Full Transcript:
The Weaning Process and Maturity in Foals
Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness. Let's talk a little bit about the weaning process or the maturing of a foal as it comes into maturity.
So, a newborn and a mare—a mare and a foal with a newborn—that mare is super protective, right? Ultra protective, I mean, crazy. She will not let anyone near, and she will not let that foal out of her distance. I mean, they're practically touching or within a step or two, even for the first month or so, right? And by the way, that foal knows to stay close to his mom instinctively.
Over time, over the next few months, it's a gradual process. That foal gets curious and starts to venture away. The mare also allows him, over a period of time, to venture out further and further and for longer periods of time. When it gets to be around nine months-ish, she won't even let him nurse anymore if he wants to.
It's also interesting to note that even after a mare and her offspring—her foal—have been separated for sometimes up to a year plus, when they're reunited, they recognize each other.
Challenges in the Separation Process
This process isn't a perfect. Sometimes, the mare can be so aggressive that she injures other curious horses. Sometimes, she can even inadvertently injure her own foal in an effort to protect it.
When we take a look at our own kids in this process—the process of maturing, separation, and detachment—it's not always a perfect process either. If we're not prepared for this mentally and emotionally, it can look like: Hey, what's the matter with you? You don't want to spend time with me? You got a problem. You're spoiled. You're entitled. I've given you all this, and you don't even appreciate me. And it goes on and on, right?
And what we do if we're not prepared, if we just go off our default—which could be negative feelings—Once were so clingy; they just had to be there all the time. And now they don't want to have anything to do with me. They're walking 10 feet behind me. They want to be dropped off two blocks from school.
We can take it personally if we're not prepared for it. And if we do, it ends up having a negative result, okay? It ends up having a negative result.
Understanding Healthy Separation vs. Isolation
First of all, just knowing that for them to form their own identity, to figure out who they are, to form their own sense of self, they have to detach from us as parents. It's just part of the normal process.
But you know, it can also be hard to determine: Is this a healthy separation, or is this isolation? This is a key point here. We've talked about isolation before.
I'm going to give you four questions to contemplate to help determine what's happening and to handle it best:
Is this behavior healthy that their doing?
As parents, most of the time, we have a pretty good indication if what they're doing is healthy or not. If we don't, I suggest checking with a medical professional because isolation, as we've discussed before, is something to take seriously.
Are they staying within your boundaries?
Are they keeping the family rules and keeping your agreements? Are they doing this separation inside your rules?
What's going on with me?
How am I feeling about this thing? I need to get myself in check myself and figure out what’s going on with me. How am I feeing and why? How am I coming out. Am I coming out as the confident leader I want to be in this thing?
How can I, as the parent, support this healthy progression of separation?
Because remember, the goal is independence—to help our kids become independent, confident, capable human beings.
Hey, there's more on this in our podcast about this subject. Check it out.
Thank you for taking your time with me today. Remember, You Are Destined for Greatness.
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