Every August our family travels to Hilton Head, SC for a week long beach vacation. Our girls are getting older and they look forward to this trip long before we remember to book it.
This year was even more fun than last year with one tiny exception: I was stung in two spots by a jellyfish. I’d love to say it was a beast of a jellyfish but the truth is this jellyfish was so tiny that you might need a good magnifying glass to see it. Remarkably, the pain was excruciating.
I tried to play the pain off because I didn’t want to scare the girls. I remembered the Friends episode where Chandler peed on Monica and thought about asking my husband to pee on the spots where I was stung. Then I realized that might not be appropriate for all the children on the crowded beach to see. Could you just imagine?
The next morning I played in the sand with Caroline. I avoided the ocean like the plague. The girls noticed. They kept begging me to go into the water. It was our last day and I didn’t want to spoil it for them but I was scared. Petrified, really. That tiny jellyfish had caused me a pain that could rival labor contractions. I couldn’t help but imagine what kind of pain a full sized jellyfish would cause. I let the girls know a jellyfish stung me the day before and I wanted to stay out of the water for a while.
All of a sudden, the girls played exclusively in the sand. Because I was afraid, our girls started to become afraid. They asked to go to the pool and stayed at the very edge of the ocean. My fear had washed away their love for the ocean. I had passed my (very legitimate) fear on to them.
Realizing what had happened, I knew what I had to do: Go back in the ocean. I had to be brave. I had to spend the rest of the day in the ocean with them. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but I tried not to let it show.
As I waded out further and further with Kate, I thought about how perceptive kids are. They absorb our feelings, emotions, and fears. It’s not only valuable to teach them to be strong and brave, it’s imperative to model it.
It’s good to share our fears with our kids as long as they appropriate and not too scary. It’s even better for them to see how we, the adults, handle them.
It’s important to live our life the way we want our children to live theirs: Confident, brave, strong, and smart.
If they don’t see us doing it, how will they know what it looks like?
Is there anything you didn’t want to do but did for the sake of your children? What was it?
xoxo
–k
Ah I have done a lot of stuff that I normally wouldn't do on my own just so my kids will try it! Like eating vegetables. LOL
Oh poor YOU!!! I love this story though, because it reflects how easily our kids are impacted by our own fears. Good for YOU for being so intuitive and insightful to work through your fear and parent your kiddos through it at the same time!
UGH. I've never been stung (knocking on some wood now) and you're so right that our kids truly absorb what we're feeling. My son loves the ocean too and I'd never want to mess that up for him but dang if I wouldn't have a hard time going back in the water! (I so remember that Friends episode and have always wondered if peeing on it makes it better for real).
It's amazing how kids can read us so well at times, and be influenced by it. I know it must have taken so much strength for you to get back in the water!
Love Hilton Head – not jellyfish!
I've been to Hilton Head too! Love this story! 🙂