Warning Signs and Challenges

A Guide for Parents

This is part of series written for parents by astrologer Amy Herring for Kiddiegram.com.

While your child’s birth chart is an invaluable tool for understanding their lessons, strengths, and needs, it’s too easy to set an expectation and therefore a limitation, maybe without even realizing it. Sun in Leo? Be careful of thinking “Oh, my child is always going to show off too much, I need to curb that so she doesn’t get an over-inflated ego.” Mars in Pisces? Be careful of thinking “Oh, they’re too gentle-hearted and nice to stand up for themselves, I’m going to need to give them extra protection” and fighting battles that the child needs to handle themselves. It’s a fine line between understanding and supporting a child’s nature and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in an effort to compensate for what you may think they lack or could overdo.

A Mars in Pisces child is going to have a natural desire to empathize with others and to accommodate them, and yet will benefit from seeing the outcome when they allow themselves to be victimized by others and what they can do about that. They may never be an aggressive person, but they can learn compassion without being a victim. If they are never put in a position where they have to defend themselves, they will never see the outcome of those experiences and learn from them.

Likewise, Sun in Leo children are going to have a natural desire to express themselves, but they will benefit more from you being genuinely interested in their creative way of sharing themselves with you rather than you ignoring their demonstrations out of a fear they will be too domineering. Withholding this attention out of fear of overdoing it can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: the child may then feel that they never got enough attention and is prompted to go overboard to get what they need.

There it sits: Pluto in the 4th house of home and family: maybe you’re what scares and wounds your child! Or Uranus conjunct Venus: maybe your child will never be able to settle down with the right someone! No matter how philosophical we try to be, it’s downright scary and painful when we have to come face to face with the likelihood of our child experiencing pain and fear due to a personal struggle they will have to deal with.

It is important to remember that there are no ‘bad’ charts; each one truly has a spectrum of potential. Lest you think this is my poor attempt at being politically correct, let’s have an example.

Let’s take a look at the Trine. The trine is an aspect, (a relationship between two or more planets), in which the planets involved work in harmony together. This means that these parts of a person are not in conflict with each other, and it brings ease, a sense of internal cooperation between these two parts of a person. That doesn’t mean that we always experience good things in our lives as a result, however.

For instance, if Mars is trine your Moon, you may find it relatively easy to act from your instinct and intuition, and to be clear about what your heart wants and go straight out and get it. You may also find, however, that since your heart (Moon) and your will (Mars) work so comfortably together, you have very little natural self-discipline when it comes to controlling your impulses. Your heart may lead you down the garden path and you might not have time to think “maybe this isn’t so good for me after all!”

On the flipside, a Square is an aspect in which the planets involved grate against and thwart each other. It is representative of two parts of you that experience frequent internal conflict. It certainly does not feel comfortable, but it can bring about a great deal of self-discipline and clarity through the need to engage in the struggle of working this conflict out in yourself.

For instance, if Mars is square your Saturn, then your will (Mars) is constantly bumping against personal limitations (Saturn). While this means you will probably experience several rounds of feeling defeated, the tension gets you to notice the issue, and to work to resolve that tension, thereby making you stronger and more disciplined to actually get what you want, despite the challenges in the way. Like the squeaky wheel, it gets attention and has a better chance of being utilized as a hard won skill rather than a lazy, seldom used talent.

To continue, click on Parent-Child Synastry by Amy Herring.

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