I want a lot of things for Toddler. I
want her to be confident, sociable, calm, emotionally mature,
resourceful, practical, outdoorsy ...
In short, I want her to be Not Me.
That's the thing about parenting,
isn't it? We think about our weaknesses and hope that we will find
some way of ensuring our children develop the opposite traits. So
when I'm feeling anxious, or shy, or hot-headed, I think, "I
hope Toddler doesn't have to deal with these emotions when she grows
up!" When I attempt anything vaguely DIY related and inevitably
fail, I hope that Toddler will be more hands-on and able to deal with
practical things. When I'm stuck indoors on a not-too-nice day and
getting cabin fever I hope that Toddler will not develop my aversion
to cold and rain and mud.
The trouble is that children learn by
observation, so as Toddler's primary caregiver, what I do will have
an effect on what she does in future. Knowing this has made me more
aware of my shortcomings than ever, and my attempts to change are
often frustrated.
For instance, not long after
Christmas I dug a hole in the garden to plant out our Christmas tree.
I am not at all green-fingered, but hey, I need to learn to do these
things, I can't leave all the manual work to my husband, what will
that teach Toddler about gender roles? But in doing so, I managed to
trigger the SPD I suffered from during pregnancy and spent the
following week in agony. Months later I'm still getting SPD twinges.
So that went well.
Then there's my temper. To talk to, I
seem very mild-mannered, but I am easily frustrated and can get a
bit, ahem, shouty. I've been really trying to work on this in recent
months and most of the time I succeed in avoiding yelling, but
sometimes it all goes wrong and the effort to suppress the screamy
urge is too much. I want Toddler to grow up to be calmer and more in
control of her temper than me, but how will she learn that watching
mummy effectively throwing a tantrum?!
I saw a quote recently which gave me
some comfort. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it basically
said that when you are trying to raise your child in a way that is
different to how you normally act, or how you were raised, you force
your brain to use neural pathways that are weak, as they haven't been
reinforced over the years. This makes me feel better – I'm fighting
my brain here! That would explain the headaches ...
Although it's hard now, I know that
the more I persist in trying to be a good role model to Toddler, the
easier it will get as those neural pathways strengthen. Hopefully
this will help her to grow into a secure, able and level-headed young
woman – with the added bonus that I might teach myself to actually
be those things too!
Does anyone else find it hard to be a
good role model to their children? How have you risen to the
challenge?