Not bad for a Monday morning

I don't want to jinx anything but my talk with Isabel last week about letting me leave without tears seems to have worked!!!! Thank goodness!!! I did have a back up plan for this week - thanks to my extremely knowledgable and resourceful girlfriends. Even though today worked I may get started on two of them just to help ease Isabel's anxiety. 

One suggestion was from my friend who is a nurse. She used this to help her daughter with the same issues and she got this idea from the Children Hospital. It's called bravery beads, each time you are brave, you get a new bead and eventually they've made themselves a pretty necklace, or in the case of my friend and her daughter they made a bracelet. I've come to understand with Isabel, the anxiety is about the fear of the unknown. Back to school with a new teacher, new care givers, and new friends...and all of the insecurities that come along with that. She needs to be pushed to try.

The other idea was from my friend who invests time in researching how to be the best mom she can be. (Actually they all do - way more than me). Her son is a worrier and has high anxiety. She purchased a workbook called I Bet I Won't Fret. She has found this very helpful in providing her son with the skills to help him cope when he is feeling anxious.

This brought us to a very interesting subject. Are we doing too much for our kids? In our efforts to support, nurture, educate and prepare our children for the real world are we actually making it harder for them to independent. Which of course brought up some fun stories about our childhood and how our parents survived. 

I loved the story one friend shared. She has a boy and a girl. One morning Dad mixed up the water bottles. The pink Hello Kitty bottle went in their son's school bag. That night when he got home he told them that the mix up hurt his feelings. To which her husband apologized for hurting his feelings... Then she speculated how her Dad would have handled such an exchange - "Be grateful you had water to drink! Next time you can use the water fountain." 

I think what it all comes down too is that we all to the best we can with what we have. Yes, we parent differently from our parents. Our parents made mistakes and we all turned out relatively well. We will make mistakes too and our children will survive and learn from them just as we have. On the bright side, if we really screw up we will end up with a creative kid who will end up being a musician or actor and make tons of money and support us one day!!