“She’s really shy,” you find yourself saying. “She’s afraid to go and play with the other kids. When we go to the playground she’s anxious about leaving me.”
She’s three. And you just want to support her. And, if pressed to explain what you mean by “support”, you might say: you just want her to be happy. You just want her to not struggle. You want her to have friends, have joy, feel fulfilled, feel meaning. Of course you do. We all want this for our children.
Maybe your fear is rooted in your own childhood. Maybe you remember: being on the outside looking in, feeling like an alien among humans, like you were fundamentally missing something everybody else had. You don’t want these things for her. What if she’s going down that same path?
Maybe your fear is rooted in your own childhood. Maybe you remember: thriving at the heart of a crowd, friendship with everybody on the street or in your class, easy laughter and easy bonding. You do want these things for her. What if she’s missing out on your path?
You worry. You don’t want to change her, but…you want things to be different…to change?
You find a magic window. Through it you can see her thirty years in the future.
You see her. She gets a job offer and considers it. She researches diligently before accepting it. It doesn’t feel like the right thing; she says no. When the right thing comes along, she’s ready to say yes.
You see her. She has a tight-knit group of friends. They would all go to the ends of the earth for one another. They fit together like they were made for each other.
You see her. She starts to watch videos of people doing a hobby she thinks is intriguing. For awhile she lives vicariously through them. Eventually she finds a local group and learns how. Then she incorporates it into her own life. It brings her joy.
The window closes.
With your three year old at the playground, you notice how she watches the other children move around.|
You stop telling yourself the story in your head, “she’s anxious.”
You start telling yourself, “she’s watching.”
You notice how she listens to the other kids’ conversations.
You stop telling yourself the story in your head, “she’s afraid.”
You start telling yourself, “she’s observing.”
With your three year old in your arms and her thirty-year-old self in your mind, you decide to trust her. You decide to let her be an observer, “slow to warm”, a deep thinker, a feeler, watchful and considerate. You draw a line between who she will someday be and the little immature seedlings of that, already growing in who she is now.
You decide to trust her.
And look who she becomes. 