Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 33 °C, hot and sunny.
Since Yasmin arrived on Friday night, she has been in a bad mood; as always, it is related to her mother.
Her mother says or does something that Yasmin does not like, or criticises her for something she did or did not do, leaving her extremely upset, down and in a vile mood. Yesterday, I tried to talk to her, and I’m exhausted from having to keep explaining the same thing over and over.
I am not being impatient or insensitive to her needs, but she is at an age when she should be able to comprehend and be more receptive to what I am trying to convey.
I want her to stop constantly looking for self-disappointment and deceiving herself by expecting her mother to be something that she is not. If her mother is how she thinks she is, she needs to accept it, live her life, and stop deceiving herself all the time.
Yasmin woke up around 11 am with her chin dragging along the floor as usual. I prepared an omelette on toasted bread with a bed of salad, including cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and a little onion, for her breakfast. After eating, she decided to stay in her bedroom.
I checked on her a few times, but she was constantly moaning and in a terrible mood. After several attempts to see if she was okay, I became frustrated. I find it hard to understand why she is always sad or feeling sorry for herself, especially on a beautiful day when she is living so well.
With a high-pitched voice, I urged her to get up and leave the apartment. I suggested that she go for a walk, meet some friends, or do anything to avoid staying home and feeling down. She doesn’t have any significant reason to feel that way.
Although she is an adolescent, she has a good life. She lives in the southern zone of Rio and attends a good school, which provides her with a good education. Furthermore, she is beautiful and highly talented, and she needs to recognise her worth, what she has accomplished, and what she can achieve in the future.
After some persuasion, she finally agreed to go for a walk or buy something like açai or ice cream.
Later, she sent me a message saying that she was at a friend’s house nearby and asked me to pick her up. I gladly did, and on our way back, we bought some açais to take home. When we arrived, we played chess again, and she won once more. But now, everything is good again.
I understand that being a teenager can be challenging and transformative, both physically and mentally. However, as caring parents, we must also set boundaries. If we don’t, our good intentions can turn us into slaves to the situation.
Our children need to learn to handle life’s problems on their own, without relying on their parents to guide them 24/7. As parents, we are here to help, but not to the point of becoming a prison for both our children and us.
As for myself, I felt I had to set a limit for both Yasmin and me so as not to be repetitive, the same thing all the time, and, consequently, become a slave to my daughter’s inability to reason for herself. She must learn, or life will punish her accordingly.
I am a great believer in the power of walking. I am 56 and don’t know anyone who walks as much as I do. It makes life easier! Walking keeps both the body and the mind fit. Each step you take while walking soothes your thoughts and fears, and eventually shows you the way out of your worst dilemmas.
Recently, a pupil studying to be a judge at Trinity College, Cambridge, sent me a short video. The video showed that some of the greatest thinkers in history, including David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Socrates, Aristotle, and many others, were avid walkers who used walking to solve their problems.
In bed by 9:00 p.m.
Thanks again.
Thanks for reading my blog. Check out my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
