I’ve been thinking about you, and hoping you’ve been able to take some time this summer to relax.
I’ve started a practice I’m calling “skygazing” which is just me sitting in a chair outside looking at the sky. It’s not meditating (somehow meditating feels like doing “something” and skygazing feels like doing “nothing” — and I’m looking for more “nothing”.) So far, I’ve seen several hawks and a lot of blue sky and clouds. A lot of “nothing”.
In my skygazing, I’ve been thinking about my relationship with my kid. She, like all kids, is growing fast and her life and opinions and temperament change regularly. There’s also so much I want to do with her. I am thinking about OT, PT, glasses, if her camp is generally good for her development (it’s not a great camp..) and how we can make more time to light shabbat candles on Friday. All of that is just off the top of my head from this morning.
That is to say, this ticker is going all the time. Am I doing this right? Is she ok? What can be better? Did I mess up? I’m sure we all have a version of this.
And, at the same time, a friend said something to me the other day that summed up my response to my own worries. She was with her mom, and she said that she wanted her kids to treat her differently than she treats her mother. She wants her kids to want to hang out with her. She asked me, rhetorically, “how can I get my kids to want to hang out with me?”
And, since I have to be very careful in my friendships to not overstep and start offering advice, I’ll give you the advice here that I would have told her:
How can we let go of the ticker, and start taking stock of our long-term relationship? If one day our kid will be 40, and we’ll be 75, how can we get that 40 year old to actively think to call us when something goes wrong, or right, or sideways?
I strongly believe the answer to this is in letting go of the ticker, and checking in on how it feels to be together. How the bigger relationship is, minus all the to-dos.
In my ticker, there’s so much to do. And that can very, very easily start turning into me getting stressed because I haven’t done it, which will interrupt my time together with my kid. And can get me annoyed that they’re not holding up their end of the bargain. Not behaving better, not more grateful, not more.. something.
So, when we’re together sometimes, all I do is focus on her. Are we having fun? Are we making eye contact? Am I letting her lead during play?
On my to-do list for the summer, I check off “made eye contact and smiled with baby today” as an item. Did we connect, really connect, and in turn, did I make a deposit into her relationship bank account.
Is eye contact and connection more important than getting her the OT services I know she needs? Yes. No. Not sure. I’ll let you know when I’m 75 how it all turns out 😁
But I do see, over and over again in my work, that when the parent-child relationship is solid, when you enjoy being together, when you delight in your kid, everything else becomes easier. I know in my bones this is true, and I see it play out in families regularly.
So, I’ll move “get Shelly glasses” from my to-do list for this week to my to-do list for next week, but I’ll check off my daily skygazing and daily connection with baby (who is not a baby). And maybe that’s enough.
Are there times that you can pause, let go of the to-do list, and smile at your kid? Enjoy them?
Wishing you some connected time and some time to notice the birds in the air.
