INSULATING OUR CHILDREN FROM TRAUMA

It is such a dilemma in the world we live in today. How do we protect our children and still allow them to learn life lessons without allowing them to experience horrible trauma? Recently we have talked about bullying and all the aspects of the world of the internet. There are many things that our teens can experience that scare parents. And with good reason; by the same token we cannot make them bubble children that never face the "real world". I hear this dilemma in my office every day. Some parents don't protect enough and some too much. In every case parents are confused about what is best. I think about this a great deal. I have come to the conclusion that maybe our best protection is to make our children good decision makers from an early age. At the beginning there are certainly decisions they should not be allowed to make but as they grow and mature they need more and more ability to make their own decision. Not all decisions will turn out well but that is perfectly alright. We learn more from the unsuccessful decisions than from the successful ones. When we can trust their ability to make good decisions and also they usually do make good decisions – even when we may not agree with a decision; we can trust that they will make a good decision in a difficult situation. They need to make decisions about when to play and when to do school work. They need to decide whether or not to drink and how much. When we can trust they make the best decision for themselves we can breathe a sigh of relief and trust they will be alright. We can never prevent all possible disasters even with good decision makers. Just like there is nothing we or they can do to keep us always out of harm's way. Today is September 11^th. All those people that went to work that day or got into a plane were making the best decision they could make at the time. Sometimes horrible things happen and we grieve and eventually figure out how to put our lives back together. Work on decision making with your children. They will grow from the experience. Sherri