My daughter has wanted a puppy for quite awhile. She adores dogs and yet when we had talked about caring for a dog, in the past, ie: pick up poop and walk, she quickly said she wasn’t ready. She will be 11 in a couple of weeks so the conversation moved back to her readiness. She was SURE she was ready so the hunt began.
Now a bit of the back end story. I DON’T want a puppy. I am a single mom, raising my daughter, building my business and enjoying life. I’m not up for picking up poop and walking/training a puppy. So, I’ve been clear with her that if she wants a puppy she needs to be ready to take on those jobs. She assured me she was ready!
So, the pattern begins….Guess who starts looking for puppies, and guess who goes to the library and gets every book and DVD on puppies that she can find, and guess who starts researching breeds and TOTALLY takes over the experience? That would be MWAH! I was like a dog on a pork chop. LOL I was going to the humane society site, every day, and sending her pictures. I was reading the books and talking to breeders. Now wasn’t I the one who proclaimed I didn’t want a dog?
After about 3 weeks of maniacal looking for the perfect puppy and reading all the puppy training videos it suddenly dawned on me that my daughter wasn’t interested enough to even look. She loved looking at cute dog bowls and that new cool outdoor water bowl caught her attention but she had no interest in reading or watching the videos. She never once, went on the site to look for new puppies arriving at the shelter. Hmmmmm! Thank goodness I WOKE up from my major take-over coup before I brought home a puppy I didn’t want in the first place.
When I finally, cooled my jets and shared, with my daughter, how I thought I had more energy for a puppy than she did, she looked at me and said, “yeh mom, I’m thinking I might not be ready until the summer.” Big sigh of relief, on my part… It takes a lot of energy to be the driving force, around one of my daughter’s desires. I’m great at taking over, for her, and yet every time I watch her lose interest and move onto the next thing. When will I ever learn?
I’ve decided, I’m going to keep that drive for me!
Practice: Do you ever take over and idea your child has and then find you are giving it more energy than they are? Ask yourself, where in your life do you need to give more energy? See if you can use that energy to infuse your passion. Your child will be watching!
P.S. Now if anyone knows how to carve goose eggs…..AWWWW! There I go again….
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