Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Tilted Parents: Identity Issues Pertaining to Outside Approval

filtherton · 08-11-2009, 09:37 PM

I think it's a crapshoot. Different kids respond to different things. For my kid, those days are still a ways off. Though I can speak about my adolescence.

I was lucky in that most of my friends were awesome (though they all sucked in their own particular ways) and also that I had parents and other role models who were able to instill in me the concept of emotional intelligence. Not that I was emotionally intelligent. I just knew that such a thing existed and its existence was proof that emotions could be understood, instead of just felt or avoided.

In an indirect way, I probably owe my continued existence to a higher power, or at least the fact that I used to believe in one. My father is a pastor and when I was a kid, I was a true believer. As I got older, I became less and less of a believer (this is one of the perils of keeping the faithful interested in a religion without hell- you won't go to hell for growing apathetic) and as my belief in a higher power gave way to indifference, the feeling I used to get when I felt I was communicating with god turned into the feeling I got when I felt I was communicating with myself. This in turn was pretty useful in that whenever I felt lost and/or despondent I could just find this part of myself and let it tell me what to do.

I do feel like sending a kid to junior high school through high school is like throwing them to the dogs, except that they're one of the dogs too. I know I've spent all of my adult life trying to unlearn all of the bad emotional habits I've picked up along the way and I think I can safely say that I picked most of them up between the time when the first ball-hair sprouted and when I walked across the stage in my high school graduation ceremony.

I know some folks think that the high school years are the best years of life. I'm going to tell my daughter that the best years of her life will probably begin the moment she realizes that everyone in high school is just as lost as she is/was and that none of it really matters all that much once she crosses that stage.

08-11-2009, 09:37 PM	#2 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	I think it's a crapshoot. Different kids respond to different things. For my kid, those days are still a ways off. Though I can speak about my adolescence. I was lucky in that most of my friends were awesome (though they all sucked in their own particular ways) and also that I had parents and other role models who were able to instill in me the concept of emotional intelligence. Not that I was emotionally intelligent. I just knew that such a thing existed and its existence was proof that emotions could be understood, instead of just felt or avoided. In an indirect way, I probably owe my continued existence to a higher power, or at least the fact that I used to believe in one. My father is a pastor and when I was a kid, I was a true believer. As I got older, I became less and less of a believer (this is one of the perils of keeping the faithful interested in a religion without hell- you won't go to hell for growing apathetic) and as my belief in a higher power gave way to indifference, the feeling I used to get when I felt I was communicating with god turned into the feeling I got when I felt I was communicating with myself. This in turn was pretty useful in that whenever I felt lost and/or despondent I could just find this part of myself and let it tell me what to do. I do feel like sending a kid to junior high school through high school is like throwing them to the dogs, except that they're one of the dogs too. I know I've spent all of my adult life trying to unlearn all of the bad emotional habits I've picked up along the way and I think I can safely say that I picked most of them up between the time when the first ball-hair sprouted and when I walked across the stage in my high school graduation ceremony. I know some folks think that the high school years are the best years of life. I'm going to tell my daughter that the best years of her life will probably begin the moment she realizes that everyone in high school is just as lost as she is/was and that none of it really matters all that much once she crosses that stage.