​Spring has sprung with bursts of new growth, colour and energy.  This is a time when the sun is above us and the length of night and day is almost equal (vernal equinox).  The long winter shadows of this year’s lockdown are shifting, and the sun is rising earlier.   There is a slow awakening from the winter slumber.   

Many of us have associated spring cleaning with this time of year.  I am not usually a spring cleaner.  However, during this lockdown winter, I have noticed the clutter and stuff that needs to be sorted.  Spring cleaning became a tradition after winter to clear the dust from fires and oil lamps which were used for heating and lighting.  Spring welcomed warmer weather so doors and windows could be opened for the removal of ash and dust.  This coincided in the northern hemisphere with some religious celebrations that included Passover and Easter. 

Spring cleaning is a time for getting rid of gathered clutter, dirt and mess.  For me, this is a slow and tedious process, like any chore, yet I am always glad to live with some order and neatness after the effort of tidying.  I have been thinking about what clutter needs sorting and moving out.  My cupboard has some old, neglected and frayed clothes.  I have even have a pair of old school socks! A spring-cleaned cupboard could make space for some new clothes. Yet some possessions are hard to get rid of.  It is easy to get attached to favourite clothes and possessions as they remind me of places and people.   
    
I have also been wondering about the clutter that we store up in our hearts and minds. I have some dusty memories of my military green school uniform with tie, white panama hat and school panties.  I am wondering whether we all tend towards hoarding our past stories, grudges against others, hurts, joys, achievements, disappointments and failures.  I am also wondering how keeping our stories and inner stuff clutters our internal home while letting go may open room for new beginnings.  It seems there may be a need for a seasonal chore of letting go to make space for the new.  This could be a lesson from nature waiting for us, like a patient winter.
 
It is not just our inner and outer storage spaces that gather up stuff. Our communities are gathering up loads of plastic that are choking the environment.  Our behaviour towards our natural world is having an effect.   What would it mean if we each had to do a little bit of community spring cleaning, if we each picked up a piece of rubbish or even better did not throw our litter on the streets?  There are some wonderful examples not only of spring cleaning our communities but also of giving to our environment.  My neighbour is a good example; with her team, she has already planted over 150 trees in one small area and has plans for more.  There are already more birds and insects around the trees within the short period of time since the first planting. 

Here are some tips for spring cleaning:

• Notice what is stored up.   Be thankful for the many treasures amongst your stuff.
• Notice what is no longer needed.  Give it a name and decide if the time is good to let it go.
• Be kind to yourself during the process of sorting the clutter. 
• Find support from friends and family if help is needed
• Focus on the things that renew your energy
• Remind yourself that this too is just a season, a moment in time.  

Let us make space for the joy of spring and new life.
Let us make space for life-giving moments.  

​Words trigger experiences and memories in all of us.  The words we use often hold a range of meanings for others and ourselves.    I am grateful to Salisha for sharing so courageously her story about a word that triggered memories from the past.  This is Salisha’s story in her own words.   
   
I am very grateful that my two children have each other and play well together, especially in this lockdown period. Their bond has been strengthened and the play dynamic between them has been highlighted.  On a Thursday afternoon, my two boys were playing with LEGO, inventing new creations and comparing ideas. “That’s my block” yelled my 5 year old to his 3 year old brother, “give it back right now…you….you… you coconut”. As that word exploded out of my son’s mouth I felt a knot in my stomach. I had heard him use that word before, as well as other fruit and vegetables in the usual sibling spats. Name calling seems to be a way in which my children discharge strong feelings. Punches are substituted with words. This time it did not sit right with me. I could not simply overlook him calling his brother a coconut when that word had such a surreptitious meaning. My son was not aware in the least of the double meaning of the word coconut, but did it make it okay to use it? Why did this name calling incident touch such a sore nerve for me?

As a person of colour I have very distinct memories of being called a “coconut”. It wasn’t because I had taken my brother’s toy. It was because I became too “white”. Growing up, whiteness was the standard to shoot towards. Having fair skin, light eyes, a good English accent, eating with a knife and fork as opposed to your hands - these were things to strive for. The more you looked and sounded white, the more doors would possibly open up for you. In a very unconscious way, the longing to belong to the group that seemed to have all the power meant a compromise of my own heritage but at the time, it was a very necessary survival strategy. Apartheid ended, when I was 10 years old, and over the next few years the tide changed, tempers raged and any person of colour that looked and sounded like me was a “coconut” -  a traitor, a renegade, Judas, abandoning one’s own race or culture. There was a comparison to a coconut that was brown on the outside but white on the inside. It was a time in which many people needed to discharge angry feelings, and I was on the wrong side of the fence once again, like during Apartheid, feeling excluded and shamed for being who I was.

I realised that I needed to explain to my son that he could not use the word coconut and provide a reason.  Later that evening, I tried in the simplest way possible to explain to my son that for people who were brown like us, being called or calling someone a coconut is a really hurtful thing to say to them. I began the conversation explaining that in the old days, people of different skin colours were kept separate, and that in South Africa we were sort of a separate nation, and it hurt people to live apart. I went on to say that as times changed, people of all different types of skin colours were allowed to live and be together and that is why we are the Rainbow Nation. My son looked at me in astonishment, his eyes widened and he exclaimed “you’re saying I am brown?” My heart sank as I felt he completely missed the point of the conversation, but then I began to wonder what his remark about race actually meant and where it came from.

I realised I had failed my son by avoiding a conversation about race with him.  I wanted my children to grow up with an awareness and appreciation of race and culture and be free of any racial biases.   In that moment I realised that not creating an awareness of race was something that I intentionally did with my children. Perhaps I needed to protect them from attitudes. How do you explain to a 5 year old that people who looked like him and me were discriminated against in such unimaginable ways? Would he begin to see that the world around him is still a remnant of this? I felt that avoiding a conversation about race had inadvertently meant that so much of what I had felt and experienced growing up in Apartheid South Africa had been projected onto him. That was my experience and not his.  

The conversation with my son continues and is open ended. He doesn’t call his brother a coconut anymore, but has switched to calling him Cocomelon – a well-known YouTube channel of young children’s nursery rhymes. How do I start a conversation about general name-calling and social media?
​
As a parent, psychologist and person of colour I have started thinking about, searching for, and researching on ways to guide discussions of race in very young children. I have found a few helpful tips and share them here:

• Let us as parents listen to the stories of others. 
• Let us especially listen to the stories of forgotten and vulnerable people
• Let us listen to the stories of inequality and share them with our children, even if this makes us feel uncomfortable
• Let us allow for conversations about race and inequalities that arise in our daily lives
• Let us be mindful of how we live, the books we choose to read, the friends we make, and the programmes we choose to watch. 
• Let us  teach our children, through our own acts, to show kindness to others, irrespective of their race

 
Our choices may reflect the world that we want our children to experience. 

​Tonight I am announcing lock down for our country, do you hear me, my people?  These were the words that forced us to remain in our homes.  No outdoor exercise, no schooling, only essential services available such as food and health care.  We all grabbed what we thought we needed before the lock down day started - toilet paper, food and booze. We hid in our homes hoping for the virus to pass over  like the plagues of old.  It didn’t, and lock down was graded into 5 stages.
Another announcement “Lock down four”.  We could exercise between 6 and 9 am.  We woke up early on the first morning and rushed outdoors, so excited to be let out of our homes, like restless caged animals.  There was a sigh of relief, we could breathe and see outside.  Counting down, lock down three gave more freedom of work with restrictions of masks, physical distance and hand hygiene.  It has felt more like being locked up than locked down, with the longings for some sort of ‘normal’ life rising up.  This blog is about some of the things I have longed for during this lock down season. 

Lock down has been a very serious time, and this virus, lock down and consequences thereof are no joke.  I have missed the spontaneous laughter from the many interactions and relationships of my life before lock down.  Fortunately I have a dear friend, who laughs from the belly at jokes that aren’t even really funny.  His laugh is so infectious that everyone laughs with him and not at the silly joke.    I phoned him and expressed my longing for laughter.  He asked what I wanted to laugh about and there was really nothing funny, but I said I needed just to laugh.  So he counted down, “Five, four three, two, one, laugh!”  We laughed and laughed, laughing for the sake of laughing.   Nothing was really funny except the joy of finding a friend who knows how to laugh from deep within his soul.  I felt so much better after laughing.  Apparently happy hormones are released when we laugh, and I  am going to believe that. 

I have also missed conversations and interactions with others, particularly strangers. One of my previous blogs was sparked by a spontaneous conversation with a petrol attendant called Blessing. (See https://www.thepreciousyears.co.za/blog/my-name-is-blessing.) I was excited to be let out for an outing to a hardware shop.  I stood in the queue, on the line markers, mask in place, following the rules of physical distance.  At the entrance to the shop, I was met by the gatekeeper security guards and was sprayed with hand sanitizer. Long ago, before lock down, security guards were looking out for criminals, now their focus is on protecting a shop from this small virus.  I then had to pass to the next station, where another security guard aimed her temperature gun at my forehead while I stood motionless but feeling vulnerable and exposed to what my temperature might reveal.  She told me I was okay, my temperature was 33°C.  I looked at her confused as I know that I should not be alive with such a low temperature.  Am I still alive, I asked her?  She frowned and smiled sweetly, and continued to shoot the temperature of the man behind me, who was laughing and saying that I needed a hospital urgently.  I walked down the aisle feeling more alive than ever. 

There have been many longings, for a haircut, coffee chat with friends, walking in nature, shared meals, group meetings and the list goes on.  There is also a deeper longing, though, that this lock down has uncovered, for a better life for all, equal access to health and education, respect for black lives, and real care for vulnerable women and children.  I long for new systems that put kindness towards others as the goal rather than profit, outcomes and income.  I long for a system that values care for each other rather than power hierarchies. 

What would your longings be?  Could our  longings that we make into reality become the dreams we have for our children?  

Let us find the courage to be aware of our longings. 
Let us make choices that live out our deepest longings.
Let us show kindness to others as we listen to their stories. 
Let us be part of making this world a better place for all.       

​Bullies are everywhere. Many of us have experienced their unpleasant games and tactics.  Bullies are seldom invited and make their presence felt when least wanted.   Bullies are astute and choose their targets carefully.  They seem to know the weak spots and how to expose the raw vulnerabilities of a person or group.  We find it hard to talk about bullies just in case our conversation is overheard and unnecessary consequences follow. Our own story about bullying may just be too difficult to discuss. 
 
This novel corona virus, or SARS-Cov-2 virus, feels like a global bully in our midst. It is adaptable and has moved to live in a bat then a pangolin and now in the human body.  The threat is that it will continue to adapt again and again.  The virus is so small that 500 million of them can fit on a pinhead but its power does not lie in its size but rather in its ability to disturb and destroy life. The virus needs a host and can wait, even up to five days on a metal surface, until a human touch finds it.  This virus can spread wildly from one person to another in order to survive and multiply further by making use of a human host and the host’s need to connect with others. 
  
Responding to any threat or danger, such as a bully or the corona virus, is so hard. The consequences of the threat, such as the lock-down or isolation and a dreaded disease or being hurt is a real possibility and fear. There are seldom simple and clear solutions to dealing with any threat or danger.  The first priority is to keep ourselves and others safe as best as we can and for each of us this may mean or require something different.

I thought it may be helpful to understand how we keep ourselves safe and protected when facing any threat or danger, for example from a bully.   Our survival responses of flight, fright or fight are the most common and expected in such situations.    Fighting against a bully with anger, rage and hitting back is often a first response and although the rage releases some of the stress we feel, it seldom removes the problem, and the anger and frustration may stay under the surface, erupting when it all gets too much.  Flight is the need to get away from the situation by either running away, denying or ignoring the reality.  This helps us to avoid the issues in the vain hope that we can escape from the dangers without having to face them.    For some of us, a fright response, seems like we are frozen, stuck and unsure, and the way in which we cope.  It is all too much for us and so overwhelming that we are left standing, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed yet not knowing what to do.  None of these response should  lead to judgement, as they are what they are, simply responses.  We are all different and we each have our own experiences and stories that are behind our coping with a threat. 

The uncertainty and not knowing the consequences of this pandemic may seem to be one of our greatest threats to our (perhaps false) sense of safety and security.  The reality of bullies is that they adapt and change and hardly go away.  They just seem to come back in another form and time.   We do, however, have the freedom to choose a different response to keep ourselves and others safe.   I want to share a few thoughts about surviving this corona-bully-virus by choosing a different response:   

• We can acknowledge and name how we feel
• We can do what is possible to keep ourselves and others safe, for example, washing hands, sneezing into an elbow, wearing a mask and keeping safe physical distance. 
• We can ask for help from family and others when needed.
• We can do the things that gives us pleasure
• We can allow for some gratitude in each day, such as the warm sunshine or rain
• We can be kind and gentle with ourselves when things get tough.
• We can be kind to others when things go wrong.
• We can lighten up with a smile or good laugh. 

