I've always liked thinking of courage as having the intestinal fortitude to face your fears. Or to just do what needs to be done even when you're scared spitless.
Mothering takes a lot of courage, and the fears I face are not only external but internal as well. I must muster my courage from time to time when I am confronted with my weak points, or places where I feel lacking as a mom.
In many ways I prepared for motherhood--I devoured books on child development, I waited until I truly felt ready to give up some of my personal independence and so on.
Where I'm weak is when faced with emotional outbursts and behavior problems when I don't know the cause. This throws me so off my game it's frightening.
If DD melts down because she's hungry, tired, sick, or something else I can identify or quanitify, I know how to deal with it. Mommy instinct kicks in and I respond appropriately (to the best of my knowledge, anyway).
But when DD gets easily overset for no reason I can find or starts acting out and I don't know why...I don't know how to describe what happens inside me...I panic a little bit, get very frustrated (at myself), and what's the worst for me, the very very worst, I don't know what to do. Seriously, not a clue.
So I showed a bit of personal courage this week and first articulated to myself that this is something that I need to deal with and yesterday did a little research and ordered some new parenting books that I think will help prepare me for the next stage in DD's development, the social/emotional jungle of human relationships and interactions.
I was totally ready for a baby, toddler, even preschooler. I've always intuitively "got" the little ones, knew what to do and how to do it. I'm NOT savvy with them once they approach grade school age and their needs become more sophisticated.
It's very strange for me to realize this and articulate it. I'm a mom, I'm supposed to have prepared for this, to understand my child and her needs, to react proactively, all that stuff.
It's hard for me to realize and admit that now DD's six, I feel like I've been caught flat footed. Here is this complete, whole person in front of me and I'm getting into more and more situations where I simply don't know what to do to deal with emotional meltdowns, defiant behavior, acting out, etc.
The tactics that were used on me when I was her age are not ones I want to use--they made me a compliant child on the surface, but the cost was huge. And besides, DD is so totally different from me that those tactics wouldn't work on her anyway she'd just get really pissed off at me and we'd get nowhere.
So I've ordered
--Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children,
--Emotionally Intelligent Parenting, and,
--"How to talk so kids will listen and how to listen so kids will talk".
It's a start.
Courage!
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DS is very emotional about everything, both ups and downs, and although he's heading towards 8 he's still like that, and I've just had to learn to live with it and accept it. DD is more rigid, almost repressed, and although she's 10 she'll still have the occasional meltdown, and having held it in the result is usually not pretty. DH freaks out, but I lead her up to her room until I think she's had enough time to get it out of her system a bit then I go up to her. 
