Mom’s worries taking over

Dear Carolyn: I’m mom to a delightful 3-year-old who is engaging, smart and shows me a new way to look at the world daily.

But lately everything feels so heavy. He wouldn’t take the field for his first soccer “practice,” he had his first “bullying” incident and we’re having him assessed for some food issues. I find myself panicking that he’s going to be a social outcast, “the weird kid,” and I can’t help but randomly pray to “just let him be OK.”

We also just found out there won’t be Baby No. 2, and I weirdly feel like I don’t get a “do over” to use all of the stuff I learned in the first go-round.

What do I do, except try to have perspective? — Anxious

Dear Anxious: All at once I want to reassure you, warn you, thank you for your honesty and stand up for all “the weird kids.”

Raising a unique being — who has his own strengths, his own interests and his own timetable — to be comfortable in his own skin means not only paying attention to the feedback he’s giving you about what he likes to do, but also accepting these results as value-neutral.

Actions, not reactions. We (mostly) learn to curb our messier emotions in class or at work, and this is just the parenting version. Where now you panic at your son’s struggles and differences, (mostly) learn to respond in a measured and practical way.

Accept, too, that this already tough assignment will be tougher now. You are the parent of a toddler, in Pandemia, navigating the special-needs assessment process, and grieving a second child not-to-be. Hard, harder, hardest.

So the first step of training yourself to resist the tyranny of expectations for your child is to set new, more flexible expectations for yourself.

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