http://sharing.theflip.com/session/5c15dd8296347805599aae9336623e16/video/2961615
shared by Murshida 1.26.09
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
On Compassion Towards Our Children
from zenhabits
by leo babauta
shared by Isa 1.26.09
(photo added by cecily)
“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” - Gandhi
The other day I talked about how someone interested in Compassion should talk about compassion towards animals, a group of living beings that is often overlooked.
But just as important is a discussion of compassion towards our own children — people we love and don’t want to see suffer, and yet whose suffering we often cause.
I anticipate this topic will be even more controversial, because as parents we don’t want to think that we cause suffering in our beloved children. But we do (or at least, those of us who use mainstream parenting techniques usually do), and it should be brought out in the open.
I should note that I am among the perpetrators of non-compassionate behavior towards my own children, and I make no claims to perfection. I have recognized the problem, however, and I’m trying to change.
Teaching Compassion to Our Children
First: why is this issue so important? Because creating a more compassionate world requires that the next generation — our children — learn to be compassionate.
And how do we teach compassion to our children? By talking about it or making them read articles on Zen Habits? Well, that’s a good start, but even more important is that we model compassionate behavior — starting in the home. That means we need to be compassionate toward everyone in our homes, including our children.
Sounds great so far, right? But do we actually do this? If you’ve ever “disciplined” a child with a spanking, with a verbal berating, with a time out meant to teach the child a lesson, you’ve acted in a way that isn’t compassionate.
Let’s explore this a bit more.
Discipline Isn’t Compassionate
When a child gets angry, throws a tantrum, throws toys, hits another child, or cries loudly, parents often will use force to stop the child — sometimes this force is simply coercive language with threat of punishment, sometimes it’s picking a child up and putting him in time out, sometimes it’s actual violence through spanking or slapping or worse.
This is “discipline” and it’s meant to teach the child that what she’s doing is wrong. But what message is usually conveyed instead? That it is wrong when we get angry or upset, that our parents will treat us unkindly when we do, that obeying and conforming is more important than being kind and loving.
When a friend is angry or cries, we don’t slap the friend, or yell at him to shut up, or lock him in a room or force him to sit quietly on a couch. That would be considered not only rude behavior but offensive. What the friend needs is compassion, a gentle hug, a receptive ear, someone who understands and feels his pain and wants to end his suffering.
And yet when our children are upset, we often do the opposite: we do not listen or seek to understand or feel their pain or seek to end their suffering. In fact we cause more suffering. That’s not compassionate.
The Cause of Children’s Anger
Why does a child get upset or throw tantrums or have a crying fit? Often because she doesn’t get what she wants. A teen-ager develops a bad attitude and dysfunctional behavior often because he feels controlled, has no freedom, is stifled and smothered.
The cause of our children’s anger is often … us. We don’t give them the freedoms that normal humans deserve. We don’t believe they have the same right to what they want that we as adults do. We believe we know better (when we sometimes don’t) and so we control them.
But is this compassionate? If another adult told us that he knew better than us, would we like it if he controlled us? Would we like it that he didn’t give us freedoms or allow us to do what we wanted? Undoubtedly not.
In fact, this lack of respect, dignity, and freedom would cause us pain and suffering. Just as it does our children.
Instead of being compassionate, we are causing their suffering.
Compassionate Parenting
Fortunately, there is a better way. I’ve been reading a lot about a philosophy called Taking Children Seriously, and it is a radical break from traditional parenting. Just a note: be prepared to have your beliefs about parenting challenged if you read this site, but keep an open mind and be willing to change your mind.
TCS advocates non-coercive parenting — not forcing the child to do anything, but rather educating the child, guiding the child, helping the child, and trying to lead by persuasion rather than coercion.
It sounds good, but in reality it can be difficult for a traditional parent to accept the TCS way, as it means letting go of notions that a child must “listen” (or obey), that we must teach the child certain lessons and the means justifies this end, that education is rightly done through (coercive) schools, that our way is the right way.
While TCS is not a methodology, one of the fundamental concepts that is put into practice by
TCS parents is that of finding a “common preference” rather than either the parent getting her way or the child getting his way. If either of those happens, the other “loses”, which means that either the child or the parent gets hurt.
TCS advocates neither person getting hurt — everyone should win. You do that by considering alternatives until you find an option that both parties are happy with. This is actually consistent with my theory of life — I don’t think we should hurt each other and should find ways to work things out so that everyone is happy whenever possible.
“Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate.” - anonymous
But What About When …
So what do you do if a child is crying or throwing a tantrum and won’t listen to reasoning? You find compassion for the child — you give her a hug, listen to her if she wants to talk about it, help her get what she wants.
That’s compassionate parenting. And this kind of compassion — feeling the suffering of your child and helping him end the suffering — is the model that our children need to learn compassion towards others. And if they grow up to be compassionate, our world is a better place.
