Amy Herring has been a professional astrologer for 15 years and a proud mother for 4 of those years. She has joyfully accepted Mlle. Kiddie’s gracious offer to share her thoughts once a month here at Kiddie Star Signs. To find out more about Amy and her personal readings for parents and children, visit her website at http://heavenlytruth.com.
Money and fame don’t solve every problem. Celebrity moms have their hopes and worries for their children too. However, I’d like to offer ‘everyday’ moms a chance to see astrology put into action to answer their parenting questions. After all, famous or not, you’re the world to your kids! If you’ve got a question about your child that you’d like Amy to answer, send your questions to amy@heavenlytruth.com.
Grace asks:
My daughter, Alison, is only 15 months old and already seems like she's the terror of her daycare. She is a very happy child and doesn't seem to be angry in her attitude, but she pushes other children and things of this nature quite a bit lately. She and her older sister (4 years old) can be quite rough with each other and they both take it in stride, but at school this can be a problem. I'm wondering where this is coming from and how to help her manage it at school?
After looking over Alison's chart, I would agree with mom's assessment that this behavior isn't coming from a place of anger, but more from experimentation, especially with a sense of her own power. While several factors in combination can speak to the source of this behavior, the most relevant component in Alison's chart is her Capricorn Ascendant and the striking placement of Pluto right on top of it.
The ascendant, or the beginning of the first house, is like our 'front door'. When we open it and stand on our porch, we get a certain perspective on the world, and we interact with the world from the point of this perspective. The sign and any planets on the ascendant can reveal the filter through which we take in experiences in the world and how we make sense of them. Among other things, Pluto's placement in our chart has a lot to do with our process of learning a right sense of power. While we are learning this lesson, we deal both with things that let us feel powerful as well as encountering things that lead us to feel powerless and often trying to protect ourselves from that. Encounters with feeling powerless can leave us feeling wounded, and as we grow up, we find more healthy ways of protecting ourselves from feeling powerless, by learning where our true source of power lies: in ourselves, not in power over others.
Alison is working intensely with this lesson in this lifetime. As she grows, she will be bringing on experiences that help her learn the sense of her true power, and how to use it responsibly for herself. As an adult, this sounds like pretty heady information, but we can think a lot lighter than this sounds. Alison is only 15 months old, and is living the grand experiment of life. She is not a bully, nor is she cruel. However, because of Alison's age, she is greatly inexperienced with her astrological 'toolbox' (her chart, and in this example, Pluto).
Imagine carrying a big, heavy rubber hammer in front of you all the time and being barely strong enough to hold it, let alone wield it with any kind of accuracy. Without care, you could easily smash into others with that hammer, and hurt them or yourself without even realizing it. Now let's consider a child, who doesn't even know what a hammer is or what it can do, carrying that around. Alison's behavior is more about experimenting, as well as not understanding just the kind of power she wields; in fact, that's what she's experimenting with: her own power. What she's capable of and what she can do. We all are, children especially, but some children carry a bucket, or a screwdriver, or a paintbrush, to continue the tool analogy. Alison's tool just happens to pack more intensity and more of a punch.
While Pluto is in Sagittarius, the sign of Capricorn is actually Alison's ascendant, which is often concerned with results rather than feelings. It is not heartless, but is not naturally empathetic: it wants to get the job done, and it likes to see the bigger picture, the goal, the end result of one's endeavor. It sees its path stretching out in front of it, much like it's symbol, the mountain goat, and it heads almost single-mindedly toward it's goal. Alison's intensity will probably continue in life, because she's always going to feel like she's on a mission, and at her age, her mission is mainly focused on how to steer this thing called life!
With several planets in Libra, she will learn how to relate to others and consider their needs - Libra can't help but recognize other perspectives rather than it's own, so there is no need to worry here. But let's get practical: how do you manage this aggressive behavior in the classroom? I suggest two things. One, recognize that there is nothing wrong, angry, or mean in her heart driving this behavior, it's mainly a lack of understanding (yet) about empathy and others' experiences as a result of her own actions - she doesn't understand that there's an action (hers) and a result. That's what she's testing now. Two, help her to see and understand the connection between her actions and the result, both through trying to explain to her and show her a classmate's reaction to what she did, and two, if she is ever feeling hurt by another, gently taking that opportunity, after consoling and loving, of course, to again, connect the dots for her while she's on the receiving end. Approach this, obviously, in very simple language and getting right to the point, given her age and attention span.
Teaching her to use the Libran tools in her tool box: cooperation, teamwork, partnership without diminishing or scolding her for her own power will be the best way to begin.
Good luck and thanks for your question!
Would you like some input on how to understand and nurture your child in the most effective way for their unique needs? Amy offers readings for parents and children; find out more at her website.
