Today I picked up my usual bi-weekly parent’s packet of information. It had the typical newsletters and announcements from my daughter’s school, but there was another surprise in there. It had some letter writing exercises done by my daughter.
I looked at the work and saw that she was writing her letters very very well. The repetition and copying of the letters was very consistent and looked great.
As a parent, I felt a wave of pride go through me. And I shared it with her. I could not stop telling my daughter how proud I was to see her doing her letters so well, and that she was learning and growing and that I was so happy to see that.
It also made me think about praise and acknowledging others’ accomplishments.
It got me thinking about how sometimes we don’t get any praise or support for all the things we do, and some of these things are important to us in little and big ways.
Sometimes we do things that are important to others. Then we get our thanks (sometimes or never) for the things we did.
Sometimes we do things that are only important to ourselves. In some cases, we get praise for these accomplishments when we make it known how important it is to us. Other times, we find that others minimize what we have done no matter how important it is to us. Have we not all had parents who could not see this?
Having experienced all this, and now experiencing the accomplishments of my daughter, I think back to all the instances I did not congratulate someone for a job well-done or acknowledge someone’s goal(s) being reached and I feel ashamed. Ashamed that I did not give them a little bit of praise for what they did, either for me or for themselves. Ashamed that I did not give them even a little bit of support whether they asked for it or not.
But now I realize the value of this praise and support. I want my daughter to grow up knowing that her father values everything that she does, as long as she values it. None of this “my values are her values” crap – is it fair that we force what we value onto someone else? She needs to grow up as an individual knowing that her father supports her in whatever she does and not be constantly fighting and wondering whether her father approves.
Aren’t there other people out there that deserve this bit of ourselves as well? Colleagues? Friends? Children? Girl/boyfriend? Spouse?