We are all in this together.  Our hope for ourselves, others and the world is that it will become a kinder place for everyone.   
 

​To be an advocate as a parent captures the essence of parenting for me.  I am not using the word ‘advocate’ in a legal sense but rather from the original meaning of the word: to give our voice to, to add to or to call to one’s aid (advocare).   Words such as supporter, protector, upholder and champion may be similar words to communicate the same message.

I have been pondering about what this actually means. I have been remembering Yvonne’s story in my book ‘The Precious Years’ (page 218).  This relates to her experience with her son Berend who was born with a condition called Down syndrome. I want to share part of this story with you as it speaks so beautifully of being an advocating parent.

I have learnt to be Berend’s advocate, and to help people into acceptance.  People are not bad, they are just fearful of what they do not know.  Berend has taught me so many lessons in life - how to love without boundaries and preconceptions: noticing all the small things we take for granted; patience I never knew I had.  These are all good things.  

Yvonne speaks so beautifully of what she has learnt from her son.  When we start to listen and understand our children, they begin to teach us.  We can only be the voice for our children when we understand them.  Yvonne is able to voice what she has experienced through living with and knowing her son, learning through Berend ‘how to love without boundaries and preconceptions’.   Wow!  Such pure truth from a child’s perspective to which a sensitive mother has added her voice in a powerful way.  Thank you Yvonne for being an example to all of us.  If you read Yvonne’s whole story you will see that finding a voice after being told about a genetic condition in one’s child has not always been easy, but

“the experience has been invaluable.  I will never be the same again, just better for the many things I have learnt.  Berend has helped me to look at the world differently” 

At this time when we are ‘locked down’ in our homes with our children, we have some choices in the situation, regarding how we protect, support, listen to and therefore relate to our children.   This lock-down could be a gift of time with our children to listen to their perspective which may just be simple truth.   This lock-down could also be a time of great vulnerability for children whose parents choose not to support their needs.  In this time, our actions will reveal our true nature.      

To be honest, I am quite unsettled by a national lock-down, not only in South Africa but in many other countries.  Routines will need to change and this is unsettling.  I am not even sure how to process this all as it feels way too big.  But I do know that it is by listening to ourselves and our children that we begin to hear.   We can only add our voices to the experiences of children when we have truly heard them.  

Let us listen and be kind to our own needs as parents
Let us listen to and try to understand our children
Let us see the world through the experiences of our children
Let us make an extra effort to hear the voices of children who are most vulnerable 
Let us find the courage to be quiet and listen to our children
Let us find and add our voices to all our precious children

Our children need a better world than the present one, a world that is respected and loved; in return the world can heal from climate change and misuse of resources.  Together we can create a world that teaches everyone ‘how to love without boundaries and preconceptions.’   

​I love rest and holidays; it is a time of less pressure and more sleeping, eating, chatting, laughing, playing and just enjoying oneself and life.   I am tempted to stay longer in holiday mode.  But the lure of work is that it also gives one a sense of purpose.  The reality is that we need both rest and work.  ​As we start this year, I thought to write about greeting and welcoming all into 2020.   

      Greet and welcome known stories of 2019 and unfolding ones of 2020
      Greet and welcome achievements and disappointments
      Greet and welcome abilities and struggles
      Greet and welcome losses and gains
      Greet and welcome who we are and yet to be
      For new beginnings are in all things

2020 is a new year and, although I don’t fully understand the gift of new beginnings, it is a new season for starting again and having another chance.  After a rest it is much easier to start again with renewed energy.  This is perhaps why little children need so much sleep during the day, a little recharge before starting again to play and learn.  I wonder if there is a link between when the day sleeps are dropped and general exhaustion and irritability becomes more common.  Is there enough evidence to justify a short daily nap time for all of us, especially parents and carers of young children?  You have guessed, I am looking for reasons for more rest, but I do know that rest and meaningful activities are both important for well-being. 

