NOTE TO SELF
The Best Thing a Mountain Parent Can Do Once a Lava Child Starts Flowing
Let it be fire.
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There’s a living fire in each of us.
With children, it’s so much stronger, since they haven’t gotten at the stage of cooling down.
If anything, young children are lava from an active volcano.
They explode uncontrollably, rushing down from the top of the mountain, in all directions at once. Thirsty to fill every rail, every crack, every nook, no matter how small. Mapping the terrain of the mountain while searching for their path.
From a distance, one might tell where they’re heading. But up close, it’s unpredictable.
And here’s the problem. The parent is usually the mountain, who can hardly see from a distance.
We mostly see up close, often concerned by the lava set out to gain terrain. But that’s what lava is meant to do.
Lava children will try their forces and test yours. They will challenge you while searching for their direction.
As a parent, the mountain parent, you feel big and important. You feel powerful, through your size. But do you have the power to dig a riverbed for your child’s lava? Or all you can do is try to trip up their energy with improvised dams and feeble hurdles at every step?
If there’s a well-dug riverbed in their way, they’re going to channel their energy towards it and fill it, happy to have found a place that can contain them.
Everything else is just an obstacle that won’t resist them.
Most parents are worried about controlling the fire and cooling it off. But the fire will cool off by itself anyway.
For my son, I’d like to be the mountain who has set up the terrain and now is simply watching the lava flowing with confidence.
Because as much as I feel like a mountain, I have learned I’m not here to rule. All I can do is lay smooth riverbeds that lava will choose to dwell in. And have a little faith.
Now, where do I find someone to teach me how to do just that?
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