A mother of several young children asked in a mother’s group: If you have adult children, what would you have done differently when they were young?
I have seven adult children, five of whom have left the house, and I’ve been pondering this question for weeks. There are three categories of things I wish I had done differently when they were young.
First is things that I desperately wanted to do differently, but couldn’t. These are things that I absolutely knew I needed at the time, but I just plain didn’t have them and didn’t have any way of getting them, and I could see how their lack was affecting my family.
I should have had much, much more rest. I should have had more adults in my life who could help me, and I shouldn’t have been alone with my kids so much. I should have had health insurance, and therapy and drugs, and more space, more safety, better food, more money, more stability.
The second category is things I had to learn slowly, over time, how to do differently; and while I wish I could go back in time and get my experienced self to do my inexperienced self’s job, I just don’t think it works that way. There are some things that you’re either born (or raised) knowing, or else you have to learn them slowly and laboriously. They simply aren’t quick lessons – at least they weren’t for me.
I wish I had cared less what other people thought and said about me and my family. I wish I took my children’s behaviour – both their undesirable behaviour, and their accomplishments – less personally, and made fewer choices based on ego. I wish I had had a better understanding of what they were capable at their ages.
I wish I had been able to untangle what is important, what is damaging, and what is simply how I was raised. I wish I had been more patient, less anxious, and even more patient, and even less anxious. All of those things took time, and I’m still working on them.
And the third category is things I really could have done differently, that would have made my kids’ lives better. It boils down to this: I wish I had praised them more.
From the very first moment I saw them, I loved and admired each one of my kids passionately. All day long, whether I was with them or not, sweet and loving thoughts about them coursed through my head. But once they stopped being babies and started showing some self-determination, it stopped feeling natural for me to say most these sweet and loving thoughts out loud, so I didn’t.
Maybe I thought it would make them vain or soft or something; maybe it just didn’t come naturally because it wasn’t anything my parents did for me. But I wish that, every time I thought something good about them, I had told them.
And when it didn’t naturally pop into my head to praise them (because let’s be honest here, even wonderful children do not always act in a praiseworthy manner. I have literal scars from my kids behaving badly, and let’s not even talk about what they did to the furniture) I wish I had gotten into the habit of looking for a reason to say something good, even if I only caught a glimpse of it.
Kids grow into the things you praise them for. As long as you can find some little germ of truth in something good you say, then it’s worth saying.
I think praising them more would have helped me feel more loving toward them, too. Praise has the effect of stimulating growth in the recipient, but also in the person who bestows it.
When I had lots of young children, I was often overwhelmed by what seemed to be their flaws, which of course I attributed to my own flaws as a mother. All that negativity bounced back and forth between us like an ugly echo that just increased in volume over time. But praise is like a flower that waters you back. I wish I had done it more.
Is there such a thing as too much praise? I don’t really think so. I have encountered a few people who were lavishly praised by their parents for every last little thing, and they did grow up to be unpleasant, weak, and self-centred.
But I don’t think the praise itself was the problem. I think it was praise without anything else – no correction, no guidance, no chastisement, no consequences, no urging to try harder.
If you are a parent of young children, praising them more is something you can do immediately, and get into the habit of doing today, no matter what your circumstances. The great news is: You can also do it if you’re the parent of older children. You can do it if you’re the parent of adult children. I wish I had done it more when they were young, but I can still do it now.
