Stop Dreaming For Your Children II

  Hello again and thank you for taking a Moment with Mel. Today we are going to stop dreaming for our children and support their dreams coming true. In my post "Alert Circles", I quoted a stanza from my poem, “Master Peace”. The poem is about how we find peace within ourselves. It says,“Protect me on all sides, Expose me to more, slowly, Make sure you have eyes on me, See where I lean”. I recently saw a series on Netflix with Shaq and his son Shareef. At the time, Shareef was working with him at Reebok. Both of them were really happy about working together. Shareef was struggling because even though he was happy working with his dad, he was still yearning to play basketball full time. He had to have open heart surgery when he was in college. It slowed his professional path down a little. When he told his dad he had a tryout with a team, his dad thought about what he said, asked him a couple questions and said, "You know we don't need basketball, right?" Shareef acknowledged that but also acknowledged his dream. Shaq supported his choice.

Attachment vs Authenticity are often at odds in our children and ourselves. Our children subconsciously and consciously want to be close to us and make us happy. If there is an activity that allows them to spend more time with us and makes us happy, they will gravitate towards that activity and choose attachment to us vs authenticity to themselves. They are not doing it on a conscious level or being deceptive. Attachment is a basic human need.

Our job is to give them safe spaces to explore all their interests and allow their Spirit to guide their ultimate choice. We have SO much unexplored potential in this world because we are choosing paths based on external reasons instead of internal reasons. That is why we have so many unhappy people.

There is nothing wrong with wanting the best for your children. The quagmire is, how do we separate support from manipulation? Manipulation occurs when we only give or support the options that will lead to our desired outcome. We see glimpses of God's plan for our children based on what they excel in. As long as it is legal, will lead to them being self sufficient and makes them happy, support them.

Parenting does not come with a playbook. Sometimes we are pushing them towards opportunities that we wish we would have had. Kahlil Gibran wrote, "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth".