As I write this I am fighting jet lag with copious amounts of green tea. I recently returned from a few weeks abroad with my family, and we arrived home after being over thirty hours in transit.
My young son woke up last night at two-thirty in the morning all chipper and ready for the day, and I kept him company as we passed the time waiting for the dawn by reading stories and playing games. Oh, and he wanted pancakes at three-thirty - early breakfast, late dinner?
My daughter managed to keep my wife awake by needing nursing all through the night. I dropped my son off at day care with the resolution that I would never take my kids on another flight longer than four hours until they were in their teens, and then they wouldn't want to travel with me anyway.
Travel with kids is a major challenge which requires all of our resources, mental and physical. When my son lost all of his patience, and began nagging about when we will get there after only half an hour in the air of an eleven hour flight, I had to be even more patient.
When he couldn't walk from exhaustion and needed to be carried along with all the suitcases through passport control and customs, I needed to be even stronger. When my daughter was screaming inconsolably in the middle of a full 747, waking annoyed passengers and provoking angry glances my way, I had to feel compassion for her and all those who were feeling discomfort around me.
My kids would pick up on and mirror my reactions in the sensitive states such transit evokes, so that if I were tense and annoyed, they became more so, and if I breathed deeply and calmed my mind, they too would relax.
The real challenge wasn't dealing with them, it was dealing with me dealing with them.
Intense periods of time with the same people always brings up what can be the best or the worst in us. And our kids do this, I venture to guess, more than anyone else (didn't we to our parents?) My son, usually a very calm and gentle child, started during the trip to act out and even hit me and his sister.
Accepting Kids' Moods
My wife and I spent a good amount of time trying to understand him and channel his hurtful actions into other directions. Nothing seemed to work, and sometimes the minute after he would apologize for hitting one of us, he would lunge into it again. He had already adjusted to the time change, and wasn't acting out of fatigue. He was angry and frustrated, and distracting him only lasted so long.
As parents, one of the problems we can run into is the desire to fix the problem - to calm the upset child as quickly as possible, to heal the wound, to end the pain. This is natural, we all don't want to see the ones we love, especially our little children, suffer. But this need of ours often does the opposite - it gives a quick fix which serves to cover up the real pain, like shutting up a crying child with a lollypop. Not only was the question why is the child crying not asked, but the idea that the child may very well need to cry and feel what she or he is feeing is not considered.
My son needed to be upset for good portions of our trip. I wanted to figure it out and solve it, but to a large degree that came from my own inability to be with his pain and difficulty, which in turn originates from my own avoidance of my pain and suffering in life.
Could it be that some things that are difficult simply are difficult, and the best we can do is be with the difficulty fully? It was very difficult for my son to be out of his familiar environment, his room with its toys and books, his routine, and even the foods he was used to eating. He missed home.
When we were able to locate his pain and acknowledge it, to simply identify it along with him, it became manageable. We were, in essence, paying respect to his experience. That doesn't mean the pain disappeared magically, in fact it intensified at times, but it was no longer some demon that was causing my peaceful son to often be belligerent.
And, in my eyes, our trip became more authentic, as it included not only the fun that we had, but the acknowledgment of the pain that significant changes and transitions usually involve.
Kids As A Reflection Of Their Parents
As the journeying came to an end, I realised that if I want to be present with my children's difficulties and emotional vicissitudes, I must me attentive and accepting of my own. There is nothing wrong with being upset, and it is not a parent's job to keep our children from feeling pain. We are here to help them learn how to accept themselves and grow into who they are and it starts with accepting who we ourselves are.
I feel if I don't accept myself and the difficult places inside of me, then it will be impossible for me to accept my children, especially when they mirror those very same traits. T
The question is less about how we can change ourselves and others, but more about experiencing just what is happening now. If it is discomfort and pain, then it is just that. If it is pleasure and joy, then that is our experience. No analysis is needed, there is nothing pressing to figure out, just a life force that needs to be lived and appreciated.
For example, I believe there is no such thing as an angry person, there is just an angry moment which comes and goes. When my son was upset and petulant, he was that at that time, and when I acknowledged it and respected it, I enabled it to be lived out.
If I denied it or demanded its change, then I repressed its energy, thus forcing it to come back later. Our children are essentially unknown to us, they are always changing, and the painful is in a process of change the moment we are aware of it. When we recognize just what's happening in this very moment of our own and our children's experience, whatever the moment may be, we continue together on the journey of constant change and self-discovery.