Today my nine-year-old daughter made her first attempt at swallowing a ‘grown up’ pill. The sting that sealed her eye shut necessitated the antibiotic, and she swore she was old enough to give up liquid ‘baby medicine.’ She and I had an orientation of sorts—me giving her step-by-step instructions on how to effortlessly swallow a pill.
Before she even attempted this ‘first’, she began to seriously fuss, whine and whimper as she whipped herself up into quite the state. Her mantra was “I can’t do this!” “It’s too hard!” “I changed my mind.” “I’m going to choke to death!” Pill on tongue, water glass in hand, she cried and tantrum-ed and, predictably, had one hell of a time actually getting the pill down her throat. Okay, so it was a parenting nightmare.
Watching her, I kept thinking that it would have been so easy had she just taken a deep centering breath, followed my instructions, trusted her ability to handle it, and assumed it would be effortless.
Wait just a minute. Did I just think that? Mid-slurp I realized that my precious daughter was mirroring my struggle with my yet to be completed book. Who was the teacher?
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