ASK… LISTEN… AND LISTEN DEEPER

ASK….
Ask your child to make a list of all the things she wants to know more about. You may be very surprised. Follow through on this information and provider her with materials, books, teachers if appropriate, and opportunities to explore her interests. Encouraging your child’s natural inquisitiveness about all things nourishes her soul.

LISTEN…
Often a child will talk to a neighbor or friend instead of directly to you. Are there enough of these removed listeners in your child’s life? Can you be a receiving adult for a child other than your own?

LISTEN DEEPER…
Perhaps you are open and available to listen to your child but feel there is more that you need to know. Try talking directly to your child’s soul, guardian angel, or spirit. Get quiet and mentally ask if there is something you need to be aware of. You can ask for a picture or message that will help you parent in a deeper way. Listen to the thoughts that come.

PARENTS’ INSIGHT-BUILDING EXERCISE

Think of a time when you were heard as a child.

- Who listened?
- How did it feel to be heard?
- What did you say that was acknowledged?
- How does that experience live with you today?

Now think back to a time when you were there to listen to your child.

- What was that like?
- Why were you available to listen? Had you made time? Was your child demanding you stop and listen?
- What did you hear?
- How did your child react when you listened?

Ask for guidance this week on how to best hear your children’s needs. Ask for divine insight into ways you can help give your child’s feelings a voice.

Now let go and remain open to receiving insight and guidance. Listen to the subtle ways your inner wisdom is revealed.

Trust your ideas and insights; YOU are wise.

*Mimi Doe is the founder of Spiritual Parenting.com and the award-winning author of “Nurturing Your Teenager’s Soul”, “Busy But Balanced”, “10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting”, and co-author of “Don’t’ Worry Get In”. Mimi’s free newsletter, Spiritual Parenting, has more than 30m000 subscribers from around the world. Sign up on the website: www.SpiritualParenting.com.

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But we, as a society, rarely take children seriously the way they take *themselves* seriously. To children, *play* is serious business — channeling enormous creative energies and making huge discoveries. But to adult society, it’s “just” play, so interrupting or limiting it is not a big deal.

To children, *feelings* are extremely important, not “just” feelings.

If you want to take your child more seriously, don’t do it the conventional adult way, which is to assign *weight* to the child’s concerns. That only teaches heaviness.

Children take *lightness* seriously. And when you take their lightness seriously, *you* benefit by learning to take yourself *less* seriously!

http://dailygroove.net/seriously Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2007 by Scott Noelle

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The Unprocessed Child is a work of nonfiction about a child raised with no coercion and no curriculum. Laurie Chancey spent her childhood immersing herself in topics of her own choosing. She was never forced to learn something simply because tradition and/or society said it was necessary. No one was looking over her shoulder to make sure she was learning the “proper” subjects.

Having never seen a textbook or taken a test, never used workbooks or any type of teaching techniques, Laurie scored in the top 10% of the state of Louisiana on her college entrance exam. She enrolled in college when she was eighteen, and graduated summa cum laude three and a half years later. Laurie is a bright adult, but her IQ is not why she did so well. She spent her life learning to learn and it’s something that now comes easily to her.

The Unprocessed Child was written by her mother Valerie Fitzenreiter, and is full of examples of raising a child with respect and dignity. It is the first book written about a radically unschooled child who has now reached adulthood and is a responsible member of society.

Questions about the radical unschooling lifestyle are answered on topics ranging from socialization, parental responsibility, self-discipline, chores, bedtimes and much more. The book shows that it is not only possible to befriend your child, but that it is highly preferable to the struggles that so many parents go through with their children. It proves that school is not necessary for learning, socializing or motivation.

Click to purchase

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Let me tell you about a ten year old child that had freedom of choice. That child is my daughter Jacqueline.

I hear all the time…”If I let my kids have freedom over their food, they’ll eat chips all day” or “If I let my child have freedom over video games, they’ll play 24 hours a day”. Sure….if all they know is control and someone else making their choices for them, OF COURSE they’re going to choose to eat chips all day because they think they’ll never get the chance to eat what they want again.

Back to Jacqueline…..

A child that has freedom of choosing her own bedtime, chooses to go to be around 9:30 and gets up on her own about 7:30. There are times she stays up later or wakes up later, but she found her own bodies sleep pattern and she listens to it. When I first gave her the freedom of choosing her own bedtime, she chose to stay up really late for a while, because it was new…but that wore off and she got herself into a pattern.

A child that has freedom to eat what she wants, when she wants and how much she wants, chose today to buy a Granny Smith apple, with her money, while we were out shopping. She enjoys ice cream and candy, but she enjoys grapes and celery just as much. She is learning to listen to her body. She is able to choose healthy foods because she is able to make that choice. She wouldn’t be able to do that if I made her choices for her.

