I am a paranoid parent. This is a fact that I admit to freely. I can’t help but look for the trouble in a situation or to be on guard against any potential trouble. I don’t want to let anything happen to my children. It is in these moments when I’m in overprotective parental paranoia that the words from the movie “Finding Nemo” run through my mind as said by the insightful Dory.

“If you don’t let anything happen to him, then nothing will happen to him.”

Interesting concept. In my effort to protect my children I may take the opportunity to learn and experience new things away from them. I don’t want to stop all of the good things from happening, just the bad ones. But yet it is important to realize that even through the bad experiences good things can happen.

My own parents have told me how they wished that they could have saved my husband and I from the heartache of having a 15 week preemie and all of the heartache that followed. My mom has told me countless times how she wished she could have protected me from seeing my son laying helpless in a hospital bed. However, if she had managed to do that somehow, she would have prevented me from experiencing the joys from each victory my son experienced. I had to go through the pain of the experience to know and appreciate the joy.

My son is now getting more and more adventurous. He tries to climb on things that I would rather he stay off of. He asks to do things that make me think twice about his physical abilities. He is ready to move into his world a little more and I find myself wanting to wrap him up in soft cotton and bubble wrap because it has been so much work to get him to this point. But if I stop from anything happening to him; then nothing will happen to him and I can’t help but wonder what kind of life that would be.

So now that I am aware of my problem I have choice to make. Do I give into my paranoid tendencies or do I bite my lip and let my son explore his world. For the sake of my son I will learn to bite my lip and use judgement between truly dangerous and only challenging. I won’t make excuses for him or shelter him from the challenges his abilities may cause him. Rather I will push him to keep trying even if it means falling down and getting a skinned hand or knee from time to time. Because the joy that is experienced after mastering a task that has caused some scars is worth a little pain.

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