There are many other situations parents will have questions about when it comes to this style of parenting, and I won’t be able to answer them all. I suggest you check out the dozens of articles on the TCS website, read their discussion boards and mailing list, and check out a few of the blogs of TCS parents and advocates. They can explain it all much better than I can.
As for me, I am new to compassionate parenting. I have always had compassion for my children, of course, but I was also raised in a traditional authoritarian style and that’s what I’m used to.
It’s hard to change. But I think it is important if I want a more compassionate world.
Once I’ve started with myself and how I treat my children, I can expand from there and show them how to be compassionate towards others in our community, and around the world. But it must start somewhere, and I think with our children is a wonderful place to start.
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.” - Dr. Seuss
Sunday, January 25, 2009
New Being Project Prime Directives
Shared by Masa ~
~ *** ~
The New Being Prime Directives
1. Be aware to never impose your will
onto the child
2. Be aware to never interrupt the
creative flow of the child
3. If special circumstances arise that
require imposing your will, come
from the place of an open heart,
sharing why you did what you did
with the child
4. Always keep your Word with the
child
~ *** ~
From Murshida ~
Leeloo asked me today why I was sitting in front on the couch. I told that another way to see it is that I was sitting on her left.
Then she said, I want to stay in back. I supported that by sharing some advantages . . . she could put her calendar up against my back and flip through the pages and she could rest herself on my back for a minute. She tried both and stayed happily.
Then she said, I want to stay in back. I supported that by sharing some advantages . . . she could put her calendar up against my back and flip through the pages and she could rest herself on my back for a minute. She tried both and stayed happily.
Thoughts On Raising a Child
from Isa, 1/19/09
I find myself becoming more aware of the fact that what I'm asking her to do, is as something that I in fact have to do myself.
It may seem obvious, yet, its really subtle. I can't ask her to remember to be polite if I am forgetting my manners as well.
Being a parent is a non-stop mirror.
How I relate emotionally, socially, or physically are exact replicas of how she will relate to the world, and herself.
How I treat others, whether in her presence or not, will translate to her.
I wonder if most parents see this, or if they are see a blank slate in which to control.
I don't know.
I find myself becoming more aware of the fact that what I'm asking her to do, is as something that I in fact have to do myself.
It may seem obvious, yet, its really subtle. I can't ask her to remember to be polite if I am forgetting my manners as well.
Being a parent is a non-stop mirror.
How I relate emotionally, socially, or physically are exact replicas of how she will relate to the world, and herself.
How I treat others, whether in her presence or not, will translate to her.
I wonder if most parents see this, or if they are see a blank slate in which to control.
I don't know.
Another Article: Are You Raising a Douchebag?
By David Hochman
Published in men.style.com
Also shared by Isa
Do you think it's cute when 4-year-olds opine about Damien Hirst and demand heirloom tomatoes? Sound off below.
Let us begin with the assumption that if you are a parent, you wish for your child every advantage and opportunity. From the ergonomic high chair to that all-important first sushi experience and beyond, life should be as golden for your little one as it is for, say, Pax Jolie-Pitt.
But inevitably the moment arrives when all your doting and care come back on you in the form of a precocious little barb that reminds you in no uncertain terms of . . . you. It might be that his friend Jake's eighth-birthday party was "unbelievably lame" or that "it's weird that Brandon's family flies first-class and we don't," or maybe it's simply that "these taquitos taste like turd."
It's then that you must reckon with the real possibility that your drive to make little Johnny better, smarter, and hipper has merely turned him into a douchebag. Put it this way: If it's your child, not you, who gets to choose your weekend brunch spot, or if he's the one asking how the branzino is prepared, it's probably time to take a hard look at your own behavior.
It's not like we're the first generation to turn out Frankenkinder. Since the dawn of time, parents have been dressing their kids in ridiculous sailor suits and dragging them on ski trips to Gstaad. But lately it feels like we're scaling new heights as bad examples. We create parenting blogs that transform our preschoolers into fetishized celebrities. We subscribe to magazines that suggest buying a 5-year-old a $400 Marc Jacobs cashmere hoodie. We think it's cute when our kids learn to text message (until we realize POS means "parent over shoulder") and quietly rejoice when they can tell which Ramone is Dee Dee and which one is Joey.
Alas, convenient as it might be, we can't blame the children. "There's no such thing as a spoiled gene," says parenting expert Michele Borba, author of Don't Give Me That Attitude! "The brat factor is all learned." Which means that if you're the dad pushing Junior around in a limited-edition Bugaboo stroller by Bas Kosters ($2,000), carrying a Louis Vuitton diaper bag ($1,380), and checking in at a members-only parenting club like Citi-babes in Manhattan (annual membership: $2,000), your offspring are probably developing some serious entitlement issues. Just read the news. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the rise of sixth-grade "fashion bullies" who terrorize peers who don't wear Junior Dolce & Gabbana. Then there was the New York Times article on youngsters—4-year-olds!—who fancy themselves collectors of highly coveted works of art.
