Do Parents Worry Too Much?
I’ll admit it: I’m a worrier.
It’s easy for me to get caught up in a jumble of “what ifs” and sometimes it’s easy to lose my perspective. Can you relate?
Being a parent provides a practically never-ending list of opportunities for parents to worry. Whether it’s about friends or school or clothes or drugs, parents are on their toes all the time and constantly alert to trouble.
But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes parents are so worried about surface issues — tidy rooms, funky hairstyles, piercings and tattoos — that they miss the real issues underneath. It’s easy to view our kids as an extension of the babies and toddlers they used to be, but if we do that we run the risk of missing an important detail and opening ourselves up for things we really should be worried about.
I’d like to challenge you to make an effort this week to see your child as he or she really is. Put your preconceptions aside, open your eyes, and see what you learn. You might be really surprised (perhaps not in a good way), but regardless of what you discover, you’ll be better prepared to handle it. As Dr Phil says, you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.
What did your “open eye” experiment reveal?