I accept my child finds it hard to sit still
I accept my child has their own way of being in the world
I accept my child is their own unique person
I accept that to thrive, my child needs firm boundaries.YOU WILL ONLY ACCEPT YOUR CHILD TO THE
DEGREE YOU ACCEPT YOURSELF
Accepting our children for who they are brings with it another
component: accepting the kind of parent we need to be for a particular
child. When I accepted that my daughter was way more street smart than
I had given her credit for, I was able to change my approach toward her.
It was time to treat her as the clever girl she was, instead of as the little
Miss Innocent I had hoped she was going to be. Instead of always being
two steps behind her, which led to my resenting her ability to render me
helpless, I learned to think two steps ahead of her. She had always been
able to outsmart me, and beginning to think two steps ahead of her
because I at last embraced how smart she was enabled me to avert her
cleverness showing up as manipulation. How thankful I am that I let go of
my desire to be the parent of my fantasy and instead became the parent
my daughter needed me to be.
Our ability to accept our children is directly linked to our ability to
accept ourselves—both as we are presently, and for what we have the
potential to become. After all, how can we hope to raise our children to
be freethinkers and free-spirited if we aren’t these things ourselves? How