The Agonizing Necessity of Letting Your Child Fail

There is no getting around it, even though you may try to shield them from it, and find ways for them to avoid it, your kids will at some point have to face the dreaded agony of failure. For most moms, myself included, whether we admit it or not, when we see our children experiencing failure or disappointment, it feels like the sky is crashing down on both them and us. And sometimes, probably more often than not, we feel the pain even deeper than our children do. In most cases, our children bounce back from their disappointments relatively quickly, and yet we often stay stuck in them for way longer than we know is necessary or appropriate. Furthermore, many well-intentioned mothers, in an effort to try to “spare” their children from having to deal with failure, will go to borderline crazy lengths to assure that their child’s “fall from grace” will be cushioned or avoided all together.

Question to ponder:

What does it feel like to witness your child experience failure?

And even deeper:

Do you feel that your child’s failure a reflection on you as a mother?

Lately I have heard so many moms talk about their successes or failures of their children in a way that it is difficult to decipher who’s is who’s. I recently texted a friend to see how she was doing and she responded that her daughter made the varsity soccer team and her son had lost his tennis match. I wanted to respond, "But wait, I really wanted to know how YOU are doing!" Can we, as mothers, separate our identities from our children’s?

Before I go any further, I have to write a disclaimer: Anyone who knows me knows that I am as guilty as the next mom of allowing my entire being to be directly and significantly affected by what is happening (or not happening) in my children’s lives. I ride the crazy train with my kids and have a first class seat on that well know parenting helicopter that so many of us ride. I obsess about whether they will make a sports team, do well on their tests at school, be asked to a dance or be admitted to their college of choice.  Having said that, I am actually working on this issue within myself right now, so I have become hyper-aware of my own hovering and somewhat controlling nature, as well as that of so many of the lovely moms in my life.

As I dissect this issue of mothers being somewhat unhealthily enmeshed in their children’s lives, I start with a seemingly simple, yet extremely complicated question: Why? Sometimes when my husband has reached his limit on listening to me go over and over and over my worries and concerns about a kid-related issue, he will just stop me dead in my tracks and say, “Why do you care so much? Maybe it would be good if you try to focus on something that you can control, or go do something for yourself instead of obsessing about an outcome over which you have ZERO control. You gotta stop worrying about the kids’ stuff. It’s theirs, not yours.”

Although there is a little sting to his directive, I know deep down that he is right (darn it!). He is encouraging me to give myself permission to let go. To trust that the chips will fall where they may for our four kids, and most importantly to trust that they will be ok, wherever their chips fall. And if their chips fall the “wrong” way, and they feel sad and defeated, then my husband and I will be there to love and support them, and to help them regain their footing so they can put their chips back on the table.

We moms have such a tough time with the letting go piece. From the moment we hold them in our arms as newborns, we are programmed to “make it all better” for our kids. We make it our life’s work to make life good and safe and happy for them. But thankfully, Wendy Mogel (Blessings of a Skinned Knee and Blessings of a B-) comes along and beautifully teaches us how kids must fail in order to grow.  She explains that we are doing our children and ourselves a major disservice by not allowing them to experience failures and disappointments. When mothers don’t set clear boundaries with their children, and take on too much of their children’s “stuff,” they run the risk their children developing this line of thinking:

“I don’t really have to care, or feel anything about whether or not I make the team, make a bad decision, or get an A or a D on my test because my mom is taking it all on. Therefore, I am not even really accountable for my actions or inactions, because mom’s got me covered.”

Some moms, (myself included, on a few occasions), will actually not only take on their children’s successes or failures emotionally but will go a step further. They will intervene. They will call a coach, a teacher or an admissions director and threaten, question, manipulate, and even beg or bribe the person in the decision-making position to give their child what she “ABSOLUTELY DESERVES!!!” Okay, this is probably a good time for mom to step back, be very honest with herself, and figure out whether this is about her or about her child.  This type of behavior sends an even scarier and potentially hazardous message to her child, which could sound like:

“You are not capable of accomplishing your goal/s on your own and therefore you need me to step in and take care of it for you.”

