It's the Shoulds that Kill You

I woke up early and planned to get some good work time in this morning. But then Dominyk got up early and decided that he wasn't going to do anything that I said he had to do. Speed ahead one hour and I'm just now sitting down to the computer.

I keep thinking to myself, "at eleven, a kid should be able to get ready for summer school without constant supervision.

But it's the shoulds that kill you. Karen Horney, a psychologist, dubbed the name "The Tyranny of the Should" in regards to regret and looking back thinking "i should have ..."

But as adoptive parents, we can also be controlled by the "tyranny of the should" in respect to either our parenting or our children. It can be in the sense of regret, "I should have done things differently -- maybe then they would have turned out OK" or in the sense of the behavior of our children everyday "They should be able to get this, they should be more mature, they should be more respectful." And of course there are a whole list of the "shouldn'ts."

But it isn't about the way it should be. It has to be about the way it is. And we have to be able to accept things as we have them and find unique and creative ways to live with the way things are.

And we have to come to a point that it is going to be OK if things don't change. It's one thing to say, "I accept this child the way he is right now.... until I figure out how to change him, or until she figures things out, or until I reach them and they get better." But actually getting to the place where we can say, "if this child stays just like this forever, I am going to be OK" should be the goal.

Because only then can we be at peace.