Parenting Adults - Trust
On the scale of risk, I sit at the far end where one feels safe. I don’t understand why some people love experiences like thrill rides. Why people voluntarily put themselves in situations where their senses feel anything but safe is beyond me. Don’t get me wrong, I do leave the house, have travelled to many locations around the world and have participated in a number of activities that didn’t feel safe at the time.
Recently, one of my sons announced to me that he would be jumping out of a plane in the weeks to come. Personally I couldn’t think of many things worse to plan to do. However my son is not me. His choices are mostly not what I would choose. It would be easier as a parent if your child did what you did, thought the way you thought and felt the way you felt, but this not reality.
This is where trust enters the arena.
Trust is assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.
I’m not sure we can ever be completely assured of anything, however aiming at a level of reliance that is very high regarding another’s character, ability, strength or truth is a good place to start.
Generally, do you find it easy or hard to trust people? Experience is a huge factor that can influence our trust measure. Many would say that past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. So it’s fair to say that if you’ve been disappointed from a lack of trust in the past then you are less likely to trust now and into the future. Similarly if someone has been trustworthy then you are more likely to trust them again.
I’m sure you are familiar with optimistic people and pessimistic people. Rather than gravitating to one or the other of these, I consider myself more of a realistic person. If asked if a cup is half full or half empty I’d say the answer is both. So when it comes to trust, my default used to be that I’d trust the trustworthy and be wary of the untrustworthy.
To my surprise, this position changed almost overnight. I remember sitting on a plane about to embark on a family overseas holiday (feeling a little apprehensive about what awaited us in the foreign countries in which we would travel) when my husband suggested that rather than expecting the worst from those we would encounter that I could trust and expect the best.
The revelation from that question unlocked a whole world of opportunity of trust for me, not just within that holiday but also in a bunch of other ways in the years that followed. Side note – the holiday was amazing and believe it or not, I did not encounter one person who tried to cause me harm!
Time to reflect:
Do you find it easy or hard to trust?
What prevents you from trusting?
Specifically, how does trust fair in your relationship with your adult child?
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[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trust