My mom made a comment about how interesting it was to hear such different perspectives on events people experience together. I had been talking about handling something with my kids which was a similar situation to something she had gone through with me. She's made this comment before, but it just occurred to me today how it fits in with where I am now with my own kids. As a parent I think we can step outside our own individual view and look at things with in own parental view as well as our own “I was a kid once too” view and gain some new insight to grow happier families.
I can see how some things now make sense that my mom tried to teach me growing up. However there are other things I can see but still remember my own teen perspective and now I realize where the two views weren't working together. I think having this view now, gives me the unique opportunity to build a better relationship with my own kids. We can't possibly perceive our kid's perspectives in their entirety, because we aren't them. On the other hand, we can realize that the way our kids communicate their ideas compared to our own communication direction might be our biggest disagreement. Understanding this concept might prevent a lot of arguments.
Kids don't have the same experiences or understandings or comprehension of things that we do as adults. How they relate to things is different than ours but not just because they are different people – because they are kids. Their experiences are limited, their knowledge is new, they're ability to think beyond themselves and their own world is much smaller than ours. Think of you and your kids speaking two variations of English. We each have our understandings of the language, but we don't necessarily know what the other is saying, as they are meaning to say it.
We are doing to have differences and we might even argue. Hopefully we'll work things out and come to a better understanding and maybe even respect for the differing views. Most the time I think we come out learning a little more about the other person, their view and their focus on things in life. We don't have to agree on it all, we just have to work together.
