Parents inwardly love their children and enjoy special moments of closeness and richness they experience with them.
So why do parents also often feel disconnected from the very children they love so much?
Every human being has a set of values, a hierarchy of priorities that they live by. The top three values are the most important and meaningful. These values are what you think about, dream about, visualise and talk about. If we step back and carefully look at our lives, we can see what is truly important to us.
All it takes, is to look clearly and honestly at what we consistently do with our time, energy and money. Our perceptions, our decisions and our actions reflect what we value most. Our lives demonstrate our highest values.
For example, if eating wisely and healthy is one of our most important values, we will demonstrate healthy eating in our lives. If building wealth is our highest values, we will find ourselves creating financially stability, savings and investments. For each person, it's different - according to what they value most. And sometimes there appears to be more than one value competing for the spot at the top of the pyramid.
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Sometimes you think your highest value is one thing, but in reality you spend all your time/energy actually doing something else, so your true value system can sometimes surprise you. What you think is most valuable and what your life demonstrates is most valuable are not always the same.
Sometimes we project our highest values onto our children and expect them to live outside their own unique highest values and, instead, live by what is most important to us. When we do this, we can create unrealistic expectations about who we believe our children should be - we then try to change them to be more like us, becoming ungrateful for who they really are.
Any time we project our expectations onto our children or other people, we will experience or receive resistance when we attempt to communicate with them. Each of us wants to be loved and appreciated for who we truly are and according to what we value most. As a result, some of our most challenging relationships in life are the ones with the people we love most.
As we think about our own highest values versus our own children's highest value, it's not surprising children often rebel, feel uninspired and fall prey to the influence of a ‘bad crowd’ or addictions. If our children aren't feeling that they are allowed to fulfill their own highest values, their lower level of fulfilment can initiate reactive, rebellious, addictive behaviours.
Let's consider taking a moment to pause, reflect and appreciate our kids for who they truly are and discover what is truly most important to them in their own lives - their highest values.
Discovering our children's unique highest values will allow us to have more fulfilling relationships with open communication and a true appreciation for who they truly are. Since their set of values is evolving through time, it is wise to keep abreast of their values at least quarterly, throughout each year.
When we help them fulfill what is most important and meaningful to them they help us fulfill what is most important and meaningful to us.
Take the free value determination test online, to gain greater insight into your and your children’s value system : www.drdemartini.com/values