Were you welcomed into Adulthood?
Did you receive a ceremony? Had a Mentor? Experienced a sense of belonging to your community as an equal member once you turned a certain age?
Most adults living today haven’t…
When I speak with Jewish folks who had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, they, too, feel that it was lacking. Most say that learning Hebrew was a task that didn’t relate to their life as an adolescent, and that although they felt honored by their synagogue’s community, their feelings at the time weren’t addressed. Nor were their bodily changes, their hormone fluctuations, their confusion, or their budding sexuality…
Most adults I speak with tell me that their parents, teachers, and extended community had no idea about what was really going on in their life during adolescence. Desperate acts such as excessive alcohol drinking, substance abuse, or shop lifting — have all gone unnoticed. Sexual advances from a boy on a date, or questions about sexual identity were not on the adults’ radar. Perhaps it is because these were all good students with high grades, that the adults surrounding them assumed all was well.
How can this happen?
How do parents believe that all is well in their adolescent child’s life while all the while their child feels internally tortured? Why do they think that even though their child doesn’t talk with them, everything is actually fine?
It’s not that we, adults, don’t think of our children. We do, excessively sometimes. We worry about them: about their lack of conversation with us, about their social life, about the grades they bring home, about their future career and prospects.
None of the above meets the adolescent where they are, or truly sees them!
The obsessive thoughts we run through our heads are, lets admit it, mostly about us… Why they wouldn’t talk to us? Are we bad parents? Have we done something wrong? Would they grow up to be professional/successful/married/divorced like us?
We are so busy worrying about how our adolescent child’s behavior reflects on us as parents, on our parenting skills, on our ability to raise young people that would mirror our values to the world, that we forget to see them…!
We mistake Worry for Care…
We confuse our self esteem with theirs, and miss seeing them in the process!
What can we do differently?
As always, we need to start with self exploration, with a deep inquiry into who we each were as an adolescent girl, an adolescent boy, what did we need then from our parents (as oppose to what we need now from our children).
Remember how misunderstood you felt by Mom or Dad? How distant they felt to you? Get into the skin of the adolescent you once were and find out what might have felt better at the time? What could have your Mom or Dad say or do, which would have given you a feeling of being seen, heard, and met?
Then, turn around and give this to your adolescent child!
You will be watering many fruit trees with one watering can!
Your own Inner Adolescent would be soothed in the process; You will stop worrying about your child and start making a real connection; Your child may start feeling seen and acknowledged, and may even begin to think of you as a cool parent! (and wasn’t this what you wanted all along?)
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Following a Cutting Edge RITES OF PASSAGE Event
DeAnna is offering you support in
The Art of Welcoming Girls to Empowered Womanhood
A Tele-Class Starting March 2012
Click here to learn all about it!
DeAnna L’am, (B.A.) speaker, coach, and trainer, is author of Becoming Peers – Mentoring Girls Into Womanhood and A Diva’s guide to Getting Your Period. She is founder of Red Moon School of Empowerment for Women & Girls™. Her pioneering work has been transforming women’s & girls’ lives around the world, for over 20 years.
DeAnna helps women & girls love themselves unconditionally! She specializes in helping women reclaim their cycle as source of intuition and spiritual renewal, helps Moms welcome their girls into womanhood with ease & confidence, and trains women to hold RED TENTS in their communities. Visit her at: www.deannalam.com
Mary often offers handwork classes. Consider hiring Mary to help you and your friends craft a Waldorf doll, doll clothes, wool angels, “boo-boo babies” or other creations under Grandma Mary’s wing. You’ll have the support of an experienced hand-work mentor who expertly weaves Waldorf parent education into her teaching. Earning her name as “Grandma Mary”, Mary uses her kinds words, gentle smile, and supportive ear to help you create a beautiful, simple doll while simultaneously allowing you a safe space to explore the challenges of parenting and meeting a child’s developmental needs.