This deprives your child of learning the invaluable, character-building lessons that one learns from failing or falling short of a goal, with resiliency at the top of the list. It also could lead your child to feel that:

• “My mom does not believe in me enough to let me figure things out for myself. I must be inadequate.”
• “My mom cares more about whether I make the team or get the grade she expects me to get than she does about me as a person. She doesn’t love me for who I am, she loves me for what I do. Therefore if I come up short of her expectations, she won’t love me.”

Confession: My daughter got a B- on a paper her senior year. She is a fantastic writer and that was not a typical grade for her on any type of writing assignment. I am friendly with her teacher and when I saw him at her school one day, I said casually, “Hey, why did you give Sophie a B- on her last paper?” He stopped, looked at me straight in the eyes and said in a very serious tone, “Because I knew it was not her best work. She knows she can talk to me about it if she would like.”

Yikes! I cannot even begin to explain the scolding I received from my daughter when I crawled out of my shame hole a few days later and told her about it. “Mom! I wasn’t really bothered by it. It wasn’t my best work. I can’t believe you did that! Why would you do that?!”

With helicopter parents attending job interviews with their children http://huff.to/18cx1PG and micromanaging their every move, it is hard not to get sucked into thinking that being overly involved in your children’s lives is a way of showing your children that you care. It’s difficult to draw the line and know when it’s ok to advocate for your child, and when you need to bite your tongue and/or detach yourself from their “stuff.”

Next time you want to step in and try to prevent your child from failing or facing disappointment, take a moment to sort out your own feelings, and ask yourself:

What am I afraid of?

Exiting the Nest: Don't Cry Because it's Over...Who Said That?!

“Don’t cry because it’s over, be happy that it happened,” my older son preached to me nearly every time he saw me for weeks after my daughter left for college. Even if my eyes weren’t filled with tears (I really tried to cry privately), he could see that there was sadness and loss that I was feeling deep from within. “She’s gone but she’s not GONE,” was the message my brain kept sending to my heart. I talked to many moms who forged this trail before me; who sent their children off to that never-never land place they call college. I heard, “It feels like someone died, like you are in mourning. You walk into their room and just weep. You kind of wander around in a fog for a while. But it does get better with time. And then when they come home again, it reminds you that it was definitely time for them to go.” I also heard, “I was so happy for my daughter and felt like I did my job in raising her. Now she’s off doing what she is supposed to be doing and that makes me feel good.”

I would put myself right smack dab in the middle of those two sentiments.

It has been exactly one month since I left her in that Ann Arbor parking lot across the street from her dorm and I am just now able to write down how it feels to launch a child. Although, ironically, I recently heard author Wendy Mogel speak and I had a chance to chat with her briefly. “I just launched my first child,“ I told her. “Did she graduate from high school or college,” she asked as she signed my copy of her recent book, Blessings of a B- (fantastic read, by the way). “High school,” I said with a questioning smile. “She’s not launched,” she said with such authority that it took me aback. She recommended a book called “Letting Go” by Karen Levin Coburn http://amzn.to/16VPYnG , which talks about the various stages your child goes through when in college, some of which can be very difficult as your child is trying to navigate the world as a young adult. I wasn’t sure if hearing this from Dr. Mogel made me feel any better or worse.

When doing research for my book, I interviewed many moms about the process of letting go. Some of my favorite responses include:

“The letting go process is sort of like walking off a cliff and praying you land safely! Or, letting a bird fly free, hoping it travels in the right direction. This is what we have all worked so hard for, to let our kids go, experience life...we just pray we gave them the foundation they need to be successful on their own terms. Sometimes it is very hard to parent while on the sidelines of college. Issues can be tough. Just remember you did the best job possible to get your kids where they are and hopefully they will take it the rest of the way—and they need to.” (Mother of three children, ages 23, 20, and 17, married 27 years)

“They always see you and need you in some sort of Mommy capacity. It's the hugest relationship of their life, whether they realize it or not. So smile and give the independence and try to keep the advice in the solicited category, but also feel free to smirk a bit when they still need you, which they will. And realize they may still act like a baby around you sometimes. You are their safe place.” (Mother of three children, ages 19, 15 and 7, married 20 years)

“I don’t really think you ever really let go. It’s reorganization. It’s just a different way of thinking about things and shelving things. The worries…I do think they become bigger in some ways. You are not worried that they are going to get hit on the playground but you worry for their safety out in the world. You hope that you are still the voice inside their head that guides them when they are making decisions.”  (Mother of three children, 21, 19, and 17, married 22 years)

