Quote I read today

Helpless29

Well-Known Member
"Butterflies have a liquid in the core of their body, and as they struggle to get out of the cocoon that liquid is pushed into the veins in the butterfly wings where it hardens and makes the wings strong. If the butterfly doesn’t push and pull and fight to get out of the cocoon, his wings won’t be strong enough to fly, and the butterfly dies. Without the struggle, there are no wings... Do not take away someone’s opportunity to grow by trying to ‘fix’ them or rescue them from their trials. Without the struggle they would not have their wings." ~Lora Devries
 

lovemysons

Well-Known Member
That is such an accurate quote, Helpless...it really is the difference between life and death when we are talking about drug addiction. And so painful for a mom to have to watch them in this struggle. If you’re like me, you feel like you are in it with them. But ultimately we want them to fly...with their own wings!

hugs and love ❤️
 

RN0441

100% better than I was but not at 100% yet
That is so true and I read that all the time and it helped me to not "help" my son and guess what. It worked for us!!
 

JayPee

Sending good vibes...
Helpless,

Here's another story about a butterfly and a young boy trying to help speed the situation along...

"There was a little boy who loved caterpillars. One day he found one, took him home and made a home for him. He watched this caterpillar everyday making sure he had plenty of food & water.

One day the caterpillar started creating a cocoon...here he would go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly. This was so exciting, the little boy couldn’t wait to see the butterfly!

One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out. The little boy was so excited! But then he noticed the butterfly was struggling so hard to get out and it looked like the butterfly wasn’t going to be able to break free!

The little boy was so worried for the butterfly that he decided he had to help. He quickly got a pair of scissors and snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

But the butterfly had a swollen body and small shriveled wings. The little boy sat and watched the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, get bigger and expand to support the swollen body.

But it never happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly…

He then learned that the butterfly was supposed to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions actually hurt the butterfly."
 

JayPee

Sending good vibes...
So many times I have "lined up all the ducks"...everything in perfect alignment so my sons could flourish and succeed but I realized they had to be a willing participant. They at some point have to be willing to do the work to get into a better situation.

That is by far the hardest thing for us parents to "allow" because our thought process sees "helping" as an active demonstration but it's really our "inactivity, stepping back, watching, waiting and praying" that is really our "active" part.
 

RN0441

100% better than I was but not at 100% yet
Well it's not normal behavior for our children/adult children so it's a parenting nightmare and a mystery on how to parent.

in my opinion we need a professional to tell us the steps we need to take. That is certainly what I figured out after some time flailing and he was getting worse rather than better. This went on for YEARS. No one I knew had these issues so how do you figure it out? Plus time is of the essence as everything I did was making him worse!!

I really feel for anyone in this situation and have endless compassion. There is no "right" answer.
 

BusynMember1

Well-Known Member
My daughter didn't decide to change her life when we backed off. It doesn't always work for them. But doing for them doesn't work either and backing.off helps US have time away from the craziness. We need to be able to move on. It's not selfish. It's part of survival.

It is sad that our kids cause such grief but I learned that having a child doesn't mean that you get the child you want to have.

I had somebody tell me the other day "We have such good kids. We did something right." That shouldn't have made me feel badly but it did. Did WE do something wrong?
 

MissLulu

Well-Known Member
I had somebody tell me the other day "We have such good kids. We did something right." That shouldn't have made me feel badly but it did. Did WE do something wrong?
Oh, Busy, I can totally relate. It seems the whole world is hell bent on congratulating parents on any success their kids have and condemning parents for their kids' failures. The assumption seems to be that if you do everything "right" the kids will be successful and if your kids struggle in some way it's your fault.
All of us here know it's more complicated than that.
So many of us have gone above and beyond for our kids to little or no avail, and I'm sure we all know kids who have turned our fine despite having a difficult childhood. And then there are those of us in here who have some kids who turned out well and others who struggle - even though we parented these kids the same way!
Every time I hear someone take credit for how well their kids turned out, or even when people compliment me on my younger two (who are high achievers), I feel judged for how my eldest has turned out.
 

BusynMember1

Well-Known Member
Oh, Busy, I can totally relate. It seems the whole world is hell bent on congratulating parents on any success their kids have and condemning parents for their kids' failures. The assumption seems to be that if you do everything "right" the kids will be successful and if your kids struggle in some way it's your fault.
All of us here know it's more complicated than that.
So many of us have gone above and beyond for our kids to little or no avail, and I'm sure we all know kids who have turned our fine despite having a difficult childhood. And then there are those of us in here who have some kids who turned out well and others who struggle - even though we parented these kids the same way!
Every time I hear someone take credit for how well their kids turned out, or even when people compliment me on my younger two (who are high achievers), I feel judged for how my eldest has turned out.
That's how I feel. She wasn't trying to shame me at all, was just talking happily about her boys, but I felt the shame myself, especially since I have asked myself why....was it us?...so many times. Yet my other kids are high achievers and very nice. We have another issue too. Did we do something differently and wrong because we adopted her? She says so. Yet it feels as if we put in three times the effort to love and support her than we did for our other kids. And THEY have said so. Sometimes I wish I had just had dogs. This is a joke between myself and my.husband.

Big sigh.
 

MissLulu

Well-Known Member
Busy, I’m sure you loved and parented Kay just the same as your other kids. If it helps any, my eldest is not adopted, but we have the same result: one difficult kid and two high achieving lovely kids. If you asked my eldest he would say that we favoured his brothers. The truth is we have spent thousands of dollars and 80 percent of our time and energy on him. It’s his younger brothers who have missed out. Not anymore, though...
 
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