Conscious parenting & falling on our butts
My relationship with skateboarding began when I was around five or six. I was waiting outside my neighbor’s door to play and saw a skateboard next to me. I really wanted to stand on it, and so I tried – and fell on my little five-year-old butt.
Although nobody was around, I felt embarrassed. I also felt scared, but like I really wanted to try again.
Like so many of my wants in childhood, I kept this to myself.
And then a few months ago, I walked by a skate shop with my daughter and she asked for a skateboard. She picked out an amazing pink board with purple wheels and started classes not long after. Watching her move through moments of initiative, excitement, fear, daring, play, learning, hesitation, determination, confidence, achievement, and satisfaction has been a healing experience in itself. She has made skating hers, and she is in no rush to do anything other than be as and how she feels when she rides.
Watching this has also made me notice all of the parts of me that are in awe or worried, and don’t know what to do while I watch her be as she simply is. Parts of me that notice that she isn’t focused on skating the whole time, because to her, it's also about stopping to ask her teacher questions like “What's your favorite thing to do in your house?” and stopping again to pick up a leaf she notices on the ground, and find a place to keep it before getting back on her board, and stopping again, and again... Sometimes it is easier than others for me to calm those parts of me, the ones who want to encourage her to stay focused on practicing. In these moments I remember the greatness of the gift I am giving my child, in sitting back and allowing her to know what it means to make her experiences her own.
One of my favorite things to watch is when she, and all the other children taking classes around her, fall down. Granted, I have never seen them actually get hurt, and would not enjoy this! I am talking about when they find their way back up and giggle as they run after the skateboard that is rolling away, or find their balance again on their roller blades. It is not the “jumping right back up” that I want to point out here. It is the enjoyment of the process of returning at their own pace. Of integrating the falls as a part of it all.
A few weeks into it, with all of my inner child curiosity and nervousness, I asked her teacher if he would help me try to stand on her board. It is a small board, harder to balance the taller you are, and it immediately slipped out from under my feet. “Oh shit!” was my automatic response, as I awkwardly grasped his hands. He laughed and I laughed with him, and my daughter joined us. “Don’t worry Mommy, you’ll learn!”
That moment of being nervous, curious, awkward and self-aware, but being met with laughter and encouragement, healed me a little.
A few weeks later, I was taking my first class on a bigger board and had let go of the teacher’s hand. It felt good. And then, I fell on my butt. And it was FUN. I was a part of all of those playful children, all of us falling on our butts. “Are you okay?” With no shame, and instead a satisfied sense of accomplishment for having fallen, I scrambled my way back up like a little kid and said “Yes, it was actually fun.”
I fall on my butt all of the time in this parenting game. Reading Brené Brown as I crisised through the early months of my daughter’s life, taught me that sometimes when life knocks you down, you just need to stay on the ground before jumping right back up in the automatic, conditioned ways you are used to. The good stuff happens when we lean into the ass-kickings.
And sometimes, after many an intense ass-kicking and leaning-in, we have peeled back enough layers to give voice to the most precious, childlike and curious parts of us, and we feel brave enough to get out there and truly play.
Many times in parenting, I still feel blindsighted and the ass-kicking takes me by surprise. And the longer I have played the game with intention and devotion, the more skills I bring to these moments of struggle. The more easily I know when the act of getting back up will require lying on my back and staying down for a minute. Sometimes I will need to ask for some help, or some caring from another, or have to bring love and mending to any hurts that happened along the way. And also, I can now more easily and more often detect, because I increasingly experience, the moments where the getting back up is accompanied by giggles, by an ability to see myself and laugh a little, to see the role of lightness and humor in my healing journey.
Wherever you are at with your conscious parenting journey, remember that the falling on our butts is a part of it. The way we get back up is how we heal, how we free ourselves, how we give ourselves grace and encouragement, how we model honest resiliency for our children, and how we step further into being the leaders that they need.
Healing parents, take it slow, and keep it honest. You’ve got this. And I’ve got you.