Is My Child Abusing Me?

I was the one that asked the question in the Parenting for Life video “Is My Child Abusing Me?”, and this is my blog about my experience with the child, and after hearing the support shared in the video, and how this support empowered me to open my eyes to a pattern that had been playing out in my life for decades.

I was minding Cesar for a couple of hours one day, and one of my challenges in spending time with him is that I become bored with his games which can be very repetitive. When he decided he wanted to play on the swing set, I though that was great, because it was less boring and so something I could enjoy too. After some time swinging, Cesar started to feel heavy. I was giving it everything I had to keep him on my lap, hold onto the swing and swing higher and higher per his demands. My body was becoming uncomfortable, my muscles ached, and I was finding it more and more difficult to ensure he would not fall off as he was twisting and squirming on my lap. I kept telling myself that his safety was the most important thing, and ignored my aches and pains like ‘a good woman’, sacrificing myself for the child, so he could enjoy the swing, so I could keep him occupied with it or else I would have to play something else. And in that moment, he hits me.

“This child is abusing me” – is the first thought that came up within me, which I judged as absolutely ridiculous and brushed it off. But the point stayed with me so I decided to bring it up with his mom, Leila. I live in a communal environment called the Desteni Farm with Leila and quite a few others, where we share common spaces and live according to a set of agreed upon principles. Some of those principles cover a commitment to apply self-awareness and self-responsibility, as well as to support self and others to become our best. Each one committing to these principles creates a community of mutual support, openness, communication and trust: see my post here about my experience with this community.

Within the principle of self-awareness, I decided to not sweep my reaction under the rug, but instead bring it up and look at what was really going on, what was the deeper issue here? Within the principle of giving as you would like to receive, I shared the moment with Leila, knowing she could support me to see the bigger picture, and thus support me to live the principle of self-responsibility (wherein I take complete responsibility for my reactions so that I can change accordingly to living the principle of ‘doing what’s best for all’, which includes me!).

Leila explained the point to me from what she could see and from her own experiences, then elaborated on it in a video on her ‘Parenting for Life’ channel, where her and her sister Maite offer support on these practical, every day life situations. The video goes into more detail, but the one point that stuck out for me the most was the point of drawing my own boundaries first, and then working with the child from within those boundaries, considering of course, the child’s abilities and development. I had drawn boundaries around my preferences, wherein I had already decided that I did not prefer to play role-playing games with Cesar, but rather preferred doing physical activities and games. The boundaries I had not yet set were my physical boundaries, where I was actually accepting and allowing myself to push myself beyond my physical limits in order for Cesar to have his way.

What I saw was that, my mental boundaries that I had already set were more concerned with avoiding what I consider to be ‘boring and repetitive’, which are boundaries that I should in fact be pushing to expand, whereas my physical boundaries I had left unclear, thus placing me in a position where I was in a sense ‘allowing abuse’ from the perspective that I was in fact the one making the decision to push myself farther than was safe or comfortable physically. When Cesar hit me, he was, in a way, showing me what I was already accepting and allowing within myself – wherein I have the tendency to let others take advantage of me, knowingly or unknowingly, because I do not set clear boundaries regarding what I am actually willing or capable of doing, because I had not even checked with myself first. This does not mean it was cool that Cesar hit me, and I dealt with that accordingly, but it was MY REACTION to him hitting me that I am now dealing with. He did not hit me hard, he was being playful and is, in a sense, innocent as he is just learning about physical force and what is and is not cool in relation to how to treat others.

Children have an uncanny ability to show us where we need to change parts or aspects of ourselves, and can often touch and trigger bigger, underlying problems that we have been living with our whole lives. This does not make it the child’s fault, and it is a common mistake to take it all out on the child in the moment of being triggered for something that we had not taken complete self-responsibility for in our lives over time. Meaning, if you look at reactions, they are usually the result of an accumulation of undirected moments where we did not gift ourselves to opportunity for self-understanding and so self-change.

If I had, over time, put more attention on learning to set boundaries and listen to my body and its signs, I would have not pushed myself too hard, and would have thus not placed myself in a position where I was already abusing my body. When Cesar hit me, it was a more direct form of ‘physical abuse’, however, it did not hurt and it was not personal, but my reaction in the moment was as if Cesar was the one causing the problem because I did not at that time see the bigger picture and pattern I had been playing out. Luckily, I have been practicing breathing through my reactions instead of having outbursts in the moment, so at the time I was calm and spoke to him about hitting and how if he does not like being hit, he should not hit another.

Since then, I have been giving attention to this pattern within me, where I look at structuring my time and looking at the condition of my body before agreeing to or committing to participate in tasks with others. When I do this effectively, I can be sure that what I am doing is not too much, I do not go into blame or resent where I feel that others are pushing me too hard or causing an unnecessary strain on my time or my body. This way, when I do participate with others, I can be fully present, knowing that I have checked with myself first, and I can give my all and assess along the way. When I live and work like this, I am more effective and feel overall better, more confident, more ‘in control’ in the sense that I am learning to master my time and efforts.

There is still a ways to go, as with all things involving changing life-long patterns and habits, it is a process and I do make mistakes along the way – but knowing that I am working on creating self-understanding and becoming a better version of myself for myself, and so for others, I can see how small, every day moments can be used to contribute to huge changes in my own life and how I participate with those around me. In this way, I can also stand as an example for the children in my world, showing them through my living application and learning from my mistakes, what it means to be a completely self-responsible human being, one that strives to reach their utmost potential. This actually makes the most sense, because the alternative would be to continuing to live a life of over-exertion, blame, angry outbursts, and accumulated reactions. Conversely, one can choose to live a life of forgiveness, learning, growth and expansion. Wither way, the effects of each one’s living will ripple out into the world, and have an effect on others and even future generations, wherein taking self-responsibility in small moments, consistently over time, reaches far beyond one’s own life, as it contributes to the kind of world we are living in, as well as the world we are leaving to our children.