Bring Out the Best in Your Child and Your Family
This story is from the recent issue of our local paper the Mountain View Voice.
Headline: Mr. White boy was in the Nortenos: Stabbing suspect’s fate a shock to local mom who knew him as a boy
"Except for a few bumps in the road, Jacob DeWitt, 19, had a normal upbringing. When he was a boy, his dad coached the local Little League team and his mom baked cookies for parties at the elementary school."
The article goes on to mention some of the bumps along the road…divorced parents who were struggling, but worked hard. In middle school his mother suffered a stroke, leaving her temporarily paralyzed. The neighbor mother who knew him as a boy puts much of the blame on the middle school itself where "too many kids, missing something at home, have been introduced to gangs."
She continued, "Parents have to be overly protective these days. You give them an inch and they take a mile. Especially a boy who is determined to do what he wants to do."
What can we observe and learn here?
1-Normal upbringing does not mean an emotionally healthy upbringing. Especially when defined as coaching Little League and baking cookies and hard working parents. These are wonderful things in a child’s life, but only when there is an emotionally healthy foundation in the family, where there is an honest, trusting emotional connection between parents and son. Obviously his parents were doing the best they could, and yet coaching softball and baking cookies cannot replace a strong emotional connection.
2-This young man’s bumps in the road were struggling, divorcing parents and his mother suffering temporary paralysis from a stroke. When parents are struggling emotionally, a child struggles emotionally. This is why it is so important for parents to nurture their own emotional wholeness and their son’s. Children need as solid an emotional foundation and connection with their parents as possible. This is what allows them to feel safe and loved.
A child who seeks connection and companionship in a gang is not getting this at home. He also doesn’t have an experience of authentic, unconditional love. He is lost and struggling emotionally.
"a boy who is determined to do what he wants to do"–This is not in and of itself a bad thing. It can be a strength and asset to be determined to do what you want to do. This is what makes for great people and great leaders. The problem with this are the adults in his life. It is our role to respond to this strong drive in a child in a way that empowers him to express his desire positively, rather than in destructive ways.
Any person who stabs another person multiple times is deeply hurting emotionally. It is so easy to say the problem lies with the child, to say he was a bad kid. I suggest the problem lies with the adults in his life, his lack of a safe, loving connection with them and limiting response to his desire to be capable and strong and to have what he wanted in life.
This story reminds us all to look beyond the surface in our own life and in the lives of our children. Looking on the surface is not enough. Children need emotional wholeness to flourish and thrive.
When we
One of the things we love about babies is their joyous, loving, innocent presence. It draws us to them like magnets. We love basking in the warmth of their love and joy. We love the feelings we experience when we are close to them.
My four-month grandson Sebastian and I are a perfect example.Nothing can bring me more joy than receiving one of his magnificent smiles. It begins with the sparkle and warmth in his gorgeous blue eyes. Then it fills his entire face with joy and radiates throughout his body. He waves his arms and kicks his legs in delight. It is a full-body smile of love and joy.
Me? You might say I’ll do almost anything to share one of those magical moments with him. I make direct eye contact with him. I put on my biggest smile and radiate my love and joy to him. I make funny sounds. I talk excitedly. I shower him with kisses and play with his tummy. Anything for the delight of Sebastian’s exuberant smile. You might say I am a slave to love.
It can feel scary to love someone this much. We sometimes feel vulnerable and out-of-control. We fear losing this person who is so precious to us. At times, if may feel safer to keep your love tucked away inside where it’s not so exposed.
The idea of being a slave to love also seems to imply that you are being foolish, inappropriate, or used and manipulated. No one wants to be a slave to any person or any thing. Yet when it comes to Sebastian, I really don’t care. My interactions with him give me so much love and delight with this wonderful person.
