Fear

Last night Matty was sitting on the arm rest of one of our couches thinking about jumping over to the arm rest of the other couch. I noticed this active thought process and let him sit and negotiate whether he should jump or not, as I watched. He began reaching out for the other couch with his hand and started leaning with his body over to the other couch, then he would get scared and lean back on to the couch he was sitting on. He continued to lean back and forth, reaching his hand out and then changing his mind over and over again. Finally he looked at me and said, "Mommy, hand" so I reached out my hand, he grabbed it and jumped over to the couch using the assistance of my hand.
I let him do this many times. Each time he would get back on the couch and think about jumping without my assistance, but then he would get scared and ask for my help.


I had the opportunity to go to a seminar my work sent me to a couple weeks ago. There were many speakers and they were all there to motivate us to work hard and be successful. One of the speakers was Rudy Giuliani. He talked a lot about courage, the point that stuck out to me the most was this; "Courage isn't the absence of fear. It is the management of fear."

Matthew was scared to cross that chasm between the 2 couches, he was afraid he might hurt himself. After thinking about the potential of falling and the potential of making it to the other couch with a sense of accomplishment, Matthew decided he was indeed scared, but that he would still cross that chasm. He decided to cross it with the help of someone else.

Matthew wasn't being a wimp. He was being courageous; he managed his fear, negotiated his fear and decided the best way to manipulate that fear would be to ask for help. This little 2 year old is a pretty good teacher, who would have thought?

P.S. Thanks Cyndi for the beautiful picture of Matthew, as always you are so talented!!