Amy Herring has been a professional astrologer for 15 years and a proud mother for 6 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.
Misa writes:
My 7 year old daughter Aeryn is normally a cheerful, happy-go-lucky child, but over the last few months, I have noticed a change in her behaviour. She has been acting out quite a bit - yelling, talking back, or ignoring us completely, and doing things that she knows she shouldn't do.
I don't know if she is just testing our limits, if she is picking up stuff from the older kids at school, or if something else is going on with her. I was wondering if there is anything in her chart to explain this behavioural change.
Amy answers:
Many times specific behaviors or moods can be explained away by a passing circumstance, or a planetary transit in the case of astrology, where the behavior or mood can be 'waited out' until everything seems to return back to normal. Many people find they get more anxious, emotional, or high-strung around the full moon every month, for example, and once the peak of the full moon passes, we can get 'back to normal.'
With children, passing moods and the full moon 'crazies' can be just as fleeting, but since they are participating in more rapid development on all fronts in their path to adulthood, some changes in children can be thought of as a developmental threshold, rather than a passing phase, where the change is integrated as the child moves forward.
This concept of the development shift is something I think Aeryn has experienced recently with Saturn. Saturn was in the sign of Cancer when she was born and from that moment, has moved through Leo, Virgo, and Libra, where it formed a square in relation to Aeryn's natal Saturn late last year and a second pass this summer.
This first Saturn square happens to all of us when we're about 7 years old, and represents one of our first encounters with 'growing up.' Sometimes this corresponds with external circumstances that oblige the child to take on an additional responsibility or be more self-sufficient, but internally there is a growing sense of independence from the established authorities in one's life (teachers, parents) as we take on a smidgen of self responsibility and personal authority. Because it's a square, this isn't always a comfortable process and can represent a period of disillusionment with the authorities in our life.
This is significant but mostly because it's contextual for a more obvious astrological trigger, which is Saturn forming an opposition to Aeryn's natal Mars position. Mars is our sense of personal will and power, and encompasses our ability to act on what we want and defend against what we don't want. When Saturn opposes anything, we may feel a sense of being limited, thwarted, or blocked. In a child's life, Saturn is most easily projected onto the parents or teachers, because they are the rule-makers, so when this happened this summer, she probably started to exercise her will (Mars) to push back at the rule-makers (Saturn) in an effort to gain a sense of her own authority and capability.
These two things happened for the first time in late 2010, but occurred again this summer, and they've been joined by two more recent events which might have made them more noticeable. First, her progressed moon, which represents her evolving emotional needs, is in willful Scorpio, and has just moved into the 5th house, which is about self-expression - to be seen and heard. Also Uranus, the planet of rebellion and sometimes feisty individuality, formed a trine connection to her own Moon, adding a dose of rebellion. The rebellion is about wanting to express herself authentically, and it's easy for children to feel that they need to back the authorities off to have room to do their own thing.
In essence, the very real feelings for Aeryn probably have to do with her wanting to acknowledge and express that she has an agenda, an opinion, and some power - "testing your limits" as you said. Dealing with it is the classic parenting dilemma of needing to give her as much room as you can to make her own decisions (and understand their accompanying consequences) while still setting boundaries of your own about the rules of the house and your own personal boundaries about how two people should treat each other in a relationship of any kind to maintain respect for each other.
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. If you would like to submit a question for her monthly blog here, email her anytime!
