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Accepting flaws and limitations
Accepting them unconditionally
A person with flaws and limitations must be loved
unconditionally:
their flaws and limitations must, above all, be accepted.
Unconditional acceptance
In this context, unconditional acceptance is equivalent to unconditional and unconditionable : nothing can change it.
In marriage
The relationship with one’s spouse and the education of children should be interwoven with love: they are, ultimately, fundamental manifestations of love.
Therefore, the three moments or components of love occur in both spheres:
- Confirmation in being: it’s wonderful that you exist!
- The effective search for the fulfillment of the loved one: I love you and I want you to be happy and, therefore, good.
- The surrender of oneself, through which I affirm the loved one and bring about their development:
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- “I place myself fully at your service so that you may reach the wonder of perfection that you are called to be and that my love has discovered in you.”
In the education of children
Education seems more related to the second element: whoever truly loves another person wants that person to be good and happy.
But beware!: that desire will only be effective if it is preceded, accompanied and as if enveloped by the unconditional acceptance —unconditional and unconditional— of the one we want to help, with all his defects and limitations.
It is not possible to confirm in the being one loves —to truly love him— if the desire for him to improve arrives and tries to impose itself too soon, to put it with a touch of metaphor and irony.
From the very first moment and always —unconditional love!— we must accept and love each child as they truly are, today and now:
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- with each and every one of its defects and limitations, however destructive they may seem to be… and indeed they are.
Loving someone means
accepting them unconditionally just as they are.
To love them just as they are, here and now
Not before it’s due
If we try to make someone improve ahead of time , they will feel rejected, unloved, because we truly do not love them , even if it seems otherwise.
As a result, we will not be able to help him develop.
- Especially applicable with rebellious children , who ignore us and the rest of the family;
- who are always against it ;
- who live their lives inside our home!
- who, through their actions, refuse to study and work…
That’s exactly how we must love them: no matter how much they hurt us! And precisely because they hurt us more.
Without accepting as good what is not.
It should be clarified that this does not mean we approve of their behavior:
- The firm, radical, and serene rejection of his conduct can and should coexist with the full acceptance of him as a person, even more radical than that rejection:
- an unconditional acceptance that nothing should condition.
If we expect someone to improve
before we have accepted them unconditionally,
they will feel rejected.
Accept them without reservation
To love them as they truly are
If in our eagerness to help them, we do not accept our children as they truly are, with all their painful and lacerating flaws and limitations.
If above all else and “before” everything else we seek to make them change, we will hardly succeed in helping them.
Deep down, and although it’s hard for us to admit, we don’t want them , but their improved alias according to our expectations.
An unnoticed rejection
Feeling rejected, they will withdraw into themselves.
And they will render in vain our attempt to reach them, enlighten their intelligence, move their will, and help them to be better people!
On the contrary, our unconditional love is the best engine for their development: love gives wings to the loved one, allowing and encouraging them to fly higher and higher.
The person who knows and feels loved
experiences, for that very reason,
a deep desire for improvement.
And help overcome those flaws and limitations
Once accepted,
we must help those we love
to overcome their flaws and limitations,
bearing in mind that,
precisely because they are flaws and limitations,
they are very difficult to overcome.
Losing and winning
Why… why…?
The question is self-evident, but perhaps we have never explicitly asked ourselves this question or explored its answer:
- Why, if it is more than proven that fostering qualities is more strategic and effective than correcting defects and limitations—and most of us even have our own experience of this—do we insist on focusing almost all our attention on the latter, on defects and limitations?
And that applies both to the education of our children and to our relationship with our spouse.
Three possible answers
- Or are we not so convinced that what I just repeated is true: that attending to qualities and fostering them is more “profitable” than criticizing and correcting defects and limitations?
- Or is it that, if we admit it, we don’t know what to do with our defects and limitations, and that ignorance confuses us?
- Or is it that, even when we are convinced and sense the solution, we are unable to tolerate the defects and limitations of others?
Why do we insist
on constantly reminding and correcting
our children’s flaws and limitations?
Playing at losers
What about defects?
It is obvious that, by their very nature, defects and limitations are very difficult to overcome.
Therefore, if we constantly confront our children with their flaws and limitations, we are condemning them to almost continuous failure, with all the consequences that follow:
- low self-esteem,
- friction with his brothers and with us,
- deterioration of the family environment,
- problems at school and with classmates and friends, etc.
