Change

When we experience change in our life, if we have no control over it, it can be very unsettling.  In my last job during the final year of working there the culture of the organisation was changing in a direction that was not one that I could reconcile with.  I found this so unsettling and started to look around, unsuccessfully, for another job (I then got pregnant so the dilemma was solved for me).   It saddened me that when I finally left a job that I had so enjoyed, I was glad to walk away.

As adults if we make changes in our lives, such as moving house, we have control, we know that they are going to happen and can prepare ourselves.

Our children rarely have control over change.  It is more often than not imposed on them.  Many a time I have heard parents say 'children can cope with anything, they'll be alright' if they are about to put their children through a major change in their lives.  Yes they probably will be alright, but only if they receive the support that they need to help them to make sense of it.  If we are not there to listen to them and see their behaviour as challenging, wearing and inflexible we are setting ourselves up to be challenged and worn down by our own inflexibility.  Our own inflexibility?  Yes, to being able to see that there is another way of looking at the change, through the eyes of our child, which will be totally different to our own way of looking at it.   We all need time to absorb and make peace with changes, we all need to be able to do this at our own pace.