Guest Post: Learning to See the Good in Your Difficult Children

We all know parents who idolise their child(ren), believing them to be beyond reproach. Very, very occasionally, those parents are right. Well, possibly - I'm yet to meet one who is. In my experience, it is the children of parents who are able to heap praise while encouraging a sense of "feet on the ground" that are the most well-rounded individuals. But what of those parents who can't see how great their kids really are? How easy is it for a parent to stop fire-fighting and step back to recognise their kids' faults (and more importantly, how to resolve them) and their strengths (and, again, more importantly, how to encourage them)?


I love H (baby Earthly no. 1) to bits. I never thought I would. After all, he was born a he, and at the time I wanted a she. But he turned out to be a very special he, even if he is too like me. Having said that, I am, by far, his worst critic. Maybe it's my paternal ego taking a battering at his lack of desire to walk until he's good and ready - thus causing me to believe that I must invent excuses for his perceived slow progress. More drastically, I've recently been attributing an early onset of "terrible twos" to some of his more "theatrical" reactions. The word No has become very popular with him, as has screaming and pouring tears when he has something taken away (or not given in the first place) that he wants.


It was only once I discussed this with his childminder, and received a most puzzled stare in return, did I get an inkling of the truth. She admitted that he was sometimes possessive but that generally he was "good as gold". H was one of the first children she looked after professionally, and she's obviously very, very fond of him. I left duly admonished, and spent the morning reconsidering my opinion of my son. He is, in fact, a delightful boy - occasionally mischeivous, still learning his way and place in the world, flirtatious, cheeky, beautiful, calm (mostly), and incredibly, incredibly cute. But it took the input of a partial outsider to make me see the whole truth.

I've just finished reading Kate Atkinson's 'Behind The Scenes At The Museum', a darkly-humoured account of the lives and deaths of a family's women. The overarching theme of the book though, is the fragility (or even non-existence) of the bond between a mother and her daughter(s). I know many women who suffer a sense of disconnect with their mother, and I don't have to look very far to find a woman who feels a complete lack of emotional connection with her mother, and who is terrified that, in turn, her daughter will grow up to be as emotionally distant. I, on the other hand, know that this woman is a wonderful mother, and that with the love that she brings to her family she will continue to be a lynch-pin for that family and will enjoy her children's love for many, many years. She just has to learn to listen to my (semi-)outsider's perspective.


So what of those amongst us who belive that our children are the devil incarnate? Back to 'Behind The Scenes At The Museum' - without giving away the "tell", it takes the gentle intervention of an impartial psychiatrist to reveal the truth behind the story of the central character's and her mother's long-standing problems, and from that moment on the relationship between the two becomes not exactly easy, but easier at least. Clearly then, the inference is that we could all pay a shrink to help reconnect us with our "errant" children. And yet, surely psychiatrists should be reserved for helping clinically depressed people, habitual criminals, and American dog-owners looking to resolve their pooches' coprophagia [ed here: I suggest you just look this one up!]? In these days of "intervention" perhaps we should look to our nearest and dearest to provide guidance - people that we trust absolutely to tell us the truth, who we know will challenge our ideas, and whose opinions we trust. In my case, that's Mother Earthly - my wonderful, supportive, kind, caring, incomparable wife. And yet, the fact that she herself got occasionally frustrated at H's antics, made it easier for me to dismiss her protestations that I shouldn't be too hard on the litle chap. It took the confused look of a lady who sees him for 12 hours a week and who never hears me call him "Beast Child" to show me the truth.


The point is, find somebody, be they lover, friend, acquaintance, or some random hippy blogger, anybody, who can make you see that, actually, your difficult child isn't. She's wonderful, beautiful, inevitably cleverer than you, and, with some fair fortune and a continued bond, almostly certainly the one responsible for choosing your retirement home.


Father Earthly


Disclaimer:
Unless you drive down the A49 at 40 miles per hour between the hours of 7am - 7pm, wear burberry, or are Welsh, Smellyhippy (Father Earthly) never intentionally means to insult you. If he has, he's terribly, terribly sorry, and no doubt karma will ensure that his daughter keeps him awake half the night teething, or a hire boater will chip his newly painted narrowboat, or he'll fall over backwards into the Llangollen canal with his bike on top of him, or something.


You can reach Father Earthly on smellyhippy [at] papercat.co.uk