Children are an important influence because they are unrelenting models of the truth that everything changes all the time. As a new parent, you think you've got it down (ie: an eating or sleeping schedule), and right when you start to feel like you have your bearings in relation to them, it changes. Life as far as children go, is pretty much complete chaos (even if you are the organized type). Once this has found an acceptance in your solar plexus, you might as well relax and find your sense of humor (kids are excellent mentors in this area). Children help us to see we rarely know what we are doing, and that is as it should be. How could it be otherwise? You never parented an infant, three year old, pre-teen, teenager or young adult before. And if you did, all others following the first are incredibly different and require different responses to similar situations. It's always new. Because of this, we are given the gift of humility. The young challenge us in all ways to move/act/think/feel quicker than we ordinarily would like and give us an opportunity to get a view from another's almost continually open perspective. In a conscientious adult, children inspire us to wake up, grow up and be better human beings. Because of this, the act of parenting/mentoring others, becomes the act of parenting oneself.
Children naturally seek relationship. Their curiosity with the inside and outside world and the beings that surround them is unquenchable. They deeply observe, listen, imitate everything. They put things in their mouths to discover more about the object. (an incredibly interesting approach!). As I have seen it, it is the adult's job to keep them safe (without being overprotective) and to respect them, their current development arc (again, constantly changing) and who they are evolving to be. The bond we naturally have with them as a parent, complicates this basic approach and sometimes mires the process of their (and our own) evolution. Hence, the imperative need for other adults and models to be major influences in their life (and in our process). It does indeed, take a village to raise a child.
In children, we are reminded of our own possible resiliency and a life force that is insistent, hopeful and frequently present in Joy. In this awakening, the notion that we are supposed to be their life-model is turned on its head and it becomes apparent, it is the other way around.
In all this topsy-turvy unknown that goes hand in hand with being in the sphere of a child, how is a practically-fixed adult supposed to survive? Many of us take the dictatorial approach, attempting to control the chaos, becoming master-director, feigning a knowing to manage the raw energy ever present in the young. This approach secures our "adult" role and our ego's sense of omnipotence. It also occasionally is useful in a crisis. As a general modus operandi, it can be suffocating and repressive to the young who are naturally seeking autonomy, self reliance and self governance. Another common parenting approach is to ignore or deny manifestation, letting children raise themselves (emotionally) while abdicating this responsibility to them. Children demand (and deserve) attention; how one gives it determines the lesson learned, determines the relationship made between you.
As adults in the role of mentoring the young, we sometimes become fixed in the habit of directing and are swallowed by the conditions of too little patience (or being), too little time to support their self-discovery. We become almost completely reliant on structure and schedules to maintain some semblance of equanimity. Structure and direction are both ways that teach self-discipline, accountability and consequences of actions taken. Or they could be. For consequences to be a rich experience, there has to be an empathic feeling present in the adult; a knowing intelligence in this realm which proliferates despite the outcome of the consequence (that doesn't turn into sentimentality or variations of rescuing). Many times the structures and direction are put into place for the adult's benefit and comfort, but when the consequence reveals itself, the empathic feeling isn't present because the young person's well being or arising wasn't considered primary. Hence, the consequence falters, slides and becomes fodder for something else other than accountability. As was said previously, the presence of children urges us adults at all times to grow up and be better human beings.
In my post Violence: a Cautionary Truth, discipline is mentioned: How do we differentiate violence from say, discipline? Respect of other is always at the base of discipline and fully absent in violence. Also, there is an integrated intelligence which is responsive and not reactive in discipline. Energetically, violence is raw and ungrounded, usually unpredictable and ego driven. Whereas, discipline is a focused and aligned energy that serves as a guide without an agenda. Domination is an impulse born of fear; it is a basic animal instinct present in one degree or another, always. The more we bring a larger attention and awareness to our daily actions, the more we will know ourselves, become more available to our fuller humanity, the less this impulse will be tolerated in oneself, the less weight of myself violence will usurp. It would be noteworthy here to include violence as being sharp tones and language, withering looks as well as physical strong arming.
So, it may seem respect (without fear) is the cornerstone of relationship with children. Respect can exist only in the void of the perception of "otherness", that children are somehow less than us, we being their older (not necessarily wiser) counterparts. This sameness perception can be difficult to sustain in light of their diminutive size, dearth of experience, minimal maturity, limited vocabulary, lack of financial viability and cognitive weakness (frontal cortex of brain is not fully mature until age 26) which is the child's (partial) reality. An appreciation and value for humanity in all its guises is the root of respect we have for children (and all people).