As for me, I am still somewhat raw with emotion and yet, am finding my way to embrace the letting go process, which, in my opinion, cannot be rushed.  I just recently stopped automatically pulling out six placemats when I set the table for dinner. I still find myself wandering around the grocery store, feeling a little lost as my daughter was the one with the STRONGEST opinions about what food MUST be in the pantry and in the refrigerator, and what she would and wouldn’t eat for dinner. I just booked her ticket to come home for fall break and when searching for flights, I habitually typed in round trip from Minneapolis to Detroit. After a few minutes, I stopped in my tracks and stared at the screen. “She is not traveling from Minneapolis, she lives in Michigan,” I had to remind myself. I also caught myself saying to a friend when she asked if I could go for a walk on a recent Sunday, “Well, Soph will be home studying, so I can leave the younger kids home with her.”  And I finally re-patterned my brain to stop thinking that she was going to walk through the door when I heard the chime that goes off every time a door in our house is opened.

Letting her go was indeed very painful for me. Moreso than I thought it would be. My acupuncturist suggested that there should be a ritual for moms when their child leaves the nest.  Moms need time and space to allow themselves to deal with the separation. They need not be immediately thrust back into life and almost shamed for feeling sadness and loss. They are almost expected to shake off any sadness and to feel overjoyed that they have a kid in college. “She’s super happy, right? She’s doing great, right? Aren’t you sooooo happy for her,” wonderfully good-intentioned people would ask.  Yep, she is and I am. Yet, I was sad too. For as much as I knew it was time for her to go, the reality of her leaving knocked me off balance…for a while.

People say that it takes about a month to regain your stability, and this was right on for me. Time has truly been a blessing, and I can now say that I have transitioned to a new normal. And it feels good. With the support of family and friends, I am now able to say without crying (most of the time), “My daughter is away at college.” My family is happy and adjusted at home, and Sophie and I have figured out our mother-daughter long distance rhythm via text, face time, email and phone calls. I try to give her space and she tries to connect when she has time. It works...for now.

I realize that there will be many more transitions that I will go through with her, and with the other three kids, but this one was momentous for me, and I am grateful to be on the other side of it.

I did cry (a lot) because it was over, HOWEVER, I am eternally grateful and overjoyed that it happened…And, in a slightly different configuration…continues to happen.

How To Say Goodbye: A Lesson From My Daughter

We weren’t assigned seats next to each other on the flight that would fly us to my daughter’s new home for the next four years. We both had aisle seats, which we usually prefer, one in front of the other.  But this time I desperately wanted/needed to sit by her.  I asked the lady seated next to my daughter if she would mind switching her window seat for my aisle seat. “You know, I really do prefer a window seat,” she said. “Ok, then,” I said with my eyes to my daughter. “It’s not like I’m taking my daughter to college for the first time or anything,” I mumbled under my breath, and sat down feeling deflated. But without hesitation, my daughter started talking to me through the seat that separated us, sharing a funny story about something silly her “most adorable” camper did this summer. I leaned into the aisle, twisted my body and craned my neck to make eye contact with her. She hoisted her computer up and over the back of my seat to show me the countless pictures she had taken over the summer.

“I’m going to switch seats with you,” the woman said to me as she was already standing with her belongings in her hand.  “Thank, you. Thank you so much,” I said as I moved back to take the window seat next to my daughter.  We laughed and talked some more. We took a short jaunt down memory lane until she told me she was tired and done talking. I watched her close her eyes. I saw her as a little girl. The memories kept surfacing and resurfacing in my mind’s eye. The feelings of being pregnant with her, cradling her as a baby, clinging onto her hand when she learned to walk, holding her and stroking her hair when she cried, and even grabbing her arm a little too tightly a few times when I was upset with her came flooding back to me. In that moment, she leaned her head on my shoulder. I stroked her shiny, brown hair. A tsunami arose in my chest that came from the innermost depths of my soul and encompassed my entire being. The water came pouring out of my eyes. I truly did not know how I would make the tears stop.

