I found myself in the midst of a challenging conversation with my daughter.  She responded in a manner unlike herself, which caught me off guard.  She generally has a very quiet and sweet nature, but also has a confrontational side. She wants to have the final word, she must prove her point, and must have everyone in agreement with her.  When in that mode of convincing, she will conclude her sentence with, "right?"  I find myself thinking, "No, not right! Please do not use that word at the end of your sentence, as though its inclusion will change my mind.  AND, does it always have to be a "right" and a "wrong"? Can't it be your way of thinking and my way of thinking?"

However, there we were and she said, "I trust that this will work out for the greater good (or something like that)." I was mad at this point, and thought to myself, 'she trusts that this will work out for the greater good?' I asked her about her response, and she replied that she was trying to affirm whatever positivity there was in the situation with a positive statement.  Hmmm, I thought.  'This is not the daughter I know'.  And that is where my problem began.  Because it was the daughter I knew.  It just wasn't an experience that I had had with her up until that moment.  I was the one having difficulty moving myself to a non-judgmental place of acceptance.

Non-judgment, the expression goes, is available all of the time.  However, we do not always live from that place - especially within the family circle.  As parents and partners, sometimes we are mentally occupied with what the other person has or has not done, rather than the gifts that they have brought to our lives.  Sometimes we see what could have occurred better, rather than the fact that the journey of self-discovery was, in its own right, better.  We have a tendency to equate 'good' with our expectations of what a child should do or be, rather than their continued state of being.  The weight of not being 'good' is heavier than I think many of us realize.  Have you ever seen a dog respond to someone saying, "Bad dog"?  Imagine that in the heart of a child.

In Montessori teacher preparation, teachers learn a lot about building a child's sense of self by not engaging in too much praise.  They learn to elicit the information from the child, by remarking or asking questions about what the child has accomplished.  There is a fine line here, I believe, because when children never hear about their potential, they do not always recognize it in themselves.  As parents and teachers, it becomes important for a child to hear that the potential talent or ability they have was already inside of them.  It may be something that we even need to realize as adults.  This concept of a self-perpetuating wellspring of talent, skill or knowledge that makes it possible to have something to draw from when things do not work out as we planned.  In Dutch, there is an expression that we use sometimes when bowling - when we came soooo close to knocking down the last pin, but the ball slips narrowly past. "Bijna!" I can hear the word resonating through the bowling alley, when it was my ball rolling past and my pin still standing.  Bijna means 'almost' in Dutch.  There was something about the exclamation of the word as my ball drifted by that gave me the sense that I could try again; that all was not lost; that inherently, I had the ability to knock those pins down and at some time, it could work.  All was still well.  It wasn't over praise, and it also wasn't discouragement.  I wasn't told I messed up, didn't make the grade, would be demoted, or that I should have gotten a strike.  It is a phrase that gave me just enough oomph to tell my ego, "I've got this.  Maybe not this time in this way, but at some point."

There has to be a way in which we, as parents, can learn to leave space for our children to deeply recognize that the solution is within them, that possibility and potential is within them.  They are in essence, the seed of a redwood tree - the potential for growth already within the DNA of the seed. Our sense of self emanates from within.  When we infuse the child with the idea that they already have within them the potential for who they can be and what they can do, we give them an internal place to go when their ego needs refueling. 

As adults, we need to remind ourselves of that potential as well.  We need to have a place of internal refueling - to handle our work, our relationships and our parenting.  When the ego gives up and gives in, we need to be able to say, "I've got this.  And if I don't completely have it right now, I will in the future.  It may require additional space or support, but I will get through this.  I will be able to handle this."  It is not about blaming, it is about transforming energy into a value that rejuvenates and builds from within. 

On that same challenging day with my daughter, I took a break and went to a movie.  I hadn't gone to the movies in a while and landed at the Albany Theater where there was a movie with Sally Field.  In the movie, there was a scene in which someone tells her in essence, to change the word "impossible" to "I'm - possible".  I don't actually recall what the movie was about, but I walked away with what I needed.  I went home and said to my daughter, "Thank you for what you said - and, you were right.  I trust that this will work out for the greater good - too. "

I encourage you to try the following exercise with your child and with yourself this week:

1)      Before you end your day, say thank you to your child for something they did, and thank you to someone else close to you for something they did (be specific).

2)      Avoid telling your child or someone else what they should have done or didn't do. 

3)      Instead, NEXT TIME, explain what you would like to have happen differently. 

4)      Let your child hear you speak about something that you need/needed to do differently; using words that state that it is possible.

5)      Let your child or yourself hear you say, "I'm awesome!" - when something has gone particularly well.

6)      Let your child or yourself hear you say, "Next time!" or some expression that encourages possibility.

Note: The end of the school year can be a challenging time for the self esteem of students and teachers.