Recently my 6-year-old has been struggling with the concept of… Well… struggling…
Wait, what?
Yeah yeah, stay with me here! She is upset when she sits down at the piano, or with a book, with some math, or a baseball and isn’t automatically an aficionado.
She squirms in her seat (and in her own skin for that matter) to the point where a mistake almost results in an allergic reaction! She looks physically pained to the point of child torture when I say, “try again” or “nope, not quite.”
It’s hard, as a parent to watch her in pain and yet know that if I remove the concept of a struggle, she’ll give up whenever she encounters anything even remotely challenging.
Like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, her wings need the struggle in order to reach full flight potential!
It took all soccer season for her to start liking the sport and see efforts of all of the practices and games. She scored a few goals, heard the the cheers and became a goal hogging monster who would knock her own teammates over just to get it!
I sat back and watched as she grabbed at her hair in frustration trying to get the notes perfect in her piano practice book. How do I help her? She needed a break.
I pulled her away from the piano, gave her a hug and said, “shake it off baby!” We shook all of our body parts and soon giggling entered in! I wrapped my arms around her and told her that it’s not only ok to make mistakes, but it’s IMPORTANT to make mistakes. She threw me a skeptical eyebrow (it’s genetic, the eyebrow, I do the same thing) and I reassured her.
I asked her if she knew how a pearl was made. She says what she always says, “yeah, of course” and when I called her bluff, “oh good! How?” She confessed she did not know.
A tiny, irritating grain of sand gets caught inside the ugly clam and bothers her and bothers her as she works it around and around until finally she it turns into a pearl! Some pearls take one year, some can take 20…
The longer it takes the more value her pearl has!
Her eyes wide, she surprised me by setting jaw, throwing her shoulders back and getting back to it.
I look at learning how to be a parent sort of the same way. It’s irritating at times and sometimes it seems hopeless and fruitless.
In the end, if I can develop a beautiful, priceless, unique pearl of a person, I may discover that I’ve become one myself…
Hang in there.
stumblemom08 
I love this post. My daughter is not quite 3 yet, but I feel like is already struggling with this. She likes to draw and I see that she already has a great vision and imagination. When she tries to get it on paper, sometimes I see pride beaming off of her face as she shows me what she has created. Other times she will throw her crayon or marker and cry because she can’t draw something that way that she wants it. It breaks my heart. She does this with learning activities as well. They will not always be the best at things they need to learn that, but I feel as if she has definitely inherited this from myself and my husband. I love your pearl analogy. It is a great one. I might have to steal this and use it on my daughter when she reaches the level to comprehend it. Great post.
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Thank you so much for your comment! I feel you! Another really good one is the butterfly. We ordered some caterpillars for out Butterfly Garden kit and when the glorious day came and they strted to emerge from their chrysalis’ my daughter became concerned.
As she looked on at them struggling to free themselves, wriggling around and fighting to emerge, she passionately cried, “mommy we have to help them!!!”
I hugged her and explained that if we interfered, their wings wouldnt properly dry or form, and a butterfly that can’t fly away, is a dead butterfly.
I told her that the struggle is hard, but it made them stronger and it was better than death.
Stay vigilant, and keep up the good work! Making a human is not for the faint of heart!
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