By Teddi:
When I arrived to pick my daughter up from preschool on Monday, her teacher stopped me on the way in the door and said “Shara has something to show you on the playground”
I went and tapped Shara on the shoulder (they’re supposed to sit in their seat until their parent taps them) and she jumped up and said "Mommy I have something to show you on the playground."
So we walked out and she ran to one of the tricycles, sat on it, and struggled to move. She stood up, sat down again and pushed hard on the peddles..and started moving. She pedaled for maybe 5 strokes, and jumped off excited.
You see the thing about this story is that we have a bike for her at home, it’s one of those balance bikes, and she rarely rides it. My husband and I were trying to teach her the cool new thing of learning to ride a bike without training wheels. Okay, I was pushing for that, my husband is more chill than I am. But what I missed is that she hasn’t ever really been a daredevil when it comes to physical challenges (although she is starting to grow more here). But we didn’t meet her where she was. I had my own thoughts about what it should be and instead of letting her drive us to what works for her, I almost missed out on her being active in general. I know she’s been working on riding the tricycle at school, she’s been working on it for a while. All the other kids race around her and she has just been struggling along. But she’s kept at it. So at least we must be teaching her that.
This moment brought me a lot. It brought me the realization that I need to stop trying so hard to make things perfect, because maybe its actually hurting her. It reminded me that she’s going to have her own hopes and aspirations, and our job is to raise her up to those, not to create or push our own agenda.
Request: What are other ways we can encourage her to find her own agenda instead of ours?