For those of you who don't know, my son, Luke, is getting speech therapy through a free county program. It consists of a great little home visit for about 45 minutes each week. Lucas has incredible language and reasoning skills, he just needs some articulation modification. His articulation makes his language difficult to understand, especially in conversation. Anyway, I have noticed that Luke will not practice for me and rarely for Rob, but during his sessions he is awesome. One thing I have learned about my son is that he responds to correction and critique much better from others than from me. I even try to sneak my corrections in so he doesn't realize they are changing his way, but it didn't take him long to grow wise to my tricks. Therefore, I am glad he is making progress with his teacher, but I can't help but wonder if I am too pushy.
Pushing our kids is healthy as long as their self-esteem doesn't suffer from feeling like our love depends on their successes. With that definition in mind, I don't feel Luke is suffering. I do think he has an objection to authority and anything that reminds him who is the boss, who knows more, or who can ultimately trump his control or his decisions...namely, ME! Luke is a walking contradiction. He wants so badly to show off for me, but won't allow me to help or model in anyway. He is a prideful and independent sucker! Like so many of his qualities, this will prove to be valuable in the future, although I worry about how hard I should push to teach him that criticism is OK and valuable to learning.
I realized the other day that Luke does understand some of what we are trying to do in parenting. He was trying to talk to Rob about a "Mask." Rob couldn't understand him because of his speech, so once Rob figured out the word, he tried to model the correct way to say it. Luke responded with, "No, Dad! I want to do MY best, NOT YOUR best!" As long as he fixes and corrects behavior for Mom and Dad, he feels he is doing "our best." I suppose that right now his best is the best. That is my new motto!
How many of you can actually say that what you teach your kids is completely unselfish...isn't part of it to reflect what a wonderful mom you are? Aren't you secretly proud of yourself when your child is exemplary in manners, speech, academics, etc? I know I am. We are human, and for most of us this is our most important and all encompassing job. In any other job we would have some sort of external benchmarks to determine our success. What are our benchmarks for being a good mom? Hence, the question...are we pushing our kids to do our best or theirs? Boy, my son sure did give me a new perspective to consider! And that is what being a parent is...I love that kid!
2 comments:
Probably a more perceptive post than you might think... You're a good mom to take the time to reflect on whether the motives behind your actions are truly based on your kids' best interests as opposed to being unduly influenced by how you think others will perceive your parenting and kids).
Julie, you have some great quotes from Luke on here. Totally makes me laugh. :) Mia might get speech therapy, too. The pediatrician said it will give her a big boost to be ready for kindergarten later. Hopefully the county will do it for Mia, too. I'm glad you're having a good experience.
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