Despite all the child-rearing expert literature (which changes regularly), we generally don't know what we are doing as parents/mentors. And we are in good company, because children don't know what they are doing either (they are visceral responders). This relationship is an exercise in exciting exploration. The great thing about kids is their forgiveness factor; it's easy for them. They thrive in making mistakes (until they learn otherwise), falling down and getting up again is an impulse for another adventure. They are completely cognizant of our weaknesses, frailties and shortcomings. And they forgive and even love us anyway, (even when they are testing us). They are fully aware of our adult sufferings, our struggles, our not knowing (even when we pretend otherwise). And they are unfailing in their compassion for this, and are appreciative when borne for their sake. They learn respect not from being fearful but seeing respect modeled. There is no hiding from children. You might minimize arguments and hostilities in a household, but they are extremely sensitized to the tensions that exist. Modeling non-violent communication for them (and yourself) would be a gift.
So, how do we navigate this impossible physical, emotional, mental task of a layered support for another being to adulthood? Understanding the objective developmental curve of the different phases or challenges in human growth would be good. Having this knowledge under your belt would help you recognize the phase when it is exhibited and give you a heads up in preparing how you want to deal with it when it happens. If I had known at the time, that part of an eight year old's development is about fitting in, mutual identification, not being wildly different from their social peers, I would have never put two different colored yellow socks on my son on a bleary, late-for-school morning. (Now 28, forever mischievous, he still occasionally reminds me of the peer harassment he received.) At 4 years old, this fitting in identity issue was not problematic (not part of that age development); when his shoes had been left home 200 miles away, we tied on to his feet bright yellow "grippy" rubber gloves and brought his antsy self to a playground full of kids to swing on the swings. I'm pretty sure the other parents were mortified at this half boy, half Daffy Duck, but I had gotten past that parent developmental hurdle by that time. (Fingers crossed, yellow is not a PTSD-inducing color for him today.) Knowledge about child (and parent!) development is helpful.
The "time out" concept was particularly helpful to me as a parent of young children; not only to allow a break in a mini-crisis for them, but a breathing space for myself to regroup my own energies and wits. Directives, negotiations, strategies, reasoning.... they all fail at one time or another. The only constant is relationship and the mutual respect that has been built; it is the foundation of who you are together.
In my post Violence: a Cautionary Truth, discipline is mentioned: How do we differentiate violence from say, discipline? Respect of other is always at the base of discipline and fully absent in violence. Also, there is an integrated intelligence which is responsive and not reactive in discipline. Energetically, violence is raw and ungrounded, usually unpredictable and ego driven. Whereas, discipline is a focused and aligned energy that serves as a guide without an agenda. Domination is an impulse born of fear; it is a basic animal instinct present in one degree or another, always. The more we bring a larger attention and awareness to our daily actions, the more we will know ourselves, become more available to our fuller humanity, the less this impulse will be tolerated in oneself, the less weight of myself violence will usurp. It would be noteworthy here to include violence as being sharp tones and language, withering looks as well as physical strong arming.
Despite all the child-rearing expert literature (which changes regularly), we generally don't know what we are doing as parents/mentors. And we are in good company, because children don't know what they are doing either (they are visceral responders). This relationship is an exercise in exciting exploration. The great thing about kids is their forgiveness factor; it's easy for them. They thrive in making mistakes (until they learn otherwise), falling down and getting up again is an impulse for another adventure. They are completely cognizant of our weaknesses, frailties and shortcomings. And they forgive and even love us anyway, (even when they are testing us). They are fully aware of our adult sufferings, our struggles, our not knowing (even when we pretend otherwise). And they are unfailing in their compassion for this, and are appreciative when borne for their sake. They learn respect not from being fearful but seeing respect modeled. There is no hiding from children. You might minimize arguments and hostilities in a household, but they are extremely sensitized to the tensions that exist. Modeling non-violent communication for them (and yourself) would be a gift.
The "time out" concept was particularly helpful to me as a parent of young children; not only to allow a break in a mini-crisis for them, but a breathing space for myself to regroup my own energies and wits. Directives, negotiations, strategies, reasoning.... they all fail at one time or another. The only constant is relationship and the mutual respect that has been built; it is the foundation of who you are together.
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