Greetings!
This past month our family went tubing on the  Farmington River. It was a hot day and the river was crowded. Some stretches were running at a good clip and in other areas the water was calm and barely knee deep. At the beginning of our day's journey I felt like every boulder was in my way! I would head through the rapids and all I could focus on was the immensity of the rocks to which I always felt like my tube was headed. I said to my daughter, "Do you feel like you're always heading toward the rocks?" She responded "No." I asked her friend, "Do you feel like you're always heading toward the rocks?" and she also responded "No." I wondered...why is it that I experience this certainty that I will hit the rocks?
I decided to hang out in the still water after one of the rapids and watch all the different people float down. Most of the tubes simply followed the path of least resistance. Occasionally a tube would bump against a boulder, but only to spin for a moment and then make its way back into the primary channel. It was at this point that I realized that my approach, focusing on the rocks, was detracting from my experience and causing me unnecessary stress in two major ways.
1. I chose to focus on an aspect of tubing that for whatever reasons I decided must be dangerous -- and by being focused on the rocks I initially missed seeing how perfectly the water carried each tube and rider down.
2. My focus also caused me to be unnecessarily reactive and worried. A rapid would come into view, my gaze would lock onto the most ominous looking boulder and I would paddle with my hands to try and steer my tube -- only to be fighting the very current that was going to deliver me down the river unscathed.
Once realizing that my approach and mindset were getting in the way of my experience I took a deep breath and adjusted my thinking. At the next area of rapids I didn't paddle wildly or focus on anything negative. I didn't decide how it was going to all turn out. So what does this have to do with life, with parenting, with raising children? A LOT!
- We can choose on what we focus -- and
where we place our attention will shape our approach and emotions.
- The scenarios we produce when we worry are usually far worse than reality.
- We can shift our mindset to look at situations with different lenses -- and this creates opportunities to discover and try different approaches -- we don't have to feel stuck.
- There are things we truly shouldn't try to control, because there is value in experiencing cause and effect.
People who look through keyholes are apt to get the idea that most things are keyhole shaped. ~Author Unknown
All the best in your parenting,
-Kay
Kay Kimball Gruder Follow me on Twitter @KKimballGruder or http://twitter.com/KKimballGruder | 
Most of us employ a range of parenting approaches in our interactions with our children, making adjustments as they falter and succeed. When they falter we sometimes falter too, falling into patterns of interactions that might seem to work in the moment, but ultimately hinder our student's personal development and diminish opportunities for him or her to experience important life lessons that emerge during the college years. Parents often say to me, "I know I shouldn't have reacted that way, but in the moment I didn't know what else to do." 