Most of us parents have to deal with our children’s wild and wonderful imaginations at one time or another—whether it is imaginary friends, or monsters, or vivid nightmares. We parents can let our imaginations get the best of us too! When anxiety, fears, and stress seem to be your best parenting friend, it might be worthwhile to ask yourself if your concerns are real…or imagined?
I’m here to tell you that I can imagine all sorts of fabulous and horrid things happening to my children. If one of them is 15 minutes late getting home, there have been times when it was all I could do not to call the police and send out a search party. Over the years, I’ve let my imagination run away with me more than a few times—common colds I was convinced were something dreadful and irreversible, psychological difficulties, and undefined fears and “monsters” in the neighborhood and town. Learning how to settle the parenting mind and determine whether a parent’s fears are justified or not is a very important developmental skill.
Breathe, focus, and give yourself a time out. If you are like me and your imagination kicks into overdrive when it comes to your family, you need to get yourself into a quiet place where you can determine if you are responding to real or imagined fears. Of course, we can’t all keep things perfectly in perspective all the time—but letting ourselves fly out of control into fantasy-land doesn’t make us very sound parents either. As my kids tell me when I let my imagination run away with the more pragmatic parts of my brain, “Get a grip, Mom.” AND, I had a friend who used to remind me to “watch out for that black and white thinking”—meaning, when we start to see things as all one way all another way, we may be letting more imagination than reality into our thinking process.
Also: Keeping a Parenting Journal
The Role of Adaptation in Parenting