Have your intentions ever been misunderstood? You think you are going about something the right way and suddenly it comes back to slap you in your face.
Well that is what happened to me this week. But I have to first preface this with a little background. I have the most amazing children, I really do. I am so proud of them and I feel so blessed that despite them being 17, almost 14 and 12, I have had minimal problems with them.
However there is always that one child that if anything, keeps life interesting. For our family it is our youngest child. I swear he was born with a smile on his face. He is always so full of joy and laughter. He cracks us up. But sometimes in an effort to be funny he does things that well, aren’t always so humorous to others.
Needless to say he tends to be the one who gets in the most trouble. And the past couple of weeks have been especially challenging, in a number of areas. So I have been dealing with it in what I thought was the best way.
But I came to realize one day this week I was very off target. How do I know? He started acting strange, doing things he wouldn’t normally do. He came home from school and immediately pulled out his homework, stating he would start doing it right away from now on in. Just that morning I had gotten after him when I saw him quickly doing homework on the way to school.
Then he did some other things that were just a little peculiar to me. Finally I asked him about it and he said that he didn’t want me to think he was a bad kid anymore. Do you know how hard it is to admit to the world that my child thought I felt this way? But nothing compares to how difficult it is to realize that my own child believes this.
In all my efforts to handle things in what I thought was the right way, what I was really saying to him is that I was disappointed and I think he’s a bad kid. While I felt terrible, I also felt such a sense of relief that he told me this. Otherwise I would have kept on doing what I was doing and he would have probably been made to feel worse and worse.
It opened my eyes to something. We can be going about our role as a parent and thinking we are doing the right thing. But our best intentions can be very misunderstood…and we may not even realize it.
I think this could open up some good discussions between parents and their children. Having honest, heart-to-heart talks about issues like this would be very beneficial. I think I am going to spend time throughout the upcoming weekend asking each of my children privately if there is anything I am doing as a mom that I could be doing differently.
What about you? Is it possible that your best intentions as a parent are being misunderstood?
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