May 18, 2015
When I had lunch with friends today, we discussed the topic of parenting and molding a child's personalities. Thinking back, my son was innately shy and reticent in social situations. My husband and I are very social and we gave David many opportunities to join, participate, and deal with change. We did everything we could to encourage his growth in this way and watched him blossom by his senior year into a student who had been around the world, comfortable on the ski slope or on a stage. However, once he was on his own, he slowly retreated back into his cocoon, which became more obvious as time went on. In his final years, he suffered from depression and separated himself from the rest of the world. Still, he kept a facade up which covered over the cracks in that armor only when one very looked hard.
The point here is that nurture can only take a child to a certain point. Nature and body chemistry take over from there. Today's, more than ever, demands flexiblility, making commitments to change, willingness to make opportunities where none seem to exist. There is no "no." We have to find a way to turn a "no" into "yes." In the end, we have to be able to say that we lived every day, doing the best we could to guide and mold.
When I had lunch with friends today, we discussed the topic of parenting and molding a child's personalities. Thinking back, my son was innately shy and reticent in social situations. My husband and I are very social and we gave David many opportunities to join, participate, and deal with change. We did everything we could to encourage his growth in this way and watched him blossom by his senior year into a student who had been around the world, comfortable on the ski slope or on a stage. However, once he was on his own, he slowly retreated back into his cocoon, which became more obvious as time went on. In his final years, he suffered from depression and separated himself from the rest of the world. Still, he kept a facade up which covered over the cracks in that armor only when one very looked hard.
The point here is that nurture can only take a child to a certain point. Nature and body chemistry take over from there. Today's, more than ever, demands flexiblility, making commitments to change, willingness to make opportunities where none seem to exist. There is no "no." We have to find a way to turn a "no" into "yes." In the end, we have to be able to say that we lived every day, doing the best we could to guide and mold.
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