I love the energy of little children who want to play and practice new skills over and over until they become better at it.  It is not surprising that first words include ‘more’ and ‘again’.  I am not too surprised that this energy fades as expectations for ‘doing it right’ are placed on our children.     
    
As we go forward in 2020, let us have the courage to greet and welcome all of life’s experiences.  This is a time of remembering that it’s okay and actually even good to start something new or do it over again.  I wonder whether, in starting again, or doing something again, we can learn that good can come out of ‘bad’ and that joy and difficulties are not so clearly separated.  But most of all I hope that for each one of us, we can learn that new beginnings are not just at this time of year but can be anytime.  
​
      For new beginnings can be in all things and anytime.  

​Children who feel safe are able to learn and develop more freely.   We know this from research studies and also from our own experiences and observations.  We are able to learn better when we feel safe.   Yet, many children in our communities do not feel safe. Some adults, especially womxn, have expressed their daily experience of not feeling safe.  I have struggled to write this blog after hearing so many stories of people, including children, who do not feel safe. My idealized images of ‘safety’ have been shattered by reality. 

Let us re look at our homes as this should ideally be a safe place.      A home may have different places for different purposes.  Let’s have a look with ‘new eyes’ at each place and how they are used for nourishment, cleaning, rest, fun and learning. 

The kitchen is our central space and perhaps the most commonly used meeting place for our family.  We all need the kitchen place to be refueled with water for thirst, food for hunger and company for sense of belonging to others.   It is also a place where much work is needed to make this happen – providing fuel, preparing food, and washing up afterwards. 

We also have a place for rest and sleep.  Rest and relaxation is an important part of our well-being. A safe home is a place for rest and regaining energy for life.   I have been reminded over the past while that most of us do not get enough sleep, which may have an impact on our well-being and even memory functions.    

We also need a place for becoming clean.  Getting dirty is expected in any day of work and play.  We get messy interacting with others as well.  Hurtful words can dirty our thoughts, and the process of cleaning or letting go of the dirt helps us to be refreshed.  Becoming dirty and washing is a daily process both in body and in mind. 

Some of us may have a place for learning new information and to gain understanding.   We can also learn through fun and playing games.  A lounge or TV area could be a place for family games and chatting etc.  Games often connects family members together, except if there is a bad loser. 

If we see our communities as a big home, there are different places for different purposes. We need safe places to buy food and eat to renew our energies.  We needs safe places to rest and relax, such as the beaches and parks.  We need safe places for recreation and having fun, such as sports fields and cinemas.  We need safe places for nourishment and eating, such as restaurants and taverns.  We need safe places to become clean, such as dams and religious places that symbolise cleansing and healing.  We need safe places to learn new information, such as schools and libraries. 

​Let us each create safety for us to become our best self
Let us each create safe places in our homes for our children to learn and grow
Let us each create safe places in our communities for all children to become their best self. 
Let us remember that all our children are precious and deserve to feel safe in their homes and communities. 
 

Supporting children keeps them rooted, healthy and developing to their best potential.  Giving enough support to the whole child and not just the selected favourite parts could be a way to gaining a fruitful and productive life. 

Nature shows us that different support is needed at different times for different plants.  Support needs change with different seasons and growth patterns.  Each child needs different support at different times.  All children however, need support to grow into their best.  Every seed planted has a potential for growth and produce with different support at different times.

Some plants need complete support to grow and produce fruit, such as grapes, granadillas, and beans.  The grape vine has a fragile skeleton on its own and relies on support from a trellis.  Grapevines fascinate me because at this winter time of the year, they look barren and yet are pruned.  The trellis gives support through the different growing, rest and pruning seasons.  Many children go through very difficult experiences, poor health, neglect and abuse, disabling conditions, mistakes and tough home circumstances.  Each of these may be just another season for a child, but they need to lean on someone during that period.     Let us be brave to give enough support to all our precious children through all the seasons of their lives, the autumn shedding, the winter pruning, the spring flowering and the summer fruiting.      

Tomatoes, eggplant and pepper plants need to be staked for upright growth and to hold the ripened fruit.  Gardeners need to watch out for hungry caterpillars and snails who also enjoy the plants and may affect them negatively.   Observing and listening to our children’s stories and thoughts is deeply supportive.  I always feel so much better when someone has really heard my story.  There does not need to be encouraging words but even a quiet and understanding nod may say enough.  Let us see our children for their endeavours to grow and learn. Let us really listen to our children’s stories without judgement but holding their growth of ideas and experiences. 