So why do we do it?
Our children’s flaws are obvious… or audible… or in their clothes… or in the furniture…
They spread out and settle all around us, leaving hardly any unoccupied space.
- You don’t have to pay much attention to discover them.
- And besides, when we’re minding our own business , they’re annoying.
- We correct them, even by shouting, and we think we are doing well, that we are educating them.
And what about the qualities?
And yet, we pay no attention whatsoever to qualities.
Am I exaggerating?
- Try making a list, mentally or in writing, of the defects and limitations of one of your children.
- Just think back to the times in the last ten days when you’ve said something like:
- “You’re messy,”
- “You only think about yourself,”
- “You can’t be counted on for anything,”
- “You never listen when I talk to you,”
- “You never tell me what you’re doing, who you’re going out with, or where you’re going.”
- Would you be able to make a symmetrical list of the qualities:
- with a proper name
- or at least with a relatively detailed description?
The “but it’s very good” argument doesn’t work for me, because they all are, by default .
- They come like this from the factory .
We know our children’s flaws very well;
but we probably ignore their qualities.
Winning, in three steps… or four
The solution
Then…?
Let me give you some advice:
- Get together with your spouse and write a list of each child’s qualities, starting with the most difficult one, the one who is never still or quiet or silent, the one you dislike the most.
- Next, using the practice you’ve gained, do the same with the remaining ones.
- Ask your spouse to remind you of those qualities when Herod-annihilates-children is about to become your favorite hero and you think that son or daughter is beyond redemption!
- And now for the good part!
- Again, in agreement with your spouse, arrange the dynamics of the home so that each member of the family—including the two of you—has the greatest number of opportunities to give their best, developing their best and most outstanding qualities.
- When these have grown up, he or she (and you or your spouse) will face his or her flaws and limitations, and also the possibility of success.
Efficient, but demanding
Does all of that require a lot of dedication, time, and effort?
Of course, who’s going to deny it! I’d add that even more than you think.
But didn’t we agree that your family was the most important thing? Didn’t we agree that it was impossible to raise a child without dedicating all the time they need, without rushing or hurrying?
Do you think that the idea that our family comes first is just theoretical, something we have to say, but that it doesn’t influence our lives?
Know your children’s qualities,
ask your spouse to remind you of them,
and arrange the household in the most opportune way
so that they can develop.
“Yes, but with my spouse”
Flaws and qualities of the spouse
All of the above, changing what needs to be changed — and try not to change it too much — is equally effective with your spouse.
Try it and see for yourself!
For now, since it’s not our main concern, I’ll just copy a comic strip from Ugo Borghello, who has been helping me for years:
- It tells a fable that the devil prowled the neighborhoods in order to divide and ruin families.
- He would enter a house under the guise of a tired pilgrim and, while being attended to, he would manage to make the woman realize that her husband treated her like a slave, while he remained quietly seated, chatting with the guest, or things like that.
- And so he continued to insinuate himself, until he managed to spark a furious argument.
Flaws, no; qualities, yes
- But one day he entered a house where all his attempts failed.
- It was he who then became angry, and, in despair, exclaimed:
- “But don’t you ever argue?”
- “No, because from day one we made a pact: each person should focus only on their own defects and on the merits or qualities of their spouse.”
- A little reflection on the anecdote is enough to realize that whoever behaves in this way has everything to gain.
Each person should focus only on their own faults
and on the merits or qualities of their spouse.
Focus on the qualities,
forget about the limitations and defects.
(To be continued)
Tomás Melendo,
President of Edufamilia
http://www.edufamilia.com
[email protected]
EduFamilia
Edufamilia es una asociación sin ánimo de lucro, nacida en el año 2005. Su fundador, Tomás Melendo, advirtió que una mejora en la calidad de las familias facilitaría la resolución de bastantes de los problemas que aquejan a la sociedad de hoy. Y, apoyado siempre por su mujer, decidió lanzarse a esta aventura que cuenta con casi veinte años de vida y con múltiples ediciones de los distintos cursos formativos: Másteres y Maestrías, Expertos, cursos más breves, conferencias, ciclos culturales, seminarios y otros programas educativos. Aunque las primeras ediciones tuvieron carácter presencial, actualmente se ha hecho un gran esfuerzo por promover la infraestructura virtual para adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos y que la formación en torno a la familia alcance al mundo entero.
