Parenting Lessons (July 24): Childhood Trauma or Friendship Lessons?
This is part of a monthly series where I share parenting lessons I personally learned each month.
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Lesson 1: Childhood Trauma in General
I read this parenting advice on Instagram: “Children will be traumatised in one way or another. So do not put too much stress on yourself to be a perfect parent. By wanting to be a perfect parent, you are implying to the kids that everything has to be perfect. That itself is traumatising.”
This advice frees me quite a bit – from being perfect. I want to be a mum who doesn’t traumatise them. However, my past baggage and human frailty don’t make that possible. So the mom’s guilt is real when I feel like I am failing them as a mum. And this advice reminded me, I am just only human and it’s okay to make mistakes as a parent.
Lesson 2: Trauma or Friendship Lesson?
“Their mothers should know,” my friend said.
“Let them settle it on their own,” I replied. In that split second of ‘what should I do’, a piece of parenting advice popped into my mind. The advice is to let children settle on their own and not step in like a helicopter mother. If not, they will not learn to stand up on their own. Or the bullies will bully even more when the authority figures are not around. I let them be also because they’re not physically hurt.
When I reflected on the incident, I struggled with many questions.
Should I have stood up for them like how I wished others would stand up for them, or them standing up for others in the same situation? Because even though they’re not physically hurt, emotional wounds sometimes run deeper. At what age should we let kids settle on their own?
Or should I have told the mothers so they can correct the children? Isn’t that what church or (spiritual) family should do? That’s also because if I’m on the other side, I would rather people let me know how I should improve instead of ghosting me.
It might be a bit too much to call the children bullies, although it reminded me of a post I wrote earlier about bullies: baby.joogostyle.com/preparing-for-primary-1-socially/#bully. They are probably just being kids, kids who happen to be territorial at that moment. We too have people we don’t want to hang out with, although we do it more nicely or politically.
My husband who was an eyewitness to the whole situation gave me a detailed account and even the usually calm him got agitated. When I read his text message during a small conversation break with my friend, I froze. I was shocked. Weren’t they all close before, why are they treating my girls like this? The unpleasant feelings from the past clawed my heart.
I grew up with a low self-esteem, thinking something was wrong with me and that was why my friends ostracised me. This incident drew some parallels to my past, and I stood there relieving my childhood trauma. However, I am now an adult with more wisdom and not a primary school girl with a limited perspective.
I also saw a new perspective as a third party now, more clearly with a bird’s eye view of the situation. Sometimes it is not because we are not good that we are being ostracised, but it’s because the other party is not. At least the one leading the group to ostracise other people is no angel either. My daughter had stood up to the ‘leader’ once previously, let’s call her L. My daughter had told L’s mother how L was ostracising another girl, and L was scolded for it. Was now the revenge? Anyway, it’s not L’s first time excluding people, so it says more of L than my girls who were being ostracised. This revelation kind of consoled/healed my wounded inner child a little more.
After much thought, I am glad I didn’t step in. It’s good for the girls to have this unpleasant feeling sink into them and for them to grow in empathy as a result. I hope they learn not to do the same to others. At least this is a good reference point of feelings if I ever have to correct them for excluding others.
I did speak to them about the whole situation back home. I told them about my perspective to affirm them and protect their self-esteem. We came up with ways to deal with similar situations in future – like finding other people to play with instead. Interestingly this was good advice for myself too – don’t give up the whole forest because of a few trees of friends. Some people are just not meant to be. I turned my head elsewhere and it really opened up my eyes to other people God has planted around me.
My elder daughter still wanted to play with L because they used to be close before this incident. But I advised her not to because I wanted her to see that there are more trees of friends around and I wanted her to learn boundaries. We can forgive and give chances, but it’s also for the other party to learn from their mistakes, apologise, and change their ways. It reminded me how victims always gravitate to their abusers – okay, I’m stretching this too far.
In any case, I saw how having a debrief after the situation was better than if I had settled the situation there and then, when my emotions were running high and my logical mind isn’t working. I can get quite confrontational. So this cooling off is good for me too. But then again, I also told them to pray for wisdom and courage too, because there will be times they need to stand up for themselves or others there and then too. Well, I’m not sure how much they understand at this age, but I can only advise as much and pray.
If I had acted immediately, I would have allowed my childhood trauma to enter the mix, making the situation messier. My girls might then feel and carry my hurt as well. So I am glad God opened my eyes to see a gem of a revelation from this incident, giving me a chance to heal rather than make things even messier.
So the parenting advice worked for me this time. To wait and see how children work things out themselves first, then hear them out later, and guide them with advice. I can’t shield them for life, but may they gain the tools from me to navigate the future downs in life.
That’s about it, thanks for journeying with me on this parenting journey. Before you go, you might want to check out my other posts on parenting. Leave your parenting tips, comments or questions below. Love to hear from you. π
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