Amy Herring has been a professional astrologer for 15 years and a proud mother for 5 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.
Nora writes:
Luke has always been, shall we say...high strung. He seems to get easily upset about things not working right and I could also add "exceptionally willful." He used to always go to extremes in his speech, such as "I'm going to kill daddy" if he was mad at him or hurt his school if he didn't want to wake up to get to preschool, but he has been weaned off of this lately. I am just wondering how to deal with his 'short fuse' in the best way.
Luke has his Sun and Moon conjunct in the sign of Scorpio, from which we can take the elementary keywords of "intensity" and "extremes" right out of any astrology book! In order for Scorpio to understand something, it merges and surrenders completely to it, being overwhelmed and overtaken by it, in many cases.
Scorpio is a sign that represents the desire to experience the depth of something, whether it's life, themselves, or their experiences, stripping away all pretenses or comforting lies that sometimes adults tell themselves to manage their fear so that only the purest truth and deepest expression remains. So this tendency to go to extremes will be tempered with maturity, but remain a constant to who Luke is at his core.
My attention is next drawn to Mars in the context of this question, which is retrograde in Taurus in the 8th house, opposite his Sun and Moon. Mars represents our will, and when we tune into it, it's our ability to affect the world, to know that we have some kind of power in it and over ourselves and our lives. In Taurus, the way that Luke reinforces his will is to stand his ground, to stabilize and reinforce his position. Taurus, like Scorpio, is a fixed sign, so it plants its feet and does not move. Saying he has a stubborn streak is an understatement.
To get a basic understanding of the underlying, sophisticated dynamics of why Luke needs all this intensity and stubbornness, we can take a brief look at his south node in Libra in the first house. It's possible that Luke has entered the world from a past life orientation of identifying with some of the 'overkill' Libra traits and identified with having to be so delicate with life or with other people that he suffered not being able to be his authentic self in a direct way. He has identified with being in relationship (Libra) where he needs to make sure he is well-liked, and perhaps had to compromise too much of his own desire to be loved for who he is rather than how he can make himself fit into others' desires or expectations of him. This is along with the carefulness of not letting any boats in life be rocked, to always have an even temperament and a pleasant demeanor. Thus he presents a chart in this life that is full of all this heat, this desire to reject anything that sounds like it's been massaged, because he has the intention to learn how not to allow his desire to be liked to compromise his core truth and the naked realities about himself and life.
So how to manage his 'short fuse?' You will know best what works with Luke, so take into account what often sets him off, which is probably feeling like he is being thwarted, like he doesn't have a choice in something. He may project the 'bad guy' characteristics onto whatever he feels is standing in the way of getting what he wants, so perhaps appealing to his Virgo Rising and helping him see that there are always accompanying consequences to what we do and what we want, and it's not just someone saying no to lord power over him, may help, even at his young age.
Helping him express his frustration by hearing what he says, even if it's intense or shocking, can help him not only blow off the steam of the moment's frustration, but also teach him that he is not bad or wrong for feeling these things. You can teach him to communicate and be considerate of others' feelings so he doesn't think he can just take his rage out on whomever happens to be standing near him like a punching bag, but do so without shaming him for what he feels in the first place so that he doesn't internalize his anger and push it inside because the external world will not accept it. This can be a critical piece because he needs to know that you will not take abuse, but nor will you banish him or turn away from him because he is not a good little boy all the time.
A parent may, in a knee-jerk reaction, scold a child for blurting an observation out in an inappropriate way, for instance, like if a child says bluntly "That lady is fat!" So if Luke were to say something like that, again for example, it'd be important to not project any intention on him by saying something like "don't be mean!" when really he didn't intend to be mean, he just wasn't tactful. Yet, you can also teach him awareness of what he says so that he can be considerate of others, without shaming him into feeling like he's done something inherently wrong or that HE is inherently bad.
There is always so much to say, but I hope that's given you a little tidbit. If you are interested in the rest of the story, you can always have a professional reading done for him by visiting my website.
