Yin Parenting

Today, my four-year-old son achieved something, and I was super proud. He pushed a chair over to the kitchen, climbed up on the chair, and put something special on top of the fridge that he didn’t want anyone getting their hands on. Had his one-year-old sister done this, the independent mountain goat that she is, I would have been unsurprised and unimpressed. But because it was him, I was relieved and proud. For my son, climbing to the top of the fridge is a milestone.

All kids are different, and my two are really different. My daughter is independent and headstrong, while my son is codependent and also headstrong. It is not in my daughter’s DNA to ask for help, while my son will shriek until he gets someone to not only help, but to do it for him. Both personalities have their inherent challenges, but it’s my son who has taught me the most about how to be a mom.

He taught me how to leave my children alone. He taught me how to let them be. Let them live. Let them be great. How to learn from their own mistakes and have space to grow and get greater. One of the crazy paradoxes of parenting, I’ve learned, is that sometimes the best course of action is no action. Like when my son is screaming in the living room because his puzzle keeps coming apart. Or my daughter is learning to walk and keeps falling, over and over and over again. The easy thing to do in both these scenarios is to swoop in and help. To put the puzzle together. To pick her little body up from the hardwood floor and hold her hand as she walks. But I don’t. I stand there and breathe. I remember to let them be and let them be great, even (usually in the case of my son) when they don’t believe they can do it.

So when he was scaling the fridge, I applauded him. What a feat it was for him to do that without asking for help! To have the desire to put that special thing in a high place and to not ask me to put it there. To not ask for help in moving the chair. To not ask for help in climbing the chair. To not ask for help in getting down from the chair. He just had the idea and did it. He had the confidence and the independence to do it. And I stood back and let him shine. I let him make friends with his confidence and his greatness and I said “Good job, buddy.”

Had it been my daughter, I may have had to pull her off the top of the fridge to prevent injury as she tried to jump off. But all kids are different. Knowing how to react to different situations for each of your differing personalities is one of the many nuances of parenting. But I do believe that in some situations, doing nothing is the toughest way to go. Doing nothing is when you are actually doing the most.