As much as parents and educators delight in a young child’s innocence, they often worry about it. They don’t want her to be hurt by her openness and innocence. They want her to know life is not a bed of roses and can be tough. Without intending to, well-meaning adults attempt to socialize their child and set about limiting their young child’s loving, joyous nature
Parents also don’t want their child to be too full of her self, to be selfish and spoiled. I’ve found we don’t spoil a child by loving her and enjoying her too much. We spoil her when we set rules and boundaries that limit her. We also spoil a child when we fail to set clear limits that empower our child.
Most parents and educators struggle when it comes to setting limits. Too often we set limits that break our child’s spirit and limit her emotional wholeness. Effective limits empower your child to live to her highest potential. Effective limits improve your connection and harmony with your child.
What I’ve seen is that within every child of any age, including adults, there always lives that innocent, joyous, loving core of who s/he naturally is. We never really lose it. It just gets covered over and masked by well-meaning adults’ attempts to socialize us and keep us safe.
This means that no matter how old your child, she longs to express her joyous, loving self. If you want to share more of this with her, you have to be a slave to love, to the love within your heart. You have to explore and be committed to connecting with your child in this joyous, loving, fully open and present way.
You have to do things that may seem as ridiculous to you as some of the things I do with Sebastian. Of course, I can easily get away with my misbehavior under the guise of grandmotherhood. You can also easily get away with it under the guise of full-out love for your child or students.
This joyous, loving relationship is available for all of you to experience. You just have to be willing to be a slave to love!
Have you heard about Fulla, the Middle Eastern version of Barbie. Fulla is an 11.5 inch Barbie-like fashion doll marketed to children of Islamic and Middle Eastern countries as an alternative to Barbie. The product is designed by Synrian-based NewBoy Toys, displaying how some Muslim families prefer their daughter to dress and behave.
Her personality was designed to be "loving, caring, honest, and
respects[ing of] her mother and father. She’s good to her friends.
She’s honest and doesn’t lie. She likes reading. She likes, rather, she
loves fashion. Her dress varies depending on the country in which she is sold.
Fulla has her own line of commercial products including Fulla breakfast cereal, chewing gum, backpacks, bicycles, and even a matching prayer run and scarf. Fulla is big business.
You can see photos and read more about her at Wikipedia .
The Happy Planet Index is an innovative new index that measures the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people
live long and happy lives.
By addressing the relative success or failure of 178 countries in supporting
good lives for their citizens, while respecting the environmental resource
limits upon which our lives depend, the HPI can help us move toward a world where we can all live
good lives without costing the earth.
The nations that top the Index aren’t the happiest places in the
world, but the nations that score well show that achieving, long, happy
lives without over-stretching the planet’s resources is possible. The
HPI shows that around the world, high levels of resource consumption do
not reliably produce high levels of well-being (life-satisfaction), and
that it is possible to produce high levels of well-being without
excessive consumption of the Earth’s resources.
It also reveals that
there are different routes to achieving comparable levels of
well-being. The model followed by the West can provide widespread
longevity and variable life satisfaction, but it does so only at a vast
and ultimately counter-productive cost in terms of resource
consumption.
No single country listed in the Happy Planet Index has everything right. Some countries are more
efficient than others at delivering long, happy lives for their people. Every country has its problems and no country performs as well as it could.
Vanuatu, an archipeligo in the Western Pacific made up of 65 island and 250,000people, is the happiest nation on the planet These results are based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than the national economic wealth measurements such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Other top-scoring countries in order are Columbia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Panama, Cuba, Honduras, and Guatemala. Countries at the bottom are Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Burundi, Congo, Ukraine, Estonia, and Russia. The United States is 150 out of 178.
As you can see, this is not your usual list of national success, but the HPI Index paints a compelling picture ad challenges us to look at our deepest values as humans. They have a report that gives you all the details here. The ranking list is at the very end after extensive page of background big picture information.
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Just a little bit about me -- I'm a coach for parents, visionary guide, insightful trainer, and powerful consultant.
My passion is to share the ingredients that bring out the best your child and that supports joyous relationships with children of all ages.
Want to know more? Read more here.
