Stressful Schedules
There are two periods of the day which are most intense in the life of a parent: from six to eight in the morning, and again from six to eight in the evening. Okay, depending on when your kids get up or go to sleep, it could vary an hour in either direction.
Of the two times, the morning is of course more pressured: we have to get them up, dressed, breakfasted, packed with snack or lunch, shoed and coated, and finally shipped off to day care or school, all without being too late for work. In the city with increasingly congested morning traffic clogging every road and detour, you've got a real recipe for stress.
And all the duties listed above are just a best case scenario, which excludes any child meltdowns triggered by some chance mishap: too much cereal poured into the bowl, a tug-of-war with a sibling over a favorite toy, a firm "no" to the request of ice cream at seven in the morning, the wrong pair of socks selected for the day's foot apparel.
Many a morning I've almost got my young children out the door, and then my five-year old son declares his socks are bothering him. If we don't go through trying on at least three other pairs, the consequences will take even more time.
Good Advice
I've received some sound advice over the years as a parent. Much of it was unsolicited, to be sure, but happily received nonetheless. "Choose your battles wisely" has reconciled me to the sock issue, which I know, along with many other annoying moments, are mere passing phases. "Expect everything to take three times as long" is another one which I recall when the five minute walk to kindergarten takes twenty (I've since revised the saying to: expect everything to take at least four times as long.)
What I have taken as a practice, and I would even frame it as a spiritual practice, is noticing just how much my children hold a mirror up to me. The advice I give to myself in moments of difficulty and stress involving my children is: look in the mirror.
A Familiar Story
The other morning I was in a tight place. I had a class to teach at nine, and by eight the kids were still in the house. In fact, they were still sitting at the table playing with their cereal. The more I urged them, the less they seemed to notice me. At one point my son pushed his bowl away and said he didn't want that cereal, he wanted something else, even though he had requested what was in his bowl. I heard my voice becoming sharper and rising in volume.
At the same time my son dug in and refused to eat or even move from his chair. Alright, no more breakfast, let's go. He refused, and didn't want anything, not even the alternative he had just demanded. No bargaining or cajoling would budge him - we were both stuck, and the clock was running.
How did this happen, why did a perfectly normal breakfast turn into a hostile standoff?
Our children are sponges, they soak up everything we intentionally, and more importantly, what we unintentionally give them. I have never encountered such keen observers of life as young children. They sometimes comment on the obvious that we choose to overlook, and on the equally obvious we choose to ignore ("why are you angry, dad?")
They read our faces and bodies intuitively, and the messages they receive are repeated in their own behaviour. My son, in the most basic way, had reflected my morning stress right back to me.
Children As Mirrors
One of my favourite forms of mirroring that I've received from my son is when, during a time of tension, I shout out to him, "Calm down!". He shouts right back to me in a louder voice, "I am calm!" Now, if I had sat down beside him, taken a few deep breaths, and said quietly, "Let's relax together, okay?", then I'm pretty sure he would have answered in kind, even if it took a few tries.
It wouldn't be the words he responded to, but my actions. I could even skip the words, and just sit down and breathe deeply with him.
The point is that the mirror is two-way: not only does he show me through his own behaviour the state of mind I possess, but I can reflect back to him a better way.
We become two mirrors facing each other, which reveal endless reflections: in our children we can discover the myriad possibilities of what is means to be a human being. Our children can become anything, and facing them, we too discover that potential in ourselves.
The real fruit of positive mirroring comes when you see the beautiful traits being spontaneously expressed by your children. When my son and daughter see each other after any separation, even if it has been only an hour, they hug and kiss.
When one of them falls down and is hurt, the other cries in unison, and strokes the hurt. The foundation of this comes not from trying to be a better example to our children, but in first trusting that we have beauty and wisdom to impart.
Then we manifest as a clear mirror to allow our children to become who they themselves are, to discover the truth and goodness they have inside. We don't need to believe in our children, we need to believe in ourselves, and only then can we inspire our children's self-discovery. Our trust in our own innate goodness is the mirror they will reflect, and express back for us to rediscover in ourselves.