Is It My Fault If My Kid Is ‘Difficult’?

We all know that both Nurture AND Nature play a significant part in the way we turn out.

But what are the consequences of this for you as a parent?

That is, HOW MUCH of your children’s behaviour is down to Nurture?

ie. how good a mama do you really need to try to be and will this make a difference?

And HOW MUCH of it is down to Nature?

ie. to what extent can you let go of any kind of responsibility over the way that they behave?

This is the billion dollar question that goes round and round in my head, several times a day, most days of the week.

Not only because I’m a recovering Virgoan, control freak who likes to do things ‘right’, but also because - at the moment - it feels like most of the effort I am putting into being a conscious, respectful, space-holding mama, is getting shot down as ‘wrong’ (pretty much regardless of whatever I say or do).

Take the other evening, for example…

One of my children was (understandably) having a particularly hard time getting their head around starting a new school, in a new country, and wasn’t feeling in control (of their timetable, what to bring, who to talk to, where to go, when, and what to do etc).

• My first response was to try to ‘hold space’ - murmuring what I thought were soothing, non-verbal noises of empathy and encouragement.

WRONG: This wasn’t deemed enough - I was asked for my specific, verbal opinion.

• So I went for the ‘validation’ tack - explaining how normal it is to feel scared and nervous, that it’s not fun to feel this way and that I remembered feeling that way too.

WRONG: My kids abhore me likening my experiences (obviously pre-historic because I was alive prior to the 90s) to theirs: Irrelevant. Boring. Out of touch.

• So then I opted for the direct, ‘truth-telling’ tack - agreeing with their worst fears that it probably will be super hard to be the ‘new’ pupil, that they might indeed get things wrong or get lost, and that the whole experience will probably feel very challenging and uncomfortable for a few weeks or even months.

WRONG: Too harsh, too truthful.

• So then I did what you’re not meant to do as a ‘conscious’ parent: I tried to make it better, to ‘fix’ things and to soothe it all away with some toxic positivity - I bigged them up, told them that of course they would make friends very soon and that the whole discomfort of being new would pass in a flash.

WRONG AGAIN: This time, I was not in touch with reality - that they will be alone, unliked, not talked to and that noone will ever help then to integrate.

• By this stage, I was starting to get impatient so I named the fact that I was really struggling to find the right words and behaviour to meet their needs (despite wanting to), and asked them what they needed me to say so that I could then try to meet this need.

EXPLOSION OF ANGER AT MY ‘STUPIDITY’.

• At this point, my inner child had reached her limit trying and I gave up and stormed off, muttering how impossibly difficult teenagers were to parent.

But then I felt terrible.

Instead of being able to hold space for my child’s feelings and be the strong, stable, safe ‘other’ in their time of overwhelm, I had tried to make their discomfort ‘go away’, and then centred the situation onto myself and my failure to be a good parent. Oops.

I spiralled….for a bit.

But then I started thinking about my two other kids. And about how they must also be feeling the exact same mixture of apprehension and fear that comes with joining a new school, but were processing these emotions in totally different ways.

Which then got me thinking about Nature versus Nurture.

And how all three of my children have either inherited(?) or adopted(?) a mix of my traits and behaviours as well as my partner’s traits and behaviours.

YET despite receiving exactly the same input (Genetically and environmentally) each of them approaches life (and challenges) in a totally different way.

Which made me feel better.

Perhaps it wasn’t entirely my fault that one of my children was struggling in this way, that I wasn’t able to meet their needs in the right way at that moment nor that I was finding their behaviour difficult.

Because I am DIFFERENT to them. And they are different to their siblings.

Indeed, each of my kids is a mixture of both Nature and Nurture, of what they have inherited/had rolemodelled to them, as well as what is innate and unique to them.

And so I realised that, as the adult in the relationship, as well as the parent, I do need to continue to try to be a good mama because this can make a (positive) difference sometimes, if not all of the time.

AND I can also let go of some of the responsibility and guilt when things don’t go to plan, by remembering that my input is only a part of what has made my children into the unique beings that they are, with the unique reactions that they present me with.