“You can focus on things that are barriers or you can focus on scaling the wall or redefining the problem.”
Tim Cook
Focus. Focus. Focus.
Focus is a tricky thing for me. One of our kids was diagnosed with ADD, and I remember my wife’s first response “Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”!
Focus is not inherently good or bad, it’s a matter of what we are focused on. Are we single focused and cannot see anything else? Is it taking all our attention? Have we lost focus? Have we considered what it is that we are hoping to gain as a result of our focusing?
Did my focus on my kids help them? Sometimes? Absolutely! That is part of our job as parents. Did my focus on my kid’s ADD help him? I could guess, but I have direct access to the source, so I called him and asked!
That question led to a longer conversation (for another blog) but his first response was “That’s an interesting question because yes and no.” My focus was well intentioned. We wanted to get him support and he received that. It also placed a lot of focus on him and this “problem”.
Often, when we are parenting, we do this hovering thing. There’s an entire generation of parents who have been labeled “helicopter parents”. I would say that maybe all parents have done this at some point, it’s more a question of how often. When our kids are young, we may stay close by as they have their “firsts” so we can support them if needed. Kids take their first step; we pay attention and we also let them fall and get back up. We focus on success, reality, not our fear of failure.
As they age parental focus changes. We get farther but still pay attention. As they grow up it can be harder to understand what reality is! The chopper gets bigger, parents circle from higher up. Sometimes they just monitor the flow of traffic and head home. Other times we parents are like cops in LA, we ‘ve got endless fuel and that searchlight is full focus. Running after them and chasing them down often feels like the best way to keep them safe, but often their reaction is to run further from our focus.
Focus and attention are different. When I focus on my task at hand, I feel productive and successful! I wanted my child to feel successful. Nothing wrong with that. However, it became less and less helpful to focus on his task at hand. We were focusing so much on making him feel successful by managing his ADD that we forgot to pay attention to the rest of that singularly fabulous individual human.
Have you ever had that experience-you’re doing something and someone else starts watching, and it makes you feel nervous-afraid that you’re going to make a mistake or do it wrong? Eventually we stepped back to consider the larger view before taking the next step.
HOW to best focus your attention as your children transition to adulthood?
Here are a few suggestions.
- FOCUS on ME: Our energy. Modeling self care and self awareness is one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids during these years, and it can feel counterintuitive and hard! FaceOthersCompassionatelyUsingSensing MyEnergy.
- Stay on your tasks, let others focus on theirs. State changes in your role and expectations.
Don’t offer to pick them up and drive them somewhere unless they ask, we are teaching them how to be independent and not reliant upon us. Focus on our role, let them focus on theirs
- Ask questions, but without the spotlight.
General generic questions like, what YouTube channels are they watching or artists are they listening to. Be open, even if it makes you want to run and put them in a cage in the basement! They’re growing up. You might as well let them because they are going to anyhow!
- Soften your gaze.
Our older child and I have a lovely not-planned tradition of taking an annual mini driving vacation. Last year we signed up for a walking meditation in a redwood forest. I don’t think I’ve ever moved more slowly! What I learned is this- when you soften your gaze you see more, you can see a caterpillar moving on the ground to your right even though you’re looking straight ahead.
With our younger child when my gaze was less focused I saw that I was concerned, that my child was no longer small and I could not scoop them up and out of danger.
Focusing on the problem was not a solution. This softening allowed me to see my child more fully and consider what very slow step we parents wanted to take next and in which direction, careful not to step and squash anyone or anything.
- Trust that you are a good parent. Truly.
We all make mistakes, but when parents rack their brains trying to figure out what they did to cause their child to make the choices that they are making, they’ve lost sight of the whole picture. Our children’s job is not to take care of us by proving themselves worthy. They are all worthy of love eh?
