During our parenthood journey, we have ups and downs and lots of moments we doubt ourselves.
As a mother of two, I question myself many times. Am I being too bossy? How can I communicate with my kids at adult-adult level? How can I be a better role-model for them while trying to develop myself and change some beliefs I gained during my childhood?
Fortunately, today kids are well-equipped than our childhood. They are exposed to infinite information and grow with higher awareness than what we used to.
Living in Dubai for the last 15 years, my sons have been lucky to be surrounded by the global community. They have friends from all over the world. Therefore, they have knowledge about the various culture and the differences between these cultures. Attending one of UAE’s first schools focused on inclusion and eco-literacy, they have been more sensitive about differences between people and accepting everyone as s/he is. Also, their sensitivity towards sustainability and earth, global climate changes etc. have been increased drastically.
As the temperature rises to 50’ish degrees plus the moisture, staying in summer with kids in Dubai is so challenging. This summer, since direct flights to Turkey have not started yet, we are stuck here the first time after kids were born. Although, I personally do not complain (thanks to coaching sessions and webinars keeping me highly motivated), locking two boys indoor instead of the opportunity to enjoy beautiful summer in our summer house in Turkey is also bothering me.
Yes, as I mentioned above, today’s kids are highly equipped and can use their resources whenever they need them. My younger son, Erin, is 7 years old. He will be attending Year 3 next year. His awareness about himself and surrounding has always been a point of his strengths (and weakness for a parent sometimes😊). He has recently started talking more often about being vegetarian, releasing the bugs and flies without harming them, keep the ants safe entering our home from the garden door.
Yesterday, to my surprise, he had prepared tens of posters about ‘Saving the Animal’ and asked me to distribute them together to the doorsteps in the community. He put a personal messaged on each one of them. We walk through the community and he enjoyed completing an important task and delivering a helpful message to others. I put a short post on the community FB page about him delivering the message and got amazing comments from quite a high number of people. I shared this with him and said how proud I am for him being so smart and thoughtful. I said his initiative got so many nice messages and words from the community. His answer was mind-blowing and addressed to the solution. (How I am lucky to be the mother of such a boy…It helps me a lot on my coaching journey too…). He said, ‘mummy, I appreciate those who commented and supported my initiative about ‘Saving the Animal’ but the most important thing is ‘Are they really going to save the animals?’’.
‘Are they really going to save the animals?’ As a coach trained by various ‘solution-focused’ echoes, this is the main result generally I walk through my clients’ journeys towards to solution they aimed to reach… The moment when my 7-year-old son told me the most important point of achieving is reaching the goal, there had been many new neuron snaps that appeared in my brain. Now a few hours after our conversation with him, I am still thinking about it. I am thinking that such pure healthy mechanisms the young people have. They already are aware of how the systems work, how to reach their highest potential by using the resources they have and how inspiring they can be for many irrelevant to age or education…
To the days we think more like youngers, act like older…