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, Mlle. Kiddie would 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 any time to amy@heavenlytruth.com.
A Seattle mom writes:
We want to understand how to place boundaries without stifling the main needs and purpose our daughter, Wendy. She seems to have huge authority issues and trying to get her to follow the rules, which she breaks every couple of days, has become a tiresome ordeal for all of us. How can we best parent her so that she doesn't feel like authority is dimming her light?
Amy answers:
Wendy's south node is in Aquarius, right next to Uranus, which are strong indicators in her chart that indicate she came into life with rebel energy. Such a wealth of Aquarius, including her Ascendant, corresponds to a strong need for freedom and the right to express herself in whatever way she sees fit.
Her Sun and Moon in Scorpio can represent a spectrum of traits and lessons, but in light of this question, getting a sense of her own power is going to be a prominent one. The sentiment "with great power comes great responsibility" is going to be a key factor for her learning how to manage (I get the image of her trying to ride a bucking horse inside herself). With that Sun and Moon in the opposite place as Saturn (a planet that represents our relationship to authority & rules), she will often more easily experience authority as something that is outside her or 'opposed' her.
A key to the solution might be found in her Mars in Capricorn. Mars is our will and our ability to go after what we want, to assert that will. Capricorn is a sign of responsibility and self-government, something that healthy Saturn also represents. In her chart, Saturn is in a trine with Mars in Capricorn. Capricorn tends to respond well to goals and aims; having something to shoot for or work for gives them focus and motivation. Perhaps giving her as much freedom as she can have by letting the little things go as often as possible, while also setting up rules in a manner that allows for her participation rather than her obedience can help shift her perspective from that knee-jerk stance of opposition. She will not respond well to 'micro-management', so giving her freedom within the rules to do them in her own style or perhaps in her own time, again as much as possible, may help.
In essence, she will be learning over her life to be her own authority, rather than creating a polarity of the outside world and all it's cruel rules vs. her inner world of freedom without consequences. She's learning it's not about fighting oppression but learning that you can decide what you want to create but only if you are willing to work by being in charge of yourself and acting accordingly.
However, that doesn't mean free reign to ignore things that affect the entire family. Capricorn tends to respond well to natural law and consequences: if you do this, you get this outcome. If you don't, you get this outcome, so while this works well for almost any child, I would say that making her consequences of breaking rules or failing to follow through on tasks as natural as possible will have more impact, instead of an arbitrary punishment such as taking away television privileges, for example. The more she can see that when she does or doesn't do something, she does or doesn't get the outcome she likes, and you won't change that or fix it for her, the more chance it has of having an impact on her. Finding ways to allow her consequences to directly cause her a problem can create that inner motivation to fix it if she doesn't want that consequence.
Making peace with the fact that you will not be able to control her choices, even if she makes bad ones and brings on negative consequences for herself may also be part of your personal process as parents. Look at ways you are or are not willing to allow her to bring on the consequences of her own choices that you wouldn't want for her. You'll also need to think about how to defend your boundaries in the right way so that you are a nurturing influence for her and not neglectful, but also don't take her consequences on as your problem to fix.
Her Sun and Moon in Scorpio can represent a spectrum of traits and lessons, but in light of this question, getting a sense of her own power is going to be a prominent one. The sentiment "with great power comes great responsibility" is going to be a key factor for her learning how to manage (I get the image of her trying to ride a bucking horse inside herself). With that Sun and Moon in the opposite place as Saturn (a planet that represents our relationship to authority & rules), she will often more easily experience authority as something that is outside her or 'opposed' her.
A key to the solution might be found in her Mars in Capricorn. Mars is our will and our ability to go after what we want, to assert that will. Capricorn is a sign of responsibility and self-government, something that healthy Saturn also represents. In her chart, Saturn is in a trine with Mars in Capricorn. Capricorn tends to respond well to goals and aims; having something to shoot for or work for gives them focus and motivation. Perhaps giving her as much freedom as she can have by letting the little things go as often as possible, while also setting up rules in a manner that allows for her participation rather than her obedience can help shift her perspective from that knee-jerk stance of opposition. She will not respond well to 'micro-management', so giving her freedom within the rules to do them in her own style or perhaps in her own time, again as much as possible, may help.
In essence, she will be learning over her life to be her own authority, rather than creating a polarity of the outside world and all it's cruel rules vs. her inner world of freedom without consequences. She's learning it's not about fighting oppression but learning that you can decide what you want to create but only if you are willing to work by being in charge of yourself and acting accordingly.However, that doesn't mean free reign to ignore things that affect the entire family. Capricorn tends to respond well to natural law and consequences: if you do this, you get this outcome. If you don't, you get this outcome, so while this works well for almost any child, I would say that making her consequences of breaking rules or failing to follow through on tasks as natural as possible will have more impact, instead of an arbitrary punishment such as taking away television privileges, for example. The more she can see that when she does or doesn't do something, she does or doesn't get the outcome she likes, and you won't change that or fix it for her, the more chance it has of having an impact on her. Finding ways to allow her consequences to directly cause her a problem can create that inner motivation to fix it if she doesn't want that consequence.
Making peace with the fact that you will not be able to control her choices, even if she makes bad ones and brings on negative consequences for herself may also be part of your personal process as parents. Look at ways you are or are not willing to allow her to bring on the consequences of her own choices that you wouldn't want for her. You'll also need to think about how to defend your boundaries in the right way so that you are a nurturing influence for her and not neglectful, but also don't take her consequences on as your problem to fix.
Beyond her basic personality, there are some triggers she is currently experiencing which are probably making this issue feel like it's getting out of hand or coming to a head. Transiting Saturn now moving through the sign of Libra has been forming a tense relationship to her own Mars, probably sparking that sense of my will vs. authority's will, and maybe prompting a stoic refusal to yield. Yet it can be a ripe time to teach her about natural consequences of that refusal that have nothing to do with your enforcement, but simply reality.
The most striking influence lately is that her progressed moon has just moved into Aries in the past 3 weeks or so. The progressed moon reveals where one's emotional responses, needs, and attention are aimed. Moving from Pisces, which tends to carry a more submissive and gentle tone, to Aries, which is a more feisty and impulsive energy, is going to have her testing limits and pushing boundaries left and right. When this energy first changes, it tends to be quite strong (and new), so she's probably experiencing quicker reactions (including anger) and wanting to take more of the lead in her own life. The progressed moon is so powerful, I wrote a whole book about it: Astrology of the Moon.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.
