Worry, Pray AND Affirm!

I have never met a mother who has not worried about her child (at some point or another) – NEVER.  In fact, the worry, based on my observation, intensifies the older the child gets.

Mothers spend so much time on their knees praying/worrying about their children’s overall well-being:

• Will she/he do well in school?
• Will she/he find right partner
• Will she/he be successful?
• I hope she knows how to handle hurt
• I hope she gets a good job
• I want her to have genuine friends
• I pray that she/he is healthy
• I want to see him/her past the worst before I “go”

And the list goes on and on and on…

There are so many issues that our children go through on a daily basis.  Issues, it seems, that are somewhat different than the ones we went through during our childhood.  I am not saying that, as children, there weren’t  matters that bombarded our parents’ thought process and made them worry, but it just seems that the issues these days are so much more ridiculous, the more exposed we become to the “outside” world.

I, too, have had my many moments of sitting in wonderment worrying about my daughter.  I have, on many occasions, sat and watched her sleep in the middle of the night.  While she peacefully sleeps, I say a prayer for her (and all little girls like her) – praying for her strength, happiness, love, and everything else that represents good.  A mother’s job is never done is what I know to be true, because even when she is oblivious to the world and safely asleep, her total well-being preoccupies my every thought.

So, I recently remembered that a friend told me of a little girl whose mother wrote her list of what she called “daily affirmations”.  These affirmations were repeated on a daily basis from she was about 8 year old – affirmations which are still repeated today, now that she is a young adult.  This was basically a list of positive things that she would tell herself every day, when looking in the mirror – things that this little girl, who is now an adult, agrees helped her to become the self-assured lady she now thought herself to be.

Of course, me being the type of person who is not afraid to “borrow” something  (from someone in my extended “village”) that can only bring about some positive change, set out to write my daughter her own set of daily affirmations.  This is something that I felt needed to be done in light of everything that had been taking place in our little world, as well as in the general society.

I didn’t think it would make real sense if I wrote them independent of her, so we did it together, and now she has a list of about 20 what I will  also refer to as “positive reinforcements” that she says on an almost daily basis.  I say almost, because in my reality, there is ALWAYS a day or two when it just does not get done, for one reason or the other.

At no point during the creation of our list did I think it a bad or unnecessary thing to do, but certainly I thought it would have taken a while before things on the list became embedded in her psyche.  To my very pleasant surprise, a week after doing the affirmation on an almost daily basis, my daughter says to me, “Mom, it does work…. I treated ___________ the way I would want to be treated, and she was nice to me today…”

The point I am really trying to make by saying all this, is that while we know that worrying is a word that IS synonymous with mother, we can, in addition to praying, do something else.  We can arm our children with positive words; feed them with those words that will help them to be better human beings.  I do believe that if she continues to hear them, she will (like the young lady from whom I borrowed the idea) eventually believe the words that were created JUST FOR HER; thereby making her all those things that she tells herself on an almost daily basis.  It DOES, first, begin in the mind.

Although the parenting challenges are many, there is always something that we can do.  Do not, therefore, be afraid to try new things.

Write your child’s daily affirmations/positive reinforcements today – it’s the 8 glasses of water for the mind.

it is very important to point out, at this time, that if/when you forget to affirm this week/month, it is never too late to start again.

PS.  Sorry, but I will not be sharing the list, as it is somewhat unique to my daughter; plus, I MUST respect her privacy, etc.

Peace be with you as we strive to uncover and confront the truth about parenting.

Blessings!