A Patsy Don’t sacrifice yourself, but give yourself

The fact that my children want feedback instead of parental compliment is no secret to me e.g. Fuilleton: “No two wheels are alike”. Yet I am still searching and thinking about how I can help them in their life. As a parent, I would like to make my children successful in everything they touch, but at the same time I know, how much they learn by making mistakes.

And so I ask, how to best manage tears and crying from childish failure? How to show kids, that I am here for them and simultaneously not lead them blindly? To what extent should we let them fall and calmly watch them search for their own strength to get up? How long should we let them toil, so they feel that only with repeating and learning they can reach their goal?

How to react to sobs and moans from failure or unfulfilled goals, which are ripping my heart out? How to stay calm and keep your control when I’m being driven mad with the cries and screams? How to keep in mind that I am an adult, that has their emotions under control, and which can at least consciously learn from their emotions?

The best solution, which I am familiar with, is self-love and the knowledge of your own worth. I don’t want to become a Patsy, who absorbs all the failures, aches and mistakes of my children and helps them endlessly and infinitely long. And so forgets my own living space, my essence and my own worth. Self-confidence generated by the successes of my children and their complaints personally. I don’t want to become a parent who gives up their own identity and lives the identity of their children. I don’t want to sacrifice myself, but “give” myself to them.

I want to give them a feeling of security, that I will always be their loving mother. I want to give them a free mind and soul. I want to help them find their own identity and self-worth. I want to help them keep their independence and joy of life. I want to help them accept and explore their innermost emotions and feel passion.

Happy Easter!

Lenka Míkovcová

• A wounderful story about sacrificing: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

• How much to help your children, compliment them and how large expectations you should have and what influence it can have on their success can be read in the article in the New York Times “Raising successful children” from the psychologist with 30 years’ worth of experience, Madeline Levine. One of the first points of the article is that too high expectations and compliments (using words to reassure them of their competence.) gives them stress and the fear of failure, in other words from losing your affection. They are afraid to fail and so lose the ability to learn and stop having joy from gaining knowledge. To have a safe learning process, they need to feel unconditional love no matter if they succeed or fail. Read the artical here

• The book Respect and be respected mentions rewards, compliments and what to do instead of them in chapter VII. What I consider the biggest risk would be the repression of inner motivation, dependence which is created and the feeling of letting someone down. As a parent, I would like for my children to do things because they like it, they are right or they’re necessary, in other words from inner motivation. I definitely wouldn’t want them to go to a drawing class because of a piece of candy they get there or to help the others and get their affection expecting a reward from their new friends. Similarly, I wouldn’t want them to do things for which they don’t see a reason, only to avoid inconvenience.

• The phenomenon of sacrifice is described in the book “If it hurts, it isn’t love” from Chuck Spezzano.