This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday. Five minutes of free-flow writing shared with whoever wants to read it. This week’s prompt is: DETERMINE.
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I'm not even sure where I first heard it... No doubt one of the gentle parenting blogs I low key follow. It seems so simple but is so hard to implement:
"Do you need help or a cheerleader?"
"Do you need help or a cheerleader?"
That one simple question makes me squirm as I now have to actively choose to watch my child struggle to get something done, when I quickly could have done in less than 3 seconds.
The premise is simple. Before swooping in to help with a task, no matter how big or small, purely ask if they need you to fix it or just wait while they do it.
However, since implementing this, I've been amazed at how much she truly does "want a cheerleader". Although my way most definitely would have saved her (and me) time, the beaming pride that comes radiating off of her when she has completed whatever task it is, is intoxicating.
The other morning, we woke up to the sounds of this little love bursting into our room with a breakfast tray that she made all by herself, unprompted, just to show us how much she loves us. With a cutting board adorned with a fruit smiley face, all of the silverware we could ever use, and cups full of goldfish, she bounded around the room explaining every step of the process. I was in absolute awe of the incredible growing girl in front of my eyes. She is changing. Too fast.
All of a sudden, she is learning to be more independent. And I am starting to understand how capable she is. Today, it's opening a snack. Tomorrow, it will be cooking dinner. A few more blinks and it will be walking into her dorm building. Holding her own babies for the first time. And then choosing to be a cheerleader for her own little loves.
Motherhood is this crazy roller coaster of struggling and stumbling along and somehow coming to the other side with perspective. It's slowly learning, even when you don't realize it and then somehow being in a place to pass along what you've learned. What a privilege to be entrusted with something so precious.
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This is so precious, Jen, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLovely.
ReplyDeleteParenthood's one of the things
that I will never know,
for I thought a dream of wings
was where I'd surely go,
and kids just do not combine
with propellers and exhaust,
but perhaps the loss was mine
for now I see the cost
when I behold the shining eyes
of a child breakfast-bearer,
and I see through mine own lies,
to stand before my error
that, no matter what is dared
can never truly be repaired.