How can this be the culmination of 18 years?!  How can it hurt so much even when she is doing what my husband and I have raised her to do? How can it be that the start of her next, exciting life chapter feels so excruciatingly painful for me? I leaned my head on her head and I took in her smell and the feeling of her presence. I knew that her presence in my life was about to change…pretty dramatically.

Over the past 19 years of life (actually, her 19^th birthday is next week, and will be her first birthday that I won’t be with her), Sophie has taught me how to let go. Her independent spirit has given me a lot of practice in the art of saying goodbye, which has included: the ability to hold back my tears until she couldn’t see me (okay, I couldn’t always do that); give her that “last” hug, and then separate from her, by allowing her to pull away, and then turn and walk away from me, while I worked hard to turn myself away and walk the opposite direction (resisting the urge to turn back around and run to her to give her one more hug). I have done it countless times:  when she started school, skipped off to sleepovers, begged to go to a two-week sleep-away camp at the age of 8, took trips with her grandparents, boarded planes and buses to visit friends in other states, when she spent part of a summer in Israel and when she spent the past two entire summers working as a counselor at an overnight camp.

But even as the goodbyes didn’t seem to get much easier, I always knew she was coming home.

But not this time.

Ok, I know. That sounds extremely dramatic. And it is. Of course she will come home: over her school breaks and possibly over summer breaks (unless she continues to work at summer camp or another job out of state). But those times are the exception, rather than the rule. The majority of her days and nights will not be spent in my house, in her bed, with her siblings at our dinner table.  When I feel this sense of loss come over me, which sort of feels like someone took a scoop out of my heart with an ice cream scooper, I do have conversations with myself about perspective. My message to myself is, “Hey! Your daughter is alive and healthy and thriving!  She is going to college, not Juvie! This is not some kind of terrible tragedy. She is off to have a wonderful college experience! You should be so proud! You will see her, you will talk to her and you will be in each other’s lives!” Yes. Yes. Yes. And I am grateful. I really am.

But there are many different types of losses that we as mothers endure with our children, and I pray that we all experience these types of “letting go” losses and none that are truly catastrophic.  The letting go kind of loss is actually more about recalibrating the relationship than losing it. However, I have realized that I am not exactly sure how to make this relationship shift, within myself and between my daughter and me.

My relationship with my daughter has been one of the most pivotal and powerful relationships I have ever had in my life. It would take me tens of thousands of words to explain why, but as any mother understands, the human being who turns you into a mother, holds an extremely significant place in your heart.  And now I need to figure out how to do this relationship from afar.

As much as Sophie knows that she will always have a place in our home, I know her sights are now set elsewhere. And I am happy for her. And I know she is ready.

We spent a few days in Ann Arbor helping her get her room ready, schlepping back and forth to Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond, taking her and her friends to lunches and dinners. And then, when we knew it was time, she taught me how to say goodbye, yet again.

Last night we brought her to her dorm before heading back to our hotel to get some sleep before our flight home this morning.  We only got as far as the parking lot in front of her dorm. “You guys don’t have to come up. I am okay. Really,” she said in a very sincere way.  “O.k., Soph, I guess we have to do this,” I said. My husband and I each hugged her. And then she hugged us each one more time. I gave her the card I had written her earlier that day and told her to read it later. “I love you, Mom.” “Oh, I love you more than you will ever know, Soph.” "Take care of you, Sophie," my husband said.

And then she did it. She pulled away, she turned and she walked slowly to door of her dorm. But I didn’t turn. I didn’t move. I stood there and watched her this time. I watched her walk confidently and happily to enter the next phase of her life. She opened the door to her dorm, and glanced back in our direction. Then the door shut.

And new doors opened…

The Gift of Time

My doctor told me that she was worried that my baby had stopped growing in utero at 37 weeks. She told me she wanted to do a C-section ASAP. She was due on May 15^th. but on April 29^th, my forth child, my second baby girl came into this world at 5 pounds 4 ounces, just 9 ounces lighter than her big sister weighed at full term almost 10 years years prior. Had she stopped growing or was she right on course to be the exact same size as her sister and me (I was another heavyweight at 5 pounds 14 ounces, full term)? We will never know but the fear that something was wrong with her made the 48 hours we waited before she was born almost unbearable. Thankfully, she was born healthy, and without any complications for her or for me. I only tell this story of her beginnings because I have found myself going back there over the years and wondering if her being brought into this world before she was “ready” has to do with a decision we made for her 8 years later.

