Lucy is in seventh grade and has been failing in school.\u00a0 Recently she brought home a poor report card that she didn’t want to show her parents. So she kept it in her room in a drawer. Not until the school contacted the parents, did the parents discover that their daughter was doing poorly in school.<\/p>\n
Lucy has an older brother, Jimmy,\u00a0who does his school work, but is only an average student.\u00a0 The parents are not too concerned about him.\u00a0 They really don’t expect him to do well in school.\u00a0 “He’s doing the best he can,” said his father.\u00a0 Marie, the mother, doesn’t expect any more than what Jimmy is now\u00a0doing.<\/p>\n
After attending several counseling sessions, it was discovered that Lucy’s mother Marie had high expectations for herself.\u00a0 Even though she had a good career in the business world, she was really not satisfied with her achievements.\u00a0 She wanted more, but now, doesn’t feel that she will get any further than she is.\u00a0 Semi-consciously, she transferred her frustrations to Lucy.\u00a0 She expects a lot from Lucy but it never was enough. Consequently, Marie’s relationship with Lucy was non-emotional. Her love for her daughter was not expressed–but only her expectations, which was only her dissatisfaction with herself.\u00a0 The father, Joe, usually always acquiesced and let Marie handle any problems with Lucy.\u00a0 But he had a satisfying connection with Jimmy.<\/p>\n
All the while, Lucy was reluctant to respond to her mother.\u00a0 She showed little interest in her mother’s expectations of her.\u00a0 So she didn’t make any effort in school.\u00a0 Her grades continued to plummet.\u00a0 She wasn’t doing well, but she had no desire to do better.\u00a0 She was an average student.\u00a0 But Marie couldn’t accept it.\u00a0 She wanted Lucy to excel, where she couldn’t.\u00a0 She saw herself as not accomplishing all of the things she wanted to do.\u00a0 She was hoping that perhaps Lucy could make up for her own shortcomings.\u00a0 So Marie continued to put pressure on her daughter, but Lucy just ignored her mother.\u00a0 It was an unhealthy pattern between mother and daughter.<\/p>\n
After a few more months of counseling, Marie had a better understanding of herself and the need to change her relationship with Lucy.\u00a0 She decided not to pressure Lucy anymore.\u00a0 She started to find other ways to relate to her daughter.\u00a0 She also worked at expressing love and affection for Lucy.\u00a0 It was not easy to change the way she relates to her daughter, but she forced herself to be more responsive and quit pressuring her to be like her.\u00a0 If\u00a0 Marie continues to have a better relationship with her daughter, Lucy will feel free to be herself–which she will need to do\u00a0when she becomes a teenager.<\/p>\n
It is not always easy to change the way you relate to your child, but if you discern your own parenting behaviors, you may discover hidden emotions and feelings that may be at the ‘root’ of the problems.\u00a0 In Marie’s case it was her own deep feelings of failure and lack of accomplishment in her career. Talking and working on the problem can resolve the problem–and the child will reap the benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lucy is in seventh grade and has been failing in school.\u00a0 Recently she brought home a poor report card that she didn’t want to show her parents. So she kept it in her room in a drawer. Not until the school contacted the parents, did the parents discover that their daughter was doing poorly in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthy-lifestyle","category-parent-and-child"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}