I remember standing in a store when my daughter was a toddler, smiling at t-shirts that said “girl power” and “throw like a girl.” With only one child at the time, a daughter, I didn’t give it a second thought.
A few years later, I found myself in that same store with my son too. And I noticed something I hadn’t before, that there was nothing like that for him. No shirts, no slogans,and no celebration of boys. That small observation prompted a question I’ve been sitting with ever since.
When your teen’s “Lasts” hit hard
Standing on the sidelines cheering my daughter at her soccer game yesterday, it hit me. This is probably her last year of playing for this team. And with that realization I started to think about the year ahead.
Today, my daughter asked me what my New Year’s resolution was. I told her I would like to be calmer and truth be told this was a resolution that I made several times last year. In 2017 I was trying to be calmer, or to put it another way, clinically-manage my frustration tolerance better. I improved but not as much as I wanted to. I think the reason for my failure was that I hadn’t fully embraced why I lose my cool.I hadn’t fully accepted that I use frustration to avoid being direct.
