Parenting Tips for Cancer Children

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we're going to take a look at some parenting tips for Cancer children. This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing looking at all 12 signs of the zodiac and how to provide some support as parents; if you have children who have strong placements in these signs. Now that could be Sun Moon rising, a stellium of planets in the sign. And as we've been going along, we've been trying to offer some advice.

So our goal for today is to look at five different parenting tips for Cancer children. This could also be a nice way of reflecting back on how we were raised individually; if you have a strong Cancer placement, this talk today might actually help you look at how you were parented and, you know, do some healing work around some of the things that went well, or maybe the things that didn't go as well, in your own family.

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Okay, so I want to talk about Cancer children. Now as someone with the Sun and Mercury in Cancer myself, I feel like this one was pretty easy for me to think about in terms of the things that went well growing up, maybe some of the things that didn't go well, I feel pretty blessed, and I had a relative amount of dysfunction, but I had, I feel like my parents did a pretty decent job. You know, not I know that not everyone can say that. I see that every day when I talk to people how just how dysfunctional and traumatic growing-up experience could be, and there's maybe no sign that will carry the weight of that pain or suffering more than Cancers.

So, in a sense, it's like the burden is a little extra for parents who have Cancer children because they're extra sensitive. These are the children of the moon, the feminine sign, a water sign, the temple of the moon, and the exultation of Jupiter. So there are five things that I have noticed in both in, you know, in terms of looking at my own upbringing and my own constitution and then working with parents and their Cancer kids over the years. So I'm going to always frame these in terms of support in this series.

Let's start with the first one, which is support attachment. I could use I could add a healthy attachment. But it felt a little bit more provocative to just use the word attachment. Why? Because people always, I mean, I hear more, more often, you know, it should be like a quarter jar word when people say, you know, don't just, be detached. Like, somehow, we have gotten it into our heads that the pinnacle of all achievements in this in this life or in this world is to be detached rather than attached to things or people. And I think that's just false. There's a time for everything; there's a season for everything. There are times in our life where if we don't know how to bond, if we don't know how to form deep, meaningful attachments to the things we love, even to the objects that we love, the things that we own, whether that's a guitar, or whether that's a favorite, you know, something that you wear, or like, you know, my daughter's both have favorite stuffed animals that they have deep bonds formed with.

The ability to form deep, meaningful emotional attachments to things is what makes life worth living. Cancer was called the gateway of mankind. And because at the summer solstice, when the sign of Cancer begins, the light is essentially coming down in the sky, which means the darkness is returning or the days are gradually getting shorter. From that point on, the Cancer Portal was seen as a place where the soul or spirit descends into a body into material form, and that's a form of attachment, right? We're going to link and bond and yoke or join ourselves, spirit to body.

So this world is, from that standpoint, from the Cancerian standpoint, this world is made for us to get attached to, to experience love, devotion, attachment, and bonding, is to be alive. And that we see that in nature with animals, and we see that with ourselves. Of course, there's always you always run the risk of becoming too attached or to have unhealthy forms of attachment or codependency or whatever.

One of the things that cancers are here to do is to experience that tender, sweet, romantic sense of attachment and connection to the world, to nature, to themselves, to their inner life to others, to their parents or family, to their friends, to their lovers to their children. This is what makes life so sweet from the Cancerian standpoint is the quality of the bonds that you form. So I think that a lot of the times, because we value independence, be a private, you know, like a private independent automaton. It's self-regulating and is not too needy, you know, neediness. Oh, that's the bad Cancer word.

This is not so helpful for Cancers. Support the healthy demonstration of attachments. Attachments are key for cancers to form deep, meaningful self-esteem and connection to others. So when you see kids, this might seem like neediness or fuzziness around the bonds that they have with people and their attachments and stuff like that. Instead of thinking, well, I need to make sure that they're, you know, emotionally self-sufficient and not being so needy. Think to yourself, how can I help them cherish love so deeply, so intensely, and bond with the things around them in ways that are healthy? You know, so it's not going from attachment to detachment or self-sufficiency.

Don't split it into that kind of dichotomy because it won't work for cancers. It's not like; you can't teach someone to just go against their own nature. And so, you know, how do we model healthy deep loving, supportive, beautiful attachments to things, which, you know, we model in the way that we love as parents in the way that we bond as parents with each other, as you know, if you're married, that you and your spouse have to have to model it, and with the things that you love, and how you care and take in how you care for them. Those are all the best ways to model that kind of attachment. So it's about modeling healthy attachment rather than thinking about don't be needy, be, be so self-sufficient, etc.

Number two would be support, affection, and devotion. This is a little bit similar, but the need to display or demonstrate affection and devotion to anything and everything is, you know, it can feel sort of sappy or over the top. But it's really important that, like, if you're going to, I don't know, like my wife, who's a Cancer rising, will bake with the girls. They like to bake things together, and what I've noticed is, you know, it's the way that my wife deals with the ingredients; it's the way she pours things. It's the little songs that they sing; it's the care and attention to the little things that will create; you have to think of what keeps what you want to get the image of like a nice, beautiful, slow-flowing river not so slow that it's stagnant, but not so fast that it's like, you know, it feels dangerous or too wild, so slow, peaceful moving river. And when you think of Cancer, you think of how, how do we model for our Cancer kids a way of being involved in every step of processes that we're taking on during the day, every transition we make from one thing to another, how do we do it with care with tenderness with mindfulness.

