Last night I was thinking about a conversation I had with a friend sometime ago. He went through some difficult times loosing people close to him. After two years of playing everything down and thinking life was on track, the cracks could no longer be ignored. He is a real go getter and decided that the best way to deal with the issues was to get proffesional help. He mentioned that he was able to deal with the emotions that he was holding back and it was a relief to finally move ahead. However as they went deeper into his life other events started to carry more weight, events that we are often told to tough up and get over it. This got me thinking about how I respond to our kids in certain situations where they show fear, disrespect or plain naughtiness. If we are not aware of the way we deal with these situations we can create long lasting effects on our children. It is our responsibility to be the adult in the situation and mentor our children with love and kindness to enable our kids to grow into the people they are designed to be. Far to often we see adults with these hang ups, and we think that they out to get us, for example the difficult client, or the friend that you can never trust. The fact is somewhere in their lives somebody has let them down, when they needed love or support or guidance they were hurt or embarassed. Now in their adult lives, whenever a similar situation presents itself they automatically try protect themselves and see the other person as someone out to get them. Unfortunately their experience of the situation is skewed.

The more I contemplate parenting the more complex I realise it is, yet at the same time I know that deep inside each of us lies the ability to bring out the best in our children. As the Beatles wrote : “All you need is love”

As for my friend, well he is styling. He is moving forward and he is a well balanced person who is an inspiration to many.

Now I have that song stuck in my head, what and awesome theme tune for the day 🙂