It's not just about money, though. Since the nineties, a surge in overprotective parenting has promoted discussion over discipline and made leisure activities contingent upon nanny CPR training (have you ever even considered letting your kid play with a pocket knife or a rusty Flexible Flyer, never mind have a paper route?).
In 1999, Katie Allison Granju wrote a book, Attachment Parenting, about the virtues of catering to the needs and emotions of the very young, from breast-feeding-on-demand to co-sleeping. While she still advocates that approach, she also believes that society tries to turn babies into children too fast and then treats older kids much like babies. Her forthcoming book is titled Let Them Run With Scissors: How Over-Parenting Hurts Children, Parents and Society. "We no longer allow children to have personal autonomy, to experience hard knocks, or to take real risks," she says. "The result is a nation of overweight, overindulged, overly neurotic kids who whine and moan and often can't function on their own."
It certainly doesn't help that we 21st- century thirty- and fortysomething parents expect our children to dress, speak, and appreciate Roxy Music just like us. "The Mini-Me phenomenon of kids wearing Sex Pistols T-shirts and sending back foie gras is cute but also gross and dangerous," says Ada Calhoun, the editor-in-chief of Babble, an online bible for hipster parents. "If you've turned your kid into a carbon copy of yourself, that kid loses his voice. He's only trying to please the grown-up, who only wants to live vicariously through the kid."
Greg Ramey is a child psychologist with nearly 30 years of experience counseling families and children at Dayton Children's in Dayton, Ohio. He says the biggest change he's seen is that parents no longer want to act like parents. "Over and over, I see parents who try to be their kids' best friends," he says. "That's a flashing red light. Our kids don't need to be our buddies. They can like us when they're 30. Mostly what kids want is for a parent to be in charge."
The consequences of parental boundary blurring are everywhere. As Vanity Fair recently noted, 2007 is the "year the mothers of Hollywood's wild girls—Paris, Lindsay, and Britney—have found themselves almost as much a part of the tabloid circus as the daughters themselves."
Fortunately, it's never too late to fix the problem. Sharon Pieters sees kids with terrible behavior make the turnaround week after week, and it has everything to do with parenting, she says. The former nanny runs Child Minded, a parent-coaching company that goes into homes to vanquish the Scylla and Charybdis of offspring hell: disrespect and boorishness. For $1,200 a day, Pieters will help parents tame their brats. Whether it's a problem with too much stuff ("I visited some kids in Long Island who had their own moon bounce," Pieters says) or incessant back talk ("Some children's vocabulary is limited to 'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!'"), the solution is the same: "Set limits and stick to them." The hard part for most moms and dads is admitting there's a problem in the first place. Borba, the parenting writer, says, "The last thing parents today want after a day of work is to come home and be a cop. They think it's going to hurt the child's self-esteem to get a hard no. But you have to look at your kids and say, 'Are they turning out the way I want them to turn out?' If not, it's up to you to start to change things."
That takes care of the kids, but what about you? A possible solution comes from Asra Q. Nomani, who recently wrote an essay on Babble about being trapped in a cycle of out-of-control birthday parties, in which she kept trying to outdo the previous year's festivities. Turns out what her kid liked most wasn't the trip in the limo to the recording studio or even the playtime with a real tiger cub. It was the simpler, everyday stuff, the things that any kid's birthday party might include, like a birthday cake. Which makes you realize, the next time your inner douchebag tells you to book Criss Angel for your son's fifth birthday, you might want to take a deep breath and give yourself a hard no.
Published in men.style.com
Also shared by Isa
Do you think it's cute when 4-year-olds opine about Damien Hirst and demand heirloom tomatoes? Sound off below.
Let us begin with the assumption that if you are a parent, you wish for your child every advantage and opportunity. From the ergonomic high chair to that all-important first sushi experience and beyond, life should be as golden for your little one as it is for, say, Pax Jolie-Pitt.
But inevitably the moment arrives when all your doting and care come back on you in the form of a precocious little barb that reminds you in no uncertain terms of . . . you. It might be that his friend Jake's eighth-birthday party was "unbelievably lame" or that "it's weird that Brandon's family flies first-class and we don't," or maybe it's simply that "these taquitos taste like turd."
It's then that you must reckon with the real possibility that your drive to make little Johnny better, smarter, and hipper has merely turned him into a douchebag. Put it this way: If it's your child, not you, who gets to choose your weekend brunch spot, or if he's the one asking how the branzino is prepared, it's probably time to take a hard look at your own behavior.
