Changing Your Mind About Your Child

As parents or caregivers of children with special needs we can easily get hooked into thinking we have to totally protect our children from a world that does not appreciate them. We often find ourselves on a spiritual path to try and understand why these children are in our lives. Many of us realize that healing comes from within ourselves. But as we become more spiritually aware we begin to think we have all the answers or at least the knowledge of the many paths and methods for spiritual healing. Sometimes we use this knowledge, with all good intentions, to help the people in our lives, specifically our child with special needs or any struggling child. Instead of helping because we feel we know best, it often becomes subtle attempts to control.

We rebel against those who view our children as defective and then attempt to fix them. Be careful that our own spiritual attempts to help our children do not fall also into the category of “fixing” them. We forget our children have their own path to follow. We can not control their behavior, we can only guide. There is a subtle difference between efforts to get our children to benefit from our wisdom gained through our experience and providing guidance. We want to short circuit our children’s struggles, because after all, they are already struggling enough. However when we do this, we deny their own life’s path, their own lessons, their own spiritual memories.

Backing off and allowing our children’s own experience and the Holy Spirit to work though them can seem an impossible task if our child is engaging in what we perceive as self destructive behavior. The more you push the more the child pushes back or stays rigid in his or her path. The most difficult lessons for a parent or caregiver are to let go in the face of self destructive behavior. This is not to say that certain behavior is not tolerated and there are consequences. This is also not to say you do not state your opinion and model your beliefs. But you can not force a child to share your spiritual wisdom or learn what you have learned. The old saying holds true, you can lead a horse to water but you can not make him drink. Constantly saying I know best, this is what you should do, will only result in resistance. State your case and beliefs and then let it go and give it over to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in every one of us including our children.

We can not even begin to know the Mother/Father God’s plan for our children. We do not know what lessons of forgiveness are for them. I do believe our one overall spiritual lesson is forgiveness. We have a lot to forgive those who see our children as broken and in need of fixing. And our children who have been labeled have a lot to forgive those who want to fix them. There is much healing that occurs; as we heal ourselves we heal the whole including our children. It does not come from insisting they adopt our spiritual beliefs. It comes from our own forgiveness and healing.

You can not change your child; you can only change your mind about your child. Remember your relationship with your child is holy ground.