Well, you know what? He did! Even though it is not his personality to make such quick, spontaneous decisions, he did.
When I asked him why, he simply replied:
Well, I love you. And I love to see you alive and happy in the mountains with your family. It is worth the challenge to leave my work and things I should do, and enjoy this day with you and our family.
His answer blew my mind.
This was actually exactly what this article was supposed to become. I promised you to put practical examples to this post. Well, this is one of the practical examples.
My husband didn’t need this day off in the mountains. He is rather the logical, organized type of person who is challenged by such spontaneous changes of the daily routine.
But he came with us to the mountains, anyway, because he knew what this meant for me.

In the same way, we try to apply this attitude into our children’s life.
We don’t just do the things we do because we feel like it, or because it’s the most comfortable, cheap or easy way to do things. But we try to liberate their personalities.
We study our children. We study them, getting to know them from the day they are born.
We want to discover what shape they are (If you haven’t read the last article, here you can do that), eager to discover they uniqueness, who they are and what they need to become the best they can be.
There is no label, no box, no categorizing of our children.
We welcomed every little baby into our family, eager to get to know each of the four. Along the journey we discovered that even a newborn already shows its individuality.

– Our first baby was like a clock when it came to the nursing part. Every 2.5hours he needed milk. This was his schedule until he was about 4-5 months of age.
Our second baby was very different. Sometimes she wanted something after 2 hours. Sometimes after 5. Sometimes after 7. So finally, I was helping her to get a rhythm, by feeding her even if she didn’t show the need to be fed.
Today, these two are as different as their feeding pattern.

– We had a baby/toddler boy who felt too overwhelmed in the stroller. Quickly, we discovered that for him, going shopping or anywhere other than the nature in the stroller was too much for him – the noises, the lights, the traffic or whatever, he couldn’t handle it. So we took him in the carrier, till he was past one year old.
After growing older, he started to be able to deal with these things perfectly.

– Another baby was rather the opposite. He loved to sit in the stroller and observe everything happening around him. It was frustrating for him to be in the carrier, having things happening around him. He never felt overwhelmed.

Well, discovering this, that’s how we did it: For one Baby, no stroller – only the carrier . For the other one we always had a stroller with us. We agreed to let each baby be unique.. even if that meant for  us less freedom in movement – more then 12month always a Baby in the carrier is not always that comfortable.

 We love to discover their unique personality

– One of our boys is very easy going. He goes through life with a sense of sovereignty. Entering kindergarten, entering school, getting to know new kids… he does it all with a very gentle spirit and a sweet and confident way – and quite surprisingly, it is the same boy that was so overwhelmed by everything as a baby. When he comes home from some activity, he doesn’t tell me much. When I ask him about his day, he simply answers: “I don’t remember”. It is only in situations when there is a lot of time to just be together – like when he visits an auto race event with his dad, sitting there for a few hours, just watching – when he starts to talk, to ask questions and to communicate what’s inside of him. Therefore we know: This Boy needs such times to communicate and express himself. And we want to know him. We want to know what happens inside of him. Therefore, we regularly provide situations, where we can spend relaxing times with him, giving him the space to express himself.

Our girl is very different. She loves adventures, talking, singing, and laughing. However, she can get distant and independent, if she doesn’t feel understood and loved for who she is. Relationships and emotional closeness are high priority for her. Even if she often doesn’t show this need openly she always cherishes emotional intimacy. We know that keeping that relationship and staying close to her heart all the way into her teenager years is vital for us as parents. Only that way we will be able to impart our hearts into her all the way up to that milestone of her teenage years.
We love her in her uniqueness, in her extrovert, communicative being.. We know that for her expressing emotions, being real in how she feels, receiving our love and admiration for who she is, in return opens her heart for us to teach her how to succeed in life by being herself –in a mature, beautiful way.

As you see, I can’t give you a step-by-step list to follow. There is no such thing as “3 points to do and then you have a successful family”.
It is much more a heart attitude every one can choose to have:

• Do you really want to know your child?

• Are you willing to refuse to go the easiest, most comfortable way in order to reach out to your spouse and your children?

• Can you lay down your “it should be that way” in order to adjust to the specific way your child is?

• Do you have the heart to see your child flourish in its unique shape?

  Just go with that in mind into your day. Observe your loved ones. The ideas of how to reach out to each one will come, opportunities will present themselves – and you will see a great harvest on your investment.