It's not like we're the first generation to turn out Frankenkinder. Since the dawn of time, parents have been dressing their kids in ridiculous sailor suits and dragging them on ski trips to Gstaad. But lately it feels like we're scaling new heights as bad examples. We create parenting blogs that transform our preschoolers into fetishized celebrities. We subscribe to magazines that suggest buying a 5-year-old a $400 Marc Jacobs cashmere hoodie. We think it's cute when our kids learn to text message (until we realize POS means "parent over shoulder") and quietly rejoice when they can tell which Ramone is Dee Dee and which one is Joey.
Alas, convenient as it might be, we can't blame the children. "There's no such thing as a spoiled gene," says parenting expert Michele Borba, author of Don't Give Me That Attitude! "The brat factor is all learned." Which means that if you're the dad pushing Junior around in a limited-edition Bugaboo stroller by Bas Kosters ($2,000), carrying a Louis Vuitton diaper bag ($1,380), and checking in at a members-only parenting club like Citi-babes in Manhattan (annual membership: $2,000), your offspring are probably developing some serious entitlement issues. Just read the news. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the rise of sixth-grade "fashion bullies" who terrorize peers who don't wear Junior Dolce & Gabbana. Then there was the New York Times article on youngsters—4-year-olds!—who fancy themselves collectors of highly coveted works of art.
It's not just about money, though. Since the nineties, a surge in overprotective parenting has promoted discussion over discipline and made leisure activities contingent upon nanny CPR training (have you ever even considered letting your kid play with a pocket knife or a rusty Flexible Flyer, never mind have a paper route?).
In 1999, Katie Allison Granju wrote a book, Attachment Parenting, about the virtues of catering to the needs and emotions of the very young, from breast-feeding-on-demand to co-sleeping. While she still advocates that approach, she also believes that society tries to turn babies into children too fast and then treats older kids much like babies. Her forthcoming book is titled Let Them Run With Scissors: How Over-Parenting Hurts Children, Parents and Society. "We no longer allow children to have personal autonomy, to experience hard knocks, or to take real risks," she says. "The result is a nation of overweight, overindulged, overly neurotic kids who whine and moan and often can't function on their own."
It certainly doesn't help that we 21st- century thirty- and fortysomething parents expect our children to dress, speak, and appreciate Roxy Music just like us. "The Mini-Me phenomenon of kids wearing Sex Pistols T-shirts and sending back foie gras is cute but also gross and dangerous," says Ada Calhoun, the editor-in-chief of Babble, an online bible for hipster parents. "If you've turned your kid into a carbon copy of yourself, that kid loses his voice. He's only trying to please the grown-up, who only wants to live vicariously through the kid."
Greg Ramey is a child psychologist with nearly 30 years of experience counseling families and children at Dayton Children's in Dayton, Ohio. He says the biggest change he's seen is that parents no longer want to act like parents. "Over and over, I see parents who try to be their kids' best friends," he says. "That's a flashing red light. Our kids don't need to be our buddies. They can like us when they're 30. Mostly what kids want is for a parent to be in charge."
The consequences of parental boundary blurring are everywhere. As Vanity Fair recently noted, 2007 is the "year the mothers of Hollywood's wild girls—Paris, Lindsay, and Britney—have found themselves almost as much a part of the tabloid circus as the daughters themselves."
Fortunately, it's never too late to fix the problem. Sharon Pieters sees kids with terrible behavior make the turnaround week after week, and it has everything to do with parenting, she says. The former nanny runs Child Minded, a parent-coaching company that goes into homes to vanquish the Scylla and Charybdis of offspring hell: disrespect and boorishness. For $1,200 a day, Pieters will help parents tame their brats. Whether it's a problem with too much stuff ("I visited some kids in Long Island who had their own moon bounce," Pieters says) or incessant back talk ("Some children's vocabulary is limited to 'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!'"), the solution is the same: "Set limits and stick to them." The hard part for most moms and dads is admitting there's a problem in the first place. Borba, the parenting writer, says, "The last thing parents today want after a day of work is to come home and be a cop. They think it's going to hurt the child's self-esteem to get a hard no. But you have to look at your kids and say, 'Are they turning out the way I want them to turn out?' If not, it's up to you to start to change things."
That takes care of the kids, but what about you? A possible solution comes from Asra Q. Nomani, who recently wrote an essay on Babble about being trapped in a cycle of out-of-control birthday parties, in which she kept trying to outdo the previous year's festivities. Turns out what her kid liked most wasn't the trip in the limo to the recording studio or even the playtime with a real tiger cub. It was the simpler, everyday stuff, the things that any kid's birthday party might include, like a birthday cake. Which makes you realize, the next time your inner douchebag tells you to book Criss Angel for your son's fifth birthday, you might want to take a deep breath and give yourself a hard no.
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