Trees take many years to grow into maturity and planting a tree can be a long term investment for the next generation   Trees need stakes that are changed with their growth patterns through the years.  A stake tied too tight and left too long can grow into the stem of the tree and throttle growth later on.  Too much support can stifle growth and the strength of the tree stem which if unsupported could break with the first gust of wind. Our children are a huge investment for our future generations.  Let us give children the support they need, just enough to grow stable and withstand winds of influence but not too much to stifle their growth. 

Some shrubs don’t need a stake for support and are happy to grow and flower while also being blown by the wind, warmed by the sun and showered with the rain that is available.  These plants don’t seem to carry heavy fruit, nor flowers but can just be their carefree selves in the wind.  There are a number of resilient plants that have survived the drought in Cape Town.   Some children are able to survive the toughest circumstances and experiences, which we could call being resilient.     However, I can’t help wondering about these robust children whose potential is lost in the drought of kindness and compassion.  How could these resilient children thrive and not just survive with the support of others?  Would better support lessen the need for belonging to gangs and criminal groups?  Let us give the support that each child needs and want more for our children so that they do not merely survive but thrive.    

We all need enough support.  It is not about the best support, which may be too much or too little, but rather just enough support to thrive.    Enough support may differ according to the character and interests of the child.  Enough support may differ in quantity; some children need more support and others less.  We all need enough support to produce the fruit of our best endeavours.  Let us give enough support to our children for their best growth and development.  Let us notice how support helps us to grow through all the seasonal cycles of life.   

Winter is fast approaching, bringing with it cold nights and the need for blankets to keep us warm.  For some time I have been thinking about blankets and their significance.  I was recently part of a wonderful wedding celebration that brought family and friends together. It reminded me of a traditional culture of giving blankets as a warm gesture of connection to the new family.  Since then I have also had to say goodbye to a dear family friend. There are no words but the comfort of a blanket can bring some relief to this loss.  Could the symbol of blankets connect us to both joy and loss?

Blankets have always been part of my life. While I don’t have a memory of my own baby blanket, I have knitted some for my children.  Blankets are a part of my home, including crocheted square blankets from my mother-in-law and a mismatched blanket pieced together from her left over wool. For me, there is nothing better than to lie under a blanket to watch a movie or take an afternoon nap.  Blankets tucked around sleeping babies are always a peaceful sight.  A baby held firmly by a blanket on a mother’s back also emphasizes a tender moment of union between mother and child.     

Each blanket has its own design and could be woven, knitted or crocheted.  Handmade blankets are special and unique.  Although blankets are different, all are made up of different threads that are connected through a process of knitting or weaving. 

The threads of blankets originate from different sources, like each of us with our unique genetic material.  Wool goes through a special process, including sheep rearing, shearing, spinning and carding.  Other fibres, such as cotton, bamboo and synthetic ones, have their own processes to become threads.  I am amazed that in a family with the same parents, each child not only looks different but also behaves differently, probably as a result of their own unique experience of family life.  We all have different origins and experiences, stories and processes. It does not mean that one thread or person is better or worse than the other.  Each of us in this world of nearly 7 billion people is unique and different.   Is it be possible to nurture children in a way that they value differences in another’s origins, experiences and stories?   If only we could accept that no thread in a blanket or genetic origin and experiences in a person is better or worse than any other, just different, we could create a community of contented children. 

A single thread does not make a blanket but there must be many threads woven together.  In fact, a single thread can easily break but a group of threads is much stronger.  So it is with people who come together; they become stronger.  This can be seen in families who are supportive of each other; their togetherness helps them to be stronger, especially during tough times.  The same is true for communities. Threads, like people need to be connected with each other to form a blanket or group as in a family and community.   As humans we need to be connected.   

I am always amazed that when groups of people meet, they mostly find connections with each other, whether it be a mutual friend or relative, shared journey or experience.   I recently became aware of the idea that the solution to any addiction is not just sobriety but, more so, connection with others.  Our children so need connection, to know that they are appreciated and valued.  In this age of technical connectivity, we all need to make active choices for our wellbeing relating to how we connect with others and especially our children. 

