I watched a video recently about moms and their kids and what they thought of themselves as parents compared to how their children viewed them as parents. The moms of course saw themselves in a negative light, pointing out their shortcomings and areas they needed to improve on. And then the kids were asked what they thought of their moms. The kids all had only positive things to say about their moms- how great they are and how beautiful they are and only knew love and admiration for their moms. It was such a moving video and of course I cried for about 3 days over it because kids are just amazing.
And now that I’ve had time to feel all the things over this super touching video, I’m really starting to take to heart the message behind this little experiment. Let me elaborate:
When we start out as littles in this world, we really are so pure and innocent. We are so positive and optimistic and focus primarily on good in things. Being negative and feeling insignificant is something we learn and are taught along the way. Think about that for a minute- we actually TEACH our kids to think negatively!
Not that any of us purposely sit down with our kids and tell them “quit being a positive sunshiny person”, but every time we see OURSELVES negatively, they learn from that. They see us point out our own flaws and say things like “ooh, mommy looks awful today”, every time they hear that, we take away a little tiny piece of their innocent blindness to the negativity.
Imagine you walk into your daughters room and see her looking in the mirror at her beautiful perfect reflection. And as you watch her, she starts saying to her reflection “you are not perfect. You are not good enough”. I get sick to even think about my girl seeing herself as anything less than the most amazing, beautiful, precious little redhead she is. The same with my boys. If I were to walk in on them building with blocks and suddenly look at the tower they worked so hard to build and say “this is not good enough”, it crushes my soul to even imagine.
Kids never ask us to be perfect. We ARE enough for them. Every time we kiss a boo boo or read a book with them, every time we are there for them, we are enough. And they see our tries, which makes them successes, at least to the most important people watching- our kids!
I’m going to take my own advice and strive to see myself the way my babies see me. I’m not going to let my guys hear me say what I’m NOT, and work at being the best at what I AM- a Mom!
