There are as many ways to raise children as there are parents.
There are as many ways to raise parents as there are children.
I felt a lot of sadness when I read this article (look below) that was shared on FB, about raising a generation of helpless kids....sadness because I feel we are not looking at the whole picture, and are swinging to an extreme....I feel we are somewhere not looking deep enough at ourselves and our children.
There are always two sides to any story and I wonder if we are only seeing one side, and therefore getting paranoid and showing a knee-jerk reaction to what we see as huge problems in kids today....
I for one believe that our children raise us, and that it is only our preparation that is important.....we are the soil that needs to be prepared and aired and tilled until it is 'ready' for the seed to use as its nourishment to grow...the seed holds everything that it needs for this lifetime within itself....it does not need any preparation...it waits patiently until the soil is ready, and then there is just no stopping it. But instead of preparing the soil, which is ourselves, we are so hell bent on preparing the seed, and finding fault with it, thereby even destroying it in the process.
The seed is not helpless. It is we who are helpless, because we are simply not listening to what it is asking us to do, and trying to find quick-fix solutions rather than digging deep.
There are more and more children today with marked sensitivities and other needs, who simply seem to be telling us to wake up, open our eyes wide and look at what and where we need to change. They are showing us in so many ways to wake up to our fears and face them head on. They are screaming out loud and clear that our old ways of thinking and being no longer hold stead. But are we going to stop and listen?
The answer I guess lies in whether we want to see it as them raising us, or us raising them.
When a child wants you to sort out a conflict he is having with a friend, can we try and trust him and just be there for him? He wouldn't call you unless he needs you would he? Have we ever bothered to wait long enough to see when he is ready to handle this on his own?
If he refuses to climb monkey bars or cycle without training wheels, can we just give him the space to be until he is ready?
Can we tell them every day how special they are to us, and enjoy the simple act of loving each other, instead of getting all anxious about how they are going to use their specialness to their advantage later on?
Can we respect the tiny plants that they are now and give them the space and freedom to enjoy being plants, instead of looking at them as 25 year old trees in the making?
What are the feelings that bubble up inside you when you read this article? What are the fears that get stirred up? Perhaps it would help all of us to sit with that.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Mickey-goodman/are-we-raising-a-generati_b_1249706.html
There are as many ways to raise parents as there are children.
I felt a lot of sadness when I read this article (look below) that was shared on FB, about raising a generation of helpless kids....sadness because I feel we are not looking at the whole picture, and are swinging to an extreme....I feel we are somewhere not looking deep enough at ourselves and our children.
There are always two sides to any story and I wonder if we are only seeing one side, and therefore getting paranoid and showing a knee-jerk reaction to what we see as huge problems in kids today....
I for one believe that our children raise us, and that it is only our preparation that is important.....we are the soil that needs to be prepared and aired and tilled until it is 'ready' for the seed to use as its nourishment to grow...the seed holds everything that it needs for this lifetime within itself....it does not need any preparation...it waits patiently until the soil is ready, and then there is just no stopping it. But instead of preparing the soil, which is ourselves, we are so hell bent on preparing the seed, and finding fault with it, thereby even destroying it in the process.
The seed is not helpless. It is we who are helpless, because we are simply not listening to what it is asking us to do, and trying to find quick-fix solutions rather than digging deep.
There are more and more children today with marked sensitivities and other needs, who simply seem to be telling us to wake up, open our eyes wide and look at what and where we need to change. They are showing us in so many ways to wake up to our fears and face them head on. They are screaming out loud and clear that our old ways of thinking and being no longer hold stead. But are we going to stop and listen?
The answer I guess lies in whether we want to see it as them raising us, or us raising them.
When a child wants you to sort out a conflict he is having with a friend, can we try and trust him and just be there for him? He wouldn't call you unless he needs you would he? Have we ever bothered to wait long enough to see when he is ready to handle this on his own?
If he refuses to climb monkey bars or cycle without training wheels, can we just give him the space to be until he is ready?
Can we tell them every day how special they are to us, and enjoy the simple act of loving each other, instead of getting all anxious about how they are going to use their specialness to their advantage later on?
Can we respect the tiny plants that they are now and give them the space and freedom to enjoy being plants, instead of looking at them as 25 year old trees in the making?
What are the feelings that bubble up inside you when you read this article? What are the fears that get stirred up? Perhaps it would help all of us to sit with that.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Mickey-goodman/are-we-raising-a-generati_b_1249706.html
