Kelly

What a great thread this is! Thanks to all of you who've responded with your
cumulative years of experience:-) The point about allowing a child to grow
in their trust of their own intuition and inner guidance cannot be repeated
often enough, IMO. It can be so difficult to keep that idea at the forefront
of our consciousness, where it belongs, when 25 things are happening at
once. My almost 4 yr old daughter rarely has temper tantrums (whining is
another matter LOL!), but she had her worst ever just last Saturday, and it
was because she was made to do something she really didn't want to do. I try
to avoid this kind of thing, and will generally rearrange my whole schedule
to accommodate her whenever I can. Last Saturday was an exception to that.
She was miserable and screamed and cried (long story short, we've had a
visitor from France for 2.5 weeks - 15 yr old here to strengthen her English
language skills - and we had agreed to take her on a shopping trip to a
local mall. This was the ONLY window to do it in, Lila did NOT want to go,
but there was absolutely no one who could stay with her. Ugh.) She finally
fell asleep, and slept through the whole shopping trip. Best thing she could
do, probably. Anyway, we had plans to tour the statue of liberty the next
day. Lila, her baby sister, her uncle, her dad, our guest, and me, were all
planning on going. Lila woke up and didn't want to go. Without missing a
beat, my husband and I said, almost in unison, that of course she didn't
have to go if she didn't want to. Her dad or I would stay home with her. She
picked her dad. The rest of us went, and the trip just emphasized for me
that I should always trust Lila's intuition (except of course, in those
"life/death situations); she would have had a miserable time. Each leg of
the trip had things about it that Lila really doesn't like. I've never been
there before, so I had no idea what to expect, but Lila was adamant that
morning; not "I don't want to go," it was simply "No, I'm not going." She
had the best day with her dad, and she clearly felt respected and honored -
she even thanked me for going without her, because she knew how much I'd
miss her! This has happened repeatedly throughout her short life; she has a
feeling about something, and whether I recognize why she feels that way or
not, it invariably turns out to be spot on. Kids are so uncluttered by
garbage and skewed perspectives, I think we'd be crazy to ignore their
intuition and turn them against themselves, which is, in effect, what we do
when we undermine their choices.



Thanks again for all everyone has had to offer on this subject.



Kelly



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Meredith

--- In [email protected], "Kelly" <kelly@...> wrote:
>> My almost 4 yr old daughter rarely has temper tantrums (whining is
> another matter LOL!), but she had her worst ever just last
Saturday, and it
> was because she was made to do something she really didn't want to
do. I try
> to avoid this kind of thing, and will generally rearrange my whole
schedule
> to accommodate her whenever I can. Last Saturday was an exception
to that.

I find that this sort of situation is *most* likely to happen with
Mo when there's been a stretch of time when I've coaxed her to do
several things she doesn't really want to do. Most of the time she's
able to be really accomodating and brainstorms ways that she can
have a good time, too, suggests toys to bring, etc. Its really
charming, but then again I try *not* to tax her good nature too
often.

---Meredith (Mo 5.5, Ray 13)