Mindful Parenting
I read this this morning on another list I'm on and it fit my mood today, as I have recently been dealing with some adults who have been very disrespectful of children, and just can't grasp how you can raise kids without controlling them.
The credit for this goes to Joyce Fetteroll, whose link is at right, if you're interested in reading more of her writings.
***
If all the things you loved were thought of as whims by your best
friend or husband would you feel closer and feel like sharing with them?
At first it might be cute. But the longer something touches you deeply and the more often you encounter others who don't treat it seriously, the more disconnected the relationship becomes at that intersection point. You'd want to seek out others who share you passion.
Will it break a relationship? No. Will it enhance it? Definitely not. And when relationships are so hard to build, why consciously do anything what will tear one down?
That's the essence of mindful parenting. Being aware of what we do that will build a relationship and what will tear it down. And when we want to build a relationship, we choose to put extra effort into what we do to avoid tearing it down, into, yes, making our lives a little less convenient in order not to make someone else pay for our convenience by their unhappiness. We choose to make trips less onerous. (Because we know we wouldn't want to be dragged to the store by a husband twice or more a week. It would show deep disrespect of our time and feelings if he did that every single week. And it would whittle at our relationship.)
How we view our children *does* matter. Even if we never say "whim" or "drag", if we're thinking it, it will be in our actions and become part of our decisions. It's very difficult to choose less convenient solutions for ourselves to accomodate whims. It is much easier to show that we respect our children when we treat their interests as passions.
Why is it essential that a parent change their whole life, including the need to accomplish the grown up stuff of life, to accomodate the whims and demands of a child?
It's not essential. It builds relationships. When we treat each others' needs equally we build relationships. The needs of a child who is passionately playing a video game aren't more important to the mom who needs stuff from the grocery store for dinner. For each person meeting those needs are up high on their list.
We can *model* respect for others needs by not deciding for the child that our needs take precedence. If we do, what are we modeling for them? That they can decide their needs are more important and ours can wait?
We can decide that the relationship is more important and treat their needs as being just as important as ours. We can brainstorming options, we can plan ahead better (if this is something that keeps happening over and over). And when children are treated with respect, when they *feel* respected and like their needs and wants matter to someone else, they return the respect. They become more accommodating.
Add to that the budget constraints of 'having no other options'
It helps a lot in shifting from an adversarial mentality to see everything as a choice. While some options may not be as attractive as others, rarely do we have no other options.
But it helps a *lot* to see all the options and their consequences to feel what was viewed as a "have to" is really a choice. For instance, we don't "have to" take out the garbage. We *could* let it pile up.(And other options: hiring someone, consciously choosing to live with as little waste as possible.) But we choose to because we find the consequences of the other options don't outweigh their benefits.
It's not necessary to think like that. But it's a brain exercise that can help relieve the weight of "have to"s that can feel draining as though we're always giving and getting way less in return.
My kids get to come along with me, because I feel it is important for them to see the inner workings of all of life.
Word choice is important in thinking clearly. You made your children come. They didn't "get to".
And many people feel it's important that children learn math so they make them do math.
While I think it's certainly useful that my daughter see grocery stores and the process of buying food, that isn't an excuse to make her go. And despite that, she's been to the grocery store hundreds of times in 15 years. (It's not brain surgery. It doesn't take many trips to figure it out ;-)
It was easy (natural and inevitable) to 'balance' my children's screen time because we had other things to do
And other unschoolers find it possible to live balanced lives without mom deciding what and how its to be done. The more we involve kids in the rhythm of life, the more we treat their needs with respect, the more we build a great relationship with them. And it's not us deciding they need x amount of TV, and y amount of video games and z amount of out of the time house, and then asking them to figure out how to do that. It's us saying "I'd like to visit my friends today, what are your plans and how can we make them work together."
--Joyce Fetteroll
The credit for this goes to Joyce Fetteroll, whose link is at right, if you're interested in reading more of her writings.
***
If all the things you loved were thought of as whims by your best
friend or husband would you feel closer and feel like sharing with them?
At first it might be cute. But the longer something touches you deeply and the more often you encounter others who don't treat it seriously, the more disconnected the relationship becomes at that intersection point. You'd want to seek out others who share you passion.
Will it break a relationship? No. Will it enhance it? Definitely not. And when relationships are so hard to build, why consciously do anything what will tear one down?
That's the essence of mindful parenting. Being aware of what we do that will build a relationship and what will tear it down. And when we want to build a relationship, we choose to put extra effort into what we do to avoid tearing it down, into, yes, making our lives a little less convenient in order not to make someone else pay for our convenience by their unhappiness. We choose to make trips less onerous. (Because we know we wouldn't want to be dragged to the store by a husband twice or more a week. It would show deep disrespect of our time and feelings if he did that every single week. And it would whittle at our relationship.)
How we view our children *does* matter. Even if we never say "whim" or "drag", if we're thinking it, it will be in our actions and become part of our decisions. It's very difficult to choose less convenient solutions for ourselves to accomodate whims. It is much easier to show that we respect our children when we treat their interests as passions.
Why is it essential that a parent change their whole life, including the need to accomplish the grown up stuff of life, to accomodate the whims and demands of a child?
It's not essential. It builds relationships. When we treat each others' needs equally we build relationships. The needs of a child who is passionately playing a video game aren't more important to the mom who needs stuff from the grocery store for dinner. For each person meeting those needs are up high on their list.
We can *model* respect for others needs by not deciding for the child that our needs take precedence. If we do, what are we modeling for them? That they can decide their needs are more important and ours can wait?
We can decide that the relationship is more important and treat their needs as being just as important as ours. We can brainstorming options, we can plan ahead better (if this is something that keeps happening over and over). And when children are treated with respect, when they *feel* respected and like their needs and wants matter to someone else, they return the respect. They become more accommodating.
Add to that the budget constraints of 'having no other options'
It helps a lot in shifting from an adversarial mentality to see everything as a choice. While some options may not be as attractive as others, rarely do we have no other options.
But it helps a *lot* to see all the options and their consequences to feel what was viewed as a "have to" is really a choice. For instance, we don't "have to" take out the garbage. We *could* let it pile up.(And other options: hiring someone, consciously choosing to live with as little waste as possible.) But we choose to because we find the consequences of the other options don't outweigh their benefits.
It's not necessary to think like that. But it's a brain exercise that can help relieve the weight of "have to"s that can feel draining as though we're always giving and getting way less in return.
My kids get to come along with me, because I feel it is important for them to see the inner workings of all of life.
Word choice is important in thinking clearly. You made your children come. They didn't "get to".
And many people feel it's important that children learn math so they make them do math.
While I think it's certainly useful that my daughter see grocery stores and the process of buying food, that isn't an excuse to make her go. And despite that, she's been to the grocery store hundreds of times in 15 years. (It's not brain surgery. It doesn't take many trips to figure it out ;-)
It was easy (natural and inevitable) to 'balance' my children's screen time because we had other things to do
And other unschoolers find it possible to live balanced lives without mom deciding what and how its to be done. The more we involve kids in the rhythm of life, the more we treat their needs with respect, the more we build a great relationship with them. And it's not us deciding they need x amount of TV, and y amount of video games and z amount of out of the time house, and then asking them to figure out how to do that. It's us saying "I'd like to visit my friends today, what are your plans and how can we make them work together."
--Joyce Fetteroll
posted by Zany Mom at 2:15 PM
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