I have often thought that when we think or talk about "our children" we are engaging in thinking that will result in a loss of mental/emotional balance. After all, children don't belong to us. They are "ours" only in the sense that we gave birth to or adopted them and are in the process of raising them. They are "ours" only for a short while. Raising children is a process and responsibility that comes to a natural end. The goal is for parents to raise children to become strong and wise enough to parent and own themselves. Then we can speak of "our" child simply in terms of how they are related to us.

Parenting is the most important, challenging, complex and rewarding job we ever do. Doing it well enough takes a great deal of devotion. Children do not ask to be born or adopted and we need to accept the responsibility for our choices and live up to the job we have chosen. Doing this job well actually takes a great deal of education and personal growth and training. Those of you who have chosen to read this are doing so because you are devoted. I recognize and applaud that.

The balancing act of parenting begins before a child is born. Decisions concerning the birthing process involve trying to approach the process in a balanced manner. Questions concerning where to have the child involve many concerns including choosing between a warm, comfortable atmosphere, such as home, as opposed to having emergency medical teams close by in a hospital. Then there is the decision concerning whether or not to breast-feed the baby. If a woman is unable to breast feed, for any reason, she will need to find a balance between her own needs with the baby's physical and emotional health needs.

During the first few months when a baby begins to cry, after all his needs are taken care of, parents must decide how long they should let the baby cry; will the baby settle down on her own or should they go to the baby and help her settle down? There are many books and articles written about this type of issue. Parents need to approach each baby and situation individually. While reading books and articles and getting advice from others can be very helpful, babies are born with individual dispositions, parents are also individuals and every situation is different. Therefore, the final decision is the parents and in each and every situation a balance between the needs of the parents and the needs of the child is called for.

The need to find balance continues throughout childhood. When a child is having a temper tantrum, what is the best way to handle it in each situation? Again, education can help parents understand why children have temper tantrums and different ways to handle them. Some children will have fewer temper tantrums than others depending on their temperament, the parent's temperament and various situations. For some parents it is easy to allow a child to have their tantrum. For other parents this can be more difficult. While education will help all parents understand that tantrums are a normal childhood behavior during the toddler years, it does not help all parents cope with it. Learning how to cope with this type of behavior from a child is part of balanced parenting. Balanced parenting involves the parent becoming more aware of his or her own feelings, thoughts and behaviors.

Parents need to learn how to balance and rebalance their value system, their own feelings and their child's feelings. Within their current value system, they need to think about what they believe is most important for their children and balance that with their own needs. A value system will have to change as children grow and situations change.

As children grow, parental self-awareness and balance becomes more and more important. It becomes vital during the child's adolescent years. During adolescence children are supposed to be going through the developmental stage that the field of psychology calls "individuation". A brief definition of this is, "The process of forming and specializing the individual nature; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a differentiated being from the general, collective psychology. Individuation, therefore, is a process of differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality." (Jung, PT, in The Psychiatric Dictionary 6th edition, Robert J. Campbell).

Simply put it means the child is becoming an individual who is different from his/her parents. Because every individual has a combination her/his parent's genes it stands to reason that he/she will be different from her/his parents from birth. There will be similarities and there will be differences. It is vital for individuals to begin to figure out where they are (or want to be) similar and where there are (or want to be) different from their parents. This is a healthy, necessary stage of growth for all of us. It is a difficult stage of growth for most individuals, however it is most difficult for those individuals whose parents have been unable to become balanced, self-aware individuals. Adolescents do not have to rebel very hard against parents who are self aware and accepting of their child's differences.

Balanced parenting takes dedicated individuals who are open to personal growth and change. We cannot hold onto "our" children forever. A healthy child will grow up, individuate and become different from his/her parents. As hard as this might be to think about when a baby is first born, it is also vital to think about it. If parents can become aware of this and keep it in mind as they raise "their" child, they will increase their own ability to grow with the child, and eventually develop an adult/adult relationship with the child. That is when we can speak about "our" child in terms of how we are related to them rather than in terms of ownership.

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©2008 Anne Ream

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