This is a great sign to be modeling playful, mindful, attentive, devoted qualities in little things, especially during transitions, because if there's not a feeling of emotional connection between one thing and the next, that sort of disjointed choppiness can be really rough on cancer kids. So support affection and devotion as a kind of constant slow, moving Peaceful River, especially around transitions in your day in between activities. And if you model for your Cancer kids, if you model a sort of a devoted quality in the way that you do things and the way that you say things and the way that you make transitions in the way you do your nighttime routines, all the little things that you add some thoughtfulness into the Cancer, kids start picking that up. And that becomes a way of self-regulating, oh, my bond with this person isn't available. Well, I'm going to enter into a space where maybe I'm on my own, but I'm caring for every little thing along the way.

Sometimes, you know, for cancer kids, it's hard, you know, it's harder to detach, or individuate, say, from mom or dad, or from parental bonding early on, or from other kids at school when they want to do something else. But one of the ways that we can support Cancer kids being more self-sufficient is that feeling of connection can still exist between yourself and absolutely anything you're doing and anywhere you're located. Any environment can be one that you tend to, that you care for, and that you're sensitive about, and any activity that you're doing can be done with a form of attachment, healthy attachment.

So modeling that for kids, or encouraging that. Okay, you can't play with anyone. You're by yourself, and you're a little bit bummed. But, you know, how can you care for your toys? Or how can you care for your room, or maybe getting them involved with something else you're doing, for example, if you have houseplants or if you have animals, or you know anything around the house that you have to care or tend to bring the Cancer kids in and make it a game. Anyway, support affection and devotion as ways of keeping seamless flow and also in modeling healthy transitions. Those are really important for cancers,

Number three support romance and reflection. The moon is a reflective light by nature and is associated with the desire to; you almost think of a crab picking up a shiny thing in the moonlight. This is my little one of my little stress balls that I have; I squeeze these things when I'm sitting at my desk all day. Anyway, so you pick up one of these. And if you're a little crab, you find little shiny things, and you hold them up under the light of the moon, and you sort of look at them, and you reflect upon them, and then you get attached to them, and you bring them into your little crab hole.

So if you think about what makes the Cancerian life worth living and how Cancers, not all cancers are the same, so some cancers are going to be super social and prone to, you know, bonding family-like environments, close relationships, love, and marriage. Then you also have the hermit crabs out there. And one of the ways that the hermit crab can live a life that's maybe a little bit more solitary, but nonetheless, still carries that lunar magic and that feeling of connection and that feeling of boundedness is through living a romantic and reflective life. Whatever. Sometimes that means cancers collect things you find Cancer sometimes like Hoarders too, but sometimes cancers will collect things.

The point is that to live a romantic life means to live a life of reflective appreciation and to look at the world through the lens of sometimes it's nostalgia, sometimes, it's sort of a poetic eye. A lot of Cancers would like to write or be, you know, writing poetry or essays or journaling. So, modeling for Cancerian kids who are a little bit more introverted or shy, sometimes, especially the more introverted Cancers. How can we open up, you know, romantic spaces within? If the Cancerian kid is the one who could use a journal or is the one who needs to collect something, some item, or generally, there's a world of magic within the more solitary Cancerian kids, and it's important not to just, you know, point them somehow to the outside world, well, you're too shy, you're a Cancer, you're so shy and sensitive, let's just try to push you out into the world and socialize you more, sometimes it's more about trying to open up that inner world of the hermit crab that is romantic and reflective. So keep that in mind as well.

Number four is to support emotional independence. Now, this is important because there is the shadow side of Cancer, we've been sort of defending and sort of advocating for Cancer, but the shadow side of Cancer can be the, you know, the inability to stand on one's own emotionally, the feeling of not being safe or comfortable, or the tendency toward being too dependent and not quite independent enough. So those are shadows. Supporting emotional independence means that how I feel does not have to be tied into how other people feel.

For example, sometimes, Cancers will go into helping professions or will constantly be the one that is supporting or, you know, creating, creating soft landing spots for other people. You know, the shoulder, this is the friend whose shoulder you cry on. But the problem with that is that sometimes it's through helping other people that the Cancer will hope to find reciprocation, like a lot of people that go into, you know, helping professions. I can identify with this a bit myself as a Cancer Sun; you go into the helping profession because you think, well if I provide support for the people that will give me love, that will get me loved and liked and respected and appreciated.

So you have to be careful of the tendency to give as a way of trying to get with Cancer. One way to help kids recognize that they're doing that is to support emotional independence, what are you feeling? And? And how do we look at what you're feeling apart from what it has to do with other people? For example, if a Cancer child is upset with a friend that doesn't want to play with them or something. Instead of focusing on the friend, and you know, what's, what went wrong, or what I did wrong, or what they're doing wrong, just say, Well, how do you feel? You feel hurt, you know, you really wanted to play with them, and they're playing with someone else, and you feel you feel a little bit abandoned or neglected. That must really hurt your feelings.