My baby girl was and is very much the baby—the baby of our family of six, the baby of my parents’ six grandchildren and the baby in a long, long line of sibling-like first cousins’ children on my husband’s side.  My daughter would be the baby of 20 cousins in that lineage.  Needless to say, her feet hardly touched the ground for the first several years of her life, long after she was able to walk on her own. She didn’t have to speak a whole lot because everyone around her loved to cater to her every potential need before she needed to express one. And the fact that she literally was the size of an American Girl doll for a very long time (and is still not a whole lot bigger), and her voice was so high and squeaky that it made you smile no matter what she said, did not make it easy for people around her to transition to treating her like a “big girl.”

When it was time for her to go to preschool, she went somewhat willingly but often cried that she wanted to stay home with me. She was sick a lot; colds, fevers, ear infections, influenza, and countless unexplained tummy aches. But she learned and thrived in school; she made friends and she seemed happy and well adjusted.

When we considered moving her from the Montessori school she attended to the private school where my older three children attended, I remember feeling somewhat nervous. I knew she was bright, but she was often shy, reserved and somewhat “young” for her age. The first time through the admissions process, the school told us that she was not ready for the academic, social or emotional rigors of first grade at this college preparatory school. They did, however, offer her a spot in the Kindergarten class. We declined and decided to send her to the Montessori school that she loved for another year and re-assess the following year. She had a great year socially and academically and her teachers thought she would do fine in the grade she was “supposed” to be in. So, back to the private school we went to test her for admittance to second grade for the following school year.

Academically, she did just fine, and her classroom visit went relatively smoothly. We would have to wait to hear from the school about their final recommendations. The following day, after dropping my son off at school, I ran into the teacher whose classroom my daughter had visited. I asked her to tell me honesty how she saw my daughter fitting into this grade. She explained, “Your daughter was fine in my class, but I have to tell you that I had to take several of the kids out in the hall because I heard them whispering behind her back saying, ‘Why is a preschooler visiting our class?’ They couldn’t believe that she was 7, the same age as they were.” The teacher explained that the kids perceived her as much younger and treated her as less of a peer and more as someone who needed caretaking.

After much agonizing and deliberation on my part (my husband had much more clarity about the benefits of holding her back and the school had no question that giving her extra time would be hugely beneficial to her in every way), we all came to the consensus that it would serve her best to start as a first grader the following year instead of as a second grader, which is where her birthday says she “should” be.

But I worried. I worried that she would be teased for being older than most kids in her grade (in some cases more than a year older). That kids will ask her if she was held back, and will ask her why. I worried that it would seem strange that she will be 19 when she graduates high school and I even worried that her fellow college freshmen would give her a hard time for starting college at 19 and ask her if she flunked a grade. I worried about how she will navigate all of this, if it would bother her and how she will normalize her situation. I also had to look at how I felt about it all and find a way to reconcile all of this within myself. I also dabbled with some self doubt: Was it my fault that she needed extra time? Did I coddle her too much? Was I so overwhelmed with four kids that I neglected to help foster some of the developmental tools she needed early on?

But I realized that I had to let most of the above-mentioned insecure babble go so I could fully support her and empower her. I needed to find acceptance with the decision to give my daughter an extra year and look at all the benefits of this decision.  “You are giving her the gift of time,” is what many trusted friends who work in academia labeled it for me. One extra year to be a kid! (And as I am preparing to send my oldest to college in a week, I certainly have a much better understanding of this!)

Fast forward two years to this week as my daughter is getting ready to start 3^rd grade.  “Mom, I know I am not the oldest kid in my grade because there is a boy who is older than me, right,” my daughter asks. “Right,” I say not quite sure where she is going with this. “Do you think there will be any other kids starting in my grade that will be older than me,” she continues her line of questioning. “I don’t know for sure but probably not,” I answer her carefully. “O.k. good. Because I love being the oldest. I also love being the smallest, which I will be this year because my friend Susie, who is a little bit smaller than me is not coming back this year.” “So you like being the oldest?” I ask. “I love it!” she says with a smile.

