Let go my EGO.

"Noooooo!" Screams an almost 3-year old 2-feet from her father's face.

"Yes!" Father concedes to the game. 

"No daddy!" She is in control now. 

"Hey, we are getting this shirt on because I said so." Because, well, I said so, and I am an adult right, so I must know best, father knows best, right? 

The game all parents are familiar with, a tug-of-war in words, where a child's ability to take on all possibilities of a situation, including downright refusal, exposes a parent's weakness. 

"Look, a butterfly." As she picks her cup up, distracting either herself, or dad, neither of us really know. 

"Sweetheart." Dad is calmer now. "We have to get dressed, we don't want to be naked do we?" Yes, rhetorical questioning because, duh, right? 

Wrong. 

"Daddy, I want milk." She asks, and my first thought is, where is that milk? Only to come right back to, hey, wait a minute. 

"Sweetheart, I will give you milk after we get your shirt on." As though logical can undo the distraction spell she has placed on me. 

At this point in the game we are probably 15 minutes in. She is somehow sitting on the counter of the kitchen, for this is where the game led us. We are talking about clothes in a place of food. We are arguing over clothes when she threw a curve ball and pointed out a butterfly, which was cool and I had never noticed before, and the fact that she hadn't eaten yet, for which I can understand that frustration. However, what amount of empathy is acceptable, and at what point do we simply do what the authority figure says? 

In this situation, my own ego wants to control, wants her to get dressed as I see fit, when I see fit, and for her to like it. 

I am the great and powerful father of this seed and therefore I must be listened to. 

The ego likes to speak in a way that makes me sound more important. In real life, I am a caregiver for a child of God, for I believe I am to nurture, teach discipline, overall provide an environment where her gifts can grow and develop into the woman she is meant to be. I am to provide safety, discipline, love, security, and teach the principals she will need in this life and beyond. The rest, well, that isn't up to me. 

"A narrow mind and a wide mouth usually go together." - Celia Green  

Yet, knowing this doesn't seem to come into play when my own ego screams back at her and demands something to be done, simply because I demanded it. In all fairness, she was the one that started getting dressed a little too early and then I went with it. Now she wants to stop and focus on anything but getting a shirt on, and here I am left standing, holding a shirt, begging, demanding, bargaining, humoring this 2, going-on-20, year old, all the while my ego screams, "You get this child in order, for you are right and she is not listening." 

The ego's ways are not subtle in how they respond, however they are insidious into what they respond to. The ego inside all of us demands that we be heard and demands that we get what we want now, and demands that we do whatever it takes, even screaming, to get this met. 

Pride, a byproduct of ego,
destroying relationships since day one. 

There are much more technical explanations of the ego out there, however, for the purposes of behavior, I find it interesting to approach your next situation with a perspective of how the ego's demands affect our lives. Typically, the ego responds poorly and prevents admitting guilt, for fear of humiliation, and is too prideful to ask for help. Typically, the ego prevents us from seeing growth as positive, and instead interferes with growth by preventing others from being let in. 

In a moment, the ego takes the wheel, and we have lost all humility and to a child's brain, which we can argue has more potential because it is less in this world's configuration than an adults and therefore sees more possibilities, there is a triggered response that actually leaves the child in control. However, children do not really want control, they want love. A craving for love can only be met with love, and love in this situation is discipline, yet understanding, and constraint that shows love, not hurt, which the ego definitely feels when it interprets us as not being listened to. 

Kids are smart, they are gifts, their minds are fascinating, and adults are not always right. We are here to discipline, sure, however, at times we too have to let the ego rest, take away the pride and respond rationally, versus arguing with a child about physics.

"Yes sweetheart, if you tip it over, the water will spill." 

"Noooo?" She responds. 

"Don't you do it." 

"He He."

Castle-Broken: When appearances are everything, a book I wrote about male body image disorders, a clinically diagnosable mental health concern with a higher suicidality than most other mental health disorders. A memoir, with treatment options, was written to help recognize where pride and the ego took a fragile young boy and what that kid recognized in so many other men. Click Here. 

God Bless.