At this time of the year when we need warmth from the cold, let us use our blankets as a physical reminder of the value of each person’s unique differences and experiences.  Let us also be open to connect with others as in this way we become stronger.  Let our relationships with others become a source of warmth.

Sometimes I wonder if developmental milestones should be called developmental millstones as this topic causes so much anxiety for parents.  I want to thank Nielen, a first-time mother, for sharing her story.   She writes:  

It feels like the first words I heard after meeting my baby daughter was “watch out for those milestones”. Yes, it’s probably a slight exaggeration, but it’s definitely the phrase I remember hearing most when she was younger.

Many parents feel overwhelmed by the thought that their precious child may not reach their developmental milestones.   The idea of milestones has been around for ages. The milestone story comes from long ago when stones were placed along a road to mark a mile as a simple way of measuring.  Developmental milestones have been worked out as average markers for a child’s development broken down into areas that can be easily measured, such as sitting, walking and how many words are spoken at what age.  Other milestones, for example empathy, kindness and sharing with others are more difficult to measure, and are therefore ignored even though they may be as important for life.

An uncertain journey
Many children reach developmental milestones naturally, with ease and subsequent joy.   Each milestone reached by the child is celebrated as if it is the parent’s own achievement.  Yet this can also be an uncertain journey of hopes and dreams as there is no real knowing the future, as Nielen explains here:

Every first-time mother (and often father) I’ve ever met is hyper-aware of her child’s milestones. Discussion boards and parenting groups are rife with questions like ‘is it normal for your child to not walk by 13 months?’ The power of Google has opened rabbit holes of anxiety surrounding every small issue.
My daughter, our first child, was born at 30 weeks, 10 weeks prematurely. She spent almost seven weeks in the neonatal ICU (NICU). Other first-time mothers were lovingly posting pictures of their children at 3 weeks, all swaddled up at home. I was trying to take pictures where it wouldn’t look like she was in an incubator.

Being a ‘good’ parent
As parents we tend to measure our own parental ‘goodness’ through our children’s achievements and reaching their developmental milestones. We all do this as there is no easy way to know how to measure being a good parent.  We allow fear of not being good enough to guide us rather than love itself.    Yet, we know through research that children who feel loved and secure explore more and are therefore more able to learn.   

I wasted a lot of my daughter’s first few months of life by being petrified. I was scared of her getting hurt in that NICU, but to be honest, I think I was more petrified of what was waiting for me when I should leave. I wasn’t certain I would be a good parent in the first place, much less with a child who wouldn’t follow the ‘normal’ route.

We so easily waste energy dwelling on and living out our fears that our children will reach their milestones, rather than investing time into how best to support a child through the tough and good parts of life.   It may be paradoxical but children are more likely to reach their milestones if they feel supported. 

Focusing on end goals
The celebration of reaching a developmental milestone may make it seem as if children just stand up one day and walk.   This focus on the end goal may cause parents to forget the many times children fall and get up again to learn another step.  It is apparently ‘normal’ to fall a thousand times or more before achieving the walking milestone.   Each fall may demand much more love and support than the final achievement of walking.    For in this a child learns that a journey of both the ups and downs are important to loved ones. Parents can learn that the ups and downs are both equally valuable for learning lessons.     

Milestones remind me of the long wait for my daughter to finally start smiling. We were told she was born 10 weeks early and would take 10 weeks longer to reach ‘normal’ milestones. For some reason, maybe because it’s one of the first things a child learns to do, I was hung up on getting her to smile. I was literally counting the days, petrified of her smiling only after that 10 weeks permitted. Would that mean she was doomed forever? Would everything be futile if she smiled at 11 weeks? I certainly believed so. She did eventually smile, I think within that 10-week time frame, but I’ve learnt to be a bit gentler on myself and on her. It’s not easy and I think I struggle more than I let on, but I think it’s crucial.

As parents it is easy to focus on a developmental milestone or end goal.  We do need to appreciate that skills, effort, falling and learning through mistakes is also necessary to reach any milestone, and may even be more important than reaching it.   The process of achieving developmental milestones should not be a competition among parents in regard to whose child is better and will reach the goal first, but rather a celebration of learning and growth. 

Let us learn to be gentle with ourselves as parents.
Let us learn to love and support our children through all of life’s ups and downs. 
Let us learn that all our children are precious regardless of reaching developmental milestones.