I can say now that I do feel that my daughter is in a good place and that giving her extra time is really what she needed and needs. Whether this has to do with how she came into this world, a bit premature, or how she was a bit coddled when she was young, we will never know. She is not in a hurry to grow up and that is okay. She sees her older siblings and how much more challenging and complicated life becomes. She is good with being a kid. And for me, I will get to have an extra year with her before my nest will be completely empty…but by then, I may be making room for grandchildren (if I am lucky)!

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The buck stops here: How to avoid passing on your battles with body image and food to your children

July 29, 2013 By Julie Burton

What Nobody Tells You About Your Teen's Final Days as High Schooler

You would think that after 18 years of parenting I would truly grasp the notion that when entering a new phase with your child, nothing will go quite as expected. Well, I certainly had expectations of how things would be with my graduating senior; how there would be lots of memorable bonding moments during her final days at home and how our house would be bubbling with excitement as she prepares to embark on her next phase of life. Well, once again, I have been blindsided, and what is happening in my house, with my daughter who graduates tomorrow (but has been done with school for a week) is a far cry from the goodbye bliss I expected.  Maybe some parents are experiencing harmony with their graduate, but from my own experience and in talking with other parents, I have learned that the reality of this transitional time looks and feels more like this:

1. Graduation week is like landing on another planet. You feel like you are having an out of body experience because you swear that it was yesterday that you were wearing that cap and gown…and as you snap yourself back into your reality, you continue to look at your kid (mine has said to me on more than one occasion, “Mom, why are you staring at me?!”) and you wonder how 18 years could have gone by in a FLASH!
2. They break up with you…in a very ungraceful way. They act like they are done with you during a time when you feel that you want to be spending more time with them. But their priority is their friends. From making the grad party rounds to just hanging out at friends’ houses, you will not find them anywhere near you. And even if they do breeze in, it is only temporary, and they usually ask for money, or just need to eat or possibly sleep for a while.
3. They regress. I really wanted to record my daughter today as she tantrummed on the phone and spoke to me like a toddler who wasn’t getting her way. Her tone is often laced with annoyance—annoyance with me that I am still standing in her way to FREEDOM!
4. If you expect gratitude, you will most likely be disappointed. “Thank you, mom, for 18 amazing years. Thank you for pouring your heart, soul and pocketbook into raising me. I know that I am the person I am today, in large part because of all the love and support you gave me.” Nope, not even close! Did not hear these words and realize that I probably won’t—at least not for a while. What I do hear is more along the lines of, “Mom, you are so annoying! Why are you imposing so many rules right now?! You know I am leaving for camp in 10 days (to work as a counselor) and then will be off to college soon after! I am so excited to get out of here! To not have to follow your rules! UGH! Can I have the car keys?” Harry Chapin was so right on, "See ya later, can I have them please?"
5. Their feelings of nervousness and anxiety are released in bursts. I had some variation of this conversation at least 10 times in the last month, Me: "How are you feeling about leaving? Do you want to talk about it?" Her: “No, I am great, fine, excited. Can you stop asking me?" However, the 11^th time, the response is something like this: “How do you think I am feeling?! I am super anxious! I have to say goodbye to all of my friends and my boyfriend, I have to get all my dorm stuff and I didn’t get into the dorm that I wanted so I don’t even know where I am living or who my roommate will be.

And what if:

I can’t stand my roommate;

I don’t make friends right away;

I can’t find my way to all my classes;

There aren’t yoga classes offered at the campus gym;

I don’t like the dorm food;

I can’t find fresh fruit to make my smoothies;

I don’t get into all the classes I want;

I don’t get into the sorority I want?

I’m super overwhelmed and I’m freaking out!  But I have to be at a grad party in 15 minutes! Bye!”

As I commiserate with other moms of my daughter's friends about this pivotal time, there is a consensus that most of our daughters are a bit unglued right now, and the push-pull cycle is in full swing—with a heavy emphasis on the push. They are breaking away and it is not pretty.  A friend of mine who has four daughters (her youngest is a recent grad) revealed, “You will have times during this process when you will say under your breath, ‘Yep, you’re leaving soon. Well, don’t let the door hit you in the a**!'”

I admit it. I have felt it. But then 20 minutes later, I come across an old picture that she drew for me when she was five, and I realize that she can do all the tantrumming and breaking up with me that she wants, but she will always be my girl.