A brand new day, with no mistakes…YET!

I never realized how mentally consuming children are in terms of worrying about their happiness. As a parent, I feel every ‘slight’ that my little guy experiences.

 Early on, I used to get this feeling in my stomach because I’d take everything that happened to him personally. This could be the littlest thing, like when my littleman didn’t get picked for a team, or not invited to a party; I wanted to call that other parent up and say, ‘What do you mean he’s not invited?’ I’d take it to heart and then I’d have to console my child as well. In reality, I think I was trying to console myself.

 I had to learn not to take it so personally. That came naturally as I got more experienced as a parent. I had to understand that my child is not me. Children have a different personality of their own – and wants and wishes of their own. Maybe he didn’t want to go to that party. I needed to be able to separate myself in that way so I wouldn’t take every ‘slight’ against my child as if it were made against me, or even as a ‘slight’. Sometimes you just can’t invite them all! I also had to learn that it also had nothing to do with my situation as a single parent, which took me a long time. We live in an area where most children live with 2 parents…not many single moms around here! That being said, it took a long time for me to stop being so selfconscious and stop thinking he wasn’t getting invited  because of our situation. It had nothing to do with that at all! In fact he gets picked/invited/made a part of things all the time! It’s just those 1 or 2 times that we see and stew over…but hey, when ‘we’ do things ‘we’ have to pick who gets invited too!

Now, as a wiser parent, I still worry about my littleman’s happiness and still wonder what I can do to make it even better…but I don’t take disappointments personally and have discovered (not so shockingly) that he’s going to be just fine…..