Many thanks to The Santa Fe New Mexican for permission to share this article from our column on our blog.

At some point, your child may be stepping into something new.  It could be transitioning from elementary to middle school where those first days can be very different from the familiar ones known during the previous five or six years.  It could be life without a grandparent or without a beloved pet.  You or your child may be in the space of deciding about something new.  It could be quitting your job or your child stopping the long-time practice of dance, violin, or team sports. 

These experiences are all thresholds.  John O’Donohue wrote, “A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual.” 

We have rituals around thresholds that are cultural milestones, such as graduations, births, marriages, and deaths.  Rituals provide celebration, comfort and soothing. 

There are thresholds, however, that are highly significant and are not recognized by supportive rituals, such as a divorce or miscarriage.  Your high school son or daughter wanting to quit their soccer team after years of involvement is also an example of an unrecognized threshold.   Parents can assist with these “unmarked” moments so that children have a practice of celebration, comfort, and soothing that provides clarity around what is both behind them and in front of them. 

O’Donohue wrote, “At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing?  At this time in my life, what am I leaving?  Where am I about to enter?  What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold?  What gift would enable me to do it?”

Those questions – asked of yourself or of your child – are such a warm beginning in understanding how to move forward.  They can even support you or your child in making the decision about either leaving or remaining in that job, on that sports team, or with that dance studio.

Let’s imagine that your child has played soccer throughout middle and high school.  They have decided to quit.  Rather than a conversation “to fix” or “to force” or “to resolve”, begin with the concept of a threshold.  Ask you child what they have gained from their involvement with soccer.  What has brought them to this threshold?  How does it feel standing at the threshold?  What is in front of them?  How do they wish to celebrate all that they have gained?  What will enable them to either cross the threshold or decide to continue with soccer?  How would they like you to support them?

A conversation of that depth will result in some amazing decisions and a practice of decision-making that will serve them throughout their life.