You are in the audience of your child’s amazing life.
There is that moment on a stage when an actor or a dancer or a musician is alone, a single spotlight creeps on. They don’t move, they wait. And everyone waits with them. The tension is rich and not one word or movement or hint is given away. And we all sit, collectively in the possibilities we conjure. In that moment anything. Endlessly possibly anything, suspended – potentiated.
One of the biggest lessons I have learnt, and the cornerstone of my work is to learn when to do nothing. To learn to be the audience that the child needs. Not the conductor or the director, not the person that walks out halfway through, or the one asleep in the cheap seats.
In your life performance, who sits in that seat for you? The one person to search for every time because they make you better by just being there? They know just when to smile or nod or close their eyes and enjoy you for you. They know when you are fumbling and they give you resolve.
The audience is a critical part of the performance.
When your children start a new chapter in their lives, start first with the quiet and the silent moment before they begin. No directing, no applauding just yet. Be in that suspended moment of potential.
Let them bring their selves to the stage. Let them bring their attention to who they are and what they are doing, not to you. Be in the seat they look to for assurances.
Teachers always want to DO something. Parents always want to DO something. STOP. Until you can learn to do nothing, in this way, you don’t have the skills yet to do something.
