Best Gift for the Holidays
Every parent with a toddler knows that kids watch and imitate everything. While it seems that, as teens, they stop paying attention to anything having to do with us, secretly they are still watching. Heading into the holiday season means preparing for more time together at home, which also means more moments of "being seen" in our day-to-day lives.
“The best we can hope for is that we act like the adults we hope our children grow to become.” ~ Hilary Moses SPS
Growing up, my mom had a paper taped to the cabinet that read, “Hey teenagers! Tired of being hassled by your stupid parents? Move out, get a job, pay your own bills...while you still know everything.” Sounds about right.
Anxiety has become an epidemic and many of our kids don’t want to grow up because, other than excitement over the fallacy of total independence once they hit 18, many of them struggle to see what the hype is about.
Every parent with a toddler knows that kids watch and imitate everything. While it seems that, as teens, they stop paying attention to anything having to do with us, secretly they are still watching. Heading into the holiday season means preparing for more time together at home, which also means more moments of being seen in our day-to-day lives.
We coach many families about balancing privileges and responsibilities as they shape the tone of the home and it is important that kids, even teens, get the time to be kids. We can put too much pressure on them to achieve, be responsible, live like mini adults, all the while wearing our own stress of adulthood like a self-flagellating cloak.
At Solutions Parenting Support, we coach many families to take the opportunity to consider questions such as:
- “What is it that my child is seeing?”
- “Am I role modeling that being an adult is awesome?”
- “How much time do I spend acting out my stress or espousing resentment over the “to do’s” and responsibilities?”
- “How would I need to show up to have my child watch me and say to themselves, ‘I want what she’s got.’”
This holiday season, we encourage you to give the best gift that you can to yourself and to your family, which is to show up as the adult that you hope your children grow to become.
Ready for More?
Solutions Parenting Support, LLC is a nationally recognized parent support and transition program assisting parents and families with straightforward and compassionate skills based support prior to, during and after wilderness therapy and/or residential treatment. Solutions is a dynamic team of parent coaches who have had extensive careers as therapists in wilderness therapy or residential treatment before turning their talents towards coaching parents around the globe. The team is family system focused and are licensed professional therapists and/or social workers each with 15-30 years of experience working in wilderness therapy programs, varying levels of residential treatment programming, and transitional support.
READY TO TALK? Give us a call at 970-819-7031, or let us know HERE, and we'll get in touch ASAP!
