Eating That Elephant

One of the biggest concepts I’ve been pondering on lately  is the idea that children are great just as they are, and how to integrate this idea with helping them grow at the same time.

Some of us went to a talk by Jonathan Mooney recently (a fabulous speaker) and he emphasized how normal is an illusion based on a “norm” that often doesn’t make sense, and how children should be celebrated for who they are rather than pushed to be otherwise. It very much hit home for me. So what if my 5th grader is not ready to stay overnight at a camp? It doesn’t mean he won’t be able to when he is ready. Heck, this speaker stretched my understanding even further. As parents we often console ourselves with the thought that “well, he won’t be needing this by the time he goes off to college”. That argument, I find, is starting to get a little stretched as the teen years loom. But as Mooney points out, we don’t all have to be good at everything. His mother helped him spell check his papers in college and now his wife spell-checks his books (as he is dyslexic). Even as a Honors graduate in English Lit from an Ivy League school, he doesn’t really need to know how to spell.

But I especially find this concept difficult with a child that struggles with a lot of anxiety and depression. I don’t think accepting him for who he is means watching him suffer, yet how can you help a child through this without sending the message that something needs fixing, something is broken? And what if the child *says* something needs fixing? “You are great just as you are” only goes so far when one is never invited to birthday parties and one’s best friend goes to them almost weekly.

Perhaps there is no clear answer on this – perhaps it is just one of those lines that requires constant balance.