “my body says it doesn’t like salmon – I’m not eating even a TINY bit!”.
Part of me wants to laugh in this exchange, maybe my body is needing the release, and a part of me is proud of her for standing up in this way, and another part goes “uff, this is tiring! Are we doing this wrong, have we overwhelmed them with too much choice, and still not actually hearing them!? These kids have so much privilege, I didn’t even taste salmon until I was a teenager! Are we doing this wrong!?”.
And then another part of me goes to future her, a self that feels she can voice her displeasure – after all she hasn’t been critical, or unkind, just frustrated that I persist in serving salmon when she doesn’t like it. This is better than what I used to do at her age, excuse myself, then quickly stuff my mouth full of peas before going to the loo to spit them down the toilet. Ugh! (My parents realised this and then revised the food rules).
My mind feels busy, I’m trying to parent in a way that I want to but I feel reactive and I start to need physical space from her – finding her leaning on me jarring.
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EDITED to say I found this is my drafts from 7 September 2021. I have no idea where I was going with this, but I’m hitting publish because it feels like a diary entry, and shows what it’s like to process the big feelings of parenting, and being a kid. The timing of this is likely when Imogen first started school and so OF COURSE she was struggling. It wasn’t the salmon, it was ‘I’m struggling, I’m tired, everything’s new and I’m in a school in which my choices aren’t given any air time! I need to do this salmon-battle with you so that I remember what it feels like to feel safe, with my voice being heard.” (Or something…).
Parenting is hard when you’re doing things a different way to your own early experiences. There’s always a context, and also sometimes it doesn’t have to mean anything. Growing up in an adult-dominated world that dictates children aren’t in control of their bodies or choices is hard too.
