Motivation

I haven't experienced a lot of new things specific to my role as the stay at home parent lately, or at least it seems that way. But as the kids have gotten a little older, I'm now learning on the job again.

The Tornado is playing baseball, and as you can tell by the picture, his focus is sporadic. That's fine, he's 6, and maybe baseball isn't his thing, who knows, maybe it is, just not yet. I just want him to have fun.

The girls are a little older, and seem to enjoy playing basketball. O is a worker, she'll do what you tell her. But, she always leaves something in the tank. She never really goes full throttle, for whatever reason.Don't know if she's scared of getting hurt, or if it's something else. But she holds herself back - and it seems like that's true in other areas of her life. She has great enthusiasm for things, but almost sabotages herself at times. How do you get someone to go to the wall every time she competes in something?

The Bear is totally different. Her intensity and level of determination, I can't imagine many 10/11 years olds equalling her in this regard. Or people of any age for that matter. When she puts her mind to something, she is singularly focused, and almost always reaches her goal. But, like me, if she can't see the goal, she just can't get the engines going at all. So how do show her the it's the little steps along the way that gets you to the top of the mountain? Is she too young to be able to see that? Is she not as interested as she says she is in this particular mountain?

At the moment, I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I don't know where the line of pushing versus letting them go their own way is. I said to the CEO tonight, it seems like I've been trying to straddle that line - and that they right way to do it is to be on one side of the line or the other. Either drive them to greatness, and hope it works out, or let them get there themselves. After thinking and talking it through in my mind, I guess I'm leaning towards letting them get there themselves.

I went to bed last night and while thinking, realized something that is at the heart of what's bothering me about this I think. When the girls were younger, like the Tornado still is, they always asked me questions. How to do this, what does that mean, where is such and such. O still looks for advice, she still seeks approval. But the Bear really doesn't, at least not vocally. She wants me to watch every move she makes, but she's just so independent. She's always been that way, but her youth still required her to ask for input. Now that she's almost 11, she seems to have decided she needs my input less. That's very hard for me. She wants me to be interested, but not contribute, or at least that's how it feels, and that's difficult and confusing, seeing how I've been there contributing for so many years. I want her to be strong and independent, that will obviously serve her well as she gets older. But I still want her to need her Dad. It's scary thinking that she's already getting to the point where she thinks she doesn't.

I guess I'll keep learning how to deal with these things as we go.