When your child doesn't meet your expectations.
This might be really uncomfortable to hear.
So please have an open mind when you watch this video.
I think one of the hardest parts of our parenting is letting go of the child that you imagined.
Before we become parents,
We create a story.
Stories about who our children will be.
Stories about how they'll behave,
What they'll be like,
How they'll learn and what parenting will feel like.
And then.
.
.
Life happens.
Your child struggles in school.
They don't fit the mold.
They challenge you.
They trigger you every single day.
And sometimes.
.
.
If we're honest with ourselves.
Disappointment.
Arises.
And then,
Immediately after that,
Guilted.
Because we're not supposed to feel disappointed as parents.
We're supposed to feel grateful.
Goodbye.
Both things can exist simultaneously.
So just hear me out.
You can love your child with your whole heart.
And still struggle with reality.
What I've learned is that children are not here to perform our healing for us.
They're not here to make us feel successful.
They're not here to fulfill the picture that we've created in our minds about what we thought they would be,
How they would end up.
Or the mold that they should have fitted into.
They're here to be themselves.
Often the greatest lesson of parenting is learning how to love someone exactly as they are,
Or exactly as what they are becoming.
They're also in textiles.
So,
The healing begins when love becomes pain.
Bigger than expectations.
