Fear for children
QUESTION: Masters, I have anxiety over my kids learning to drive. We live in a high traffic area (Seattle) and share our rainy roads with speeding tanker trucks and drivers on cell phones. We see an accident a month. I feel there is no margin for error since we live on a shoulder-less, hilly, curved road. They took driver’s ed [education] but haven’t put enough time in on the road to pass the driving test. I am too terrified to take them out after too many close calls. I drive them everywhere or they take public transportation. I feel like I am doing a disservice by not pushing them to drive. They are off to college and my husband is fine with them getting their license after college. Can you give my any help or insight? ~Carrie, USA
ANSWER: You are acting the part of the loving overprotective mother. It is very normal in society to want to protect your offspring from any danger coming from without and from within. Children never learn to take responsibility for their actions unless they are given the opportunity, so some decision-making is important. Your children are well grounded in preservation energy; they are not careless.
What we would caution you about is giving them the sense that they have something to fear regardless of their preparation for life. When you fixate on a scenario, the universe says, “Oh, interested in that? Let’s see what we can do to make sure you experience it.” You can call fears into physical being. When a child becomes aware of a parent’s fear, it becomes more real to them and they start to fear it as well and give it even more energy so it just has to appear.
There are many potential dangers in your world: traffic, wild animals, unstable earth, crazy humans—all can be held at bay if you say, and really believe the truth of your statement, “I do not need to experience this!” You don’t have to practice at first on your curvy road. You can give the kids wheel time in parking lots, school yards, city streets, and open highways; then you move up to your road.
The important thing is what they think. Do they feel somewhat deprived because they don’t have a license like their friends? Are they ashamed or embarrassed that their parents have to take them places? Or are they in no hurry to get behind the wheel? Let them make up their own minds. If after college is fine with them, then wait. But don’t let your fears arouse their fears.