Well, you know, and then moving into how do we take responsibility for those feelings. Rather than thinking I have to go solve them by figuring it out with that person who left me on the playground, we encourage the Cancerian children to, you know, be able to adapt and work through those emotions on their own to process them and come back to a healthy space where you feel good again, on your own without the feeling good, being overly dependent upon what other people are doing or giving or providing or not.

So those are really important skills to model for Cancer children because the bonding is normal. But we also do need to be able to self-regulate. For Cancers, it would be unhealthy to say, you know, you just need to learn to toughen up and be independent emotionally; that's not quite right. But we also don't want cancer kids to be feeling utterly helpless if things aren't going right socially, you know, or, God forbid, you know, parents are divorced, and the family splits, and there's real trauma in the home or family.

You know, one of the things that cancer kids have to figure out is, well, where do I, you know, in addition to maybe how do I create healthy bonds with other people in other places throughout my life, and maybe recreate something that was lost on the on a social level, which can be a real thing for cancer kids who go through breakups of families. But it's also about saying, How do I take care of myself emotionally without needing to rely on other people?

Which is why if you can also model for cancer kids that it's important to have an inner romantic, reflective space filled with things you know, who I think of as super Cancerian in The Little Mermaid, it's Ariel, and she has that little place that she goes, it's filled with all sorts of stuff that she acts she's collected. Do you know what I'm talking about? She's got the song she sings about it.

It's like Cancers have to have that sort of inner world that they can go into when I was a little kid. For example, I had a bed, and there was a space under the bed. It was just I don't know how to explain it. But there was like a space under the bed. And I would I had Like all sorts of stuff in there, you know, I have like a blanket, a flashlight, my comic books, and that we need to have those spaces psychically as Cancers so that we have some shelter that we can go into and in a rich inner world that serves as a kind of refuge that connects us to things and connects us to the psychic interiority.

Then when we leave that little cave, we go back into the world, and we're probably a little less melancholic, a little less, you know, with a few less unhealthy attachments. So supporting emotional independence may come back to also teaching kids how to have affectionate, devoted, romantic, and reflective spaces that aren't as connected to other people and other things socially. So a mix of both is important.

Number five is support family time. If you're in a family, and you have a cancer kid, there's nothing that will fill the cup more than doing fun, wholesome, bonded things together as a group, especially where there's a lot of praise and affection being given to the kids, especially to the Cancer kid. I mean, obviously, you don't want to favor anyone, but you know, just never underestimate what quality time affection touch. Everyone has a different love language, but like, you know, get on those things with Cancer kids on the regular because it's like water for them. It's very nourishing.

Also, recognize that can Syrians will often need to recreate a feeling of family throughout their lives and college as an adult; they'll often need a sense of boundedness with other people, a sense that there is safety and warmth and connection with their roommates or with their friends or in a desire to get married and have a family of their own. Now again, not all cancers are oriented that way; some cancers are much more romantic and solitary, like the hermit crab kind of image.

But for those who are the bonders out there, you know, don't be surprised if when they come home from school or something, you know, you ask how did school go, and a lot of it has to do with the vacillations of their social connections and how they're feeling about them. Because the need to feel a part of a bonded group socially is very important for a lot of Cancerians, although sometimes the quality emotionally of those bonds is more important than the number of friends.

Sometimes Cancers really don't like large groups, for example, but the need to have a tight group like a there clannish, you know, that's how Cancers can be. So and know that it's also important that Cancerians know how to have a healthy space of selfhood, apart from groups or families, and sort of that clan sense of belonging that we have to balance those two things.

So these are the things that I recommend supporting for your Cancer kids and being aware of the tendency for people to look at the Cancer kid and say, Oh, they're needy, or, Oh, they shouldn't be so attached to things, or they have a hard time with transitions. Or they're moody, you know, that's another one, but support, another we could add to the list support the again, that's what I actually what I was saying earlier about creating flow.

The moodiness can be addressed if we model for Cancers how to go from one thing to the next with a lot of tenderness and devotion, a lot of little, little thoughtful things. So like my wife, again, Cancer rising, there's not really a space in our house that doesn't have like flowers she's putting there or thinks she's watering or, you know, there's so much I was one of the things I fell in love with, about my wife like early on was just how much she cares for all these little things and the way she flows through her day with tenderness in everything she's doing.

Cancers are, you know, I would just say in general that Cancers who learned that skill will know how to take care of themselves when other things and other people aren't responding in the way they want. So maybe that's one of the most important takeaways I could really think of. Anyway, so these are my thoughts for Cancer parenting tips for Cancer kids. I hope that this is helpful for all of you. If you have anything you'd like to add because you're a Cancer or your parents have some Cancer children. Please do. I'd love to hear your wisdom in the comment section. And I will look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.