A child that has freedom to choose when she plays video games, chooses to also read, play on our trampoline and go bike riding. Video games don’t hold a special power over her because to her, they’re treated the same as other fun activities.

A child that has freedom over what she watches on TV, chooses to watch documentaries and shows about how volcanoes form. She also enjoys The Price Is Right, Hannah Montana and America’s Funniest Home Videos. She’s not a zombie, sitting in front of the screen. She’s actively listening and learning.

Start small. Say “yes” more. Play video games with your child. Model the behavior you want. A child that has freedom of choice…is a free child. Freedom! What a great gift to give a child.

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Soulful Fathering

1. Listen to your heart when you are with your kids. Go with what feels right, not what your dad might have done or what you think fathers are supposed to do. You are the perfect match for your child. You can’t make a mistake when you follow your intuitive guidance.

2. Share your hobbies with your kids.

3. Select one day a month or year to spend one-on-one time with each child. Mark the dates in your calendar. Let your child decide what the day’s events will be and celebrate together!

4. Listen to your son or daughter. Playing catch is a wonderful time for listening.

5. Don’t forget the wonderful habit of note writing. Leave some unexpected words of encouragement in a book, under a pillow, via E-mail. If you travel, begin a postcard tradition. Send your child a postcard from each trip you take.

6. Learn something new with your children.

7. Is there a way you might make some chore a ritual your child looks forward to participating in with you? Maybe you wash the windows every spring and then have an annual water fight.

9. Share your goals with your kids. Let them know how you have achieved a dream and help them come up with an action plan to achieve their own goals.

10. Don’t forget the five “Ps” of fathering: Patience, Pure Love, Playfulness, Participation, Persistence.

11. Remember, no one on their death bed ever said they wished they’d spent more time at the office.

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“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that child is someone today.”

- Stacia Tauscher

**originally posted in 2006 **

We were hanging out with our homeschooling friends one afternoon and my daughter Jacqueline was sitting on one of the picnic tables, finishing a story (Princess Barbie) she had started a few days before.

I was having a conversation with another homeschooling mom and she asked what Jacqueline was doing. When I told her she said
something to the effect of “Maybe she’ll be a writer when she grows up”. To which I replied, “She already is a writer”. She paused (and you could see the light bulb going off) as she thought about that, and said “Yes! She is a writer”.

That little shift in thinking has been very helpful to me in unschooling my kids. What she’s doing now is valid and important, not because it may help her when she becomes an adult, not because she may choose that as her career, but because it brings her joy and makes her happy now, right now. She is not an “adult in the making”. She’s exactly where she should be.

So without further ado, here is Jacqueline’s story. She is already working on her second one, which I’ll post when she’d done.

Princess Barbie
by Jacqueline Anne (a 7 year old unschooler)
2006

I love being a princess.” Said Barbie.

Barbie’s tutor came in and said “Princess the queen sent for you”. “Where is she?” said Barbie. “In the throne room” said Ken. Barbie went to the Throne room.
There the queen sat. “Come my dear” said the queen. Barbie hugged the queen. Barbie was surprise to see royal page.

Soon Barbie was heading back to her room when she heard a cry. It was the royal page yelling invader!
“Invader?” asked the princess.
“Yes” said the royal page. “We must hide” said royal page.
So they hid. The invaders lost. They were safe.
The Royal page was nice.

The End.

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Every parent would happily give up ever scolding, punishing or threatening if she only knew how to ensure that her toddler/child/teen would thrive and act responsibly without such painful measures. Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort is the answer to this universal wish. It is not about gentle ways to control a child, but about a way of being and of understanding a child so she/he can be the best of herself, not because she fears you, but because she wants to…(more…)

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Myla & Jon Kabat-Zinn are parents to three grown children. Jon is the founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and is the author of Wherever You Go, There You Are (another book I highly recommend).

So what exactly is mindful parenting?

Jon had this to say in an interview, “Mindfulness, which lies at the heart of Buddhist meditation, means moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. It’s cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally, in the present moment, and then sustaining that attention over time. It means becoming more in touch with our life as it is unfolding.

Parenting through mindfulness has the potential to penetrate past surface appearances and behaviors and allow us to see our children as they truly are, so we can act with some degree of wisdom and compassion. The more we are able to keep in mind the intrinsic wholeness and beauty of our children especially when it’s difficult to see the more our ability to be mindful deepens”

In the back of the book, they list 12 exercises for mindful parenting. The two that have helped me change my perspective the most are: “Try to imagine the world from your child’s point of view, purposefully letting go of your own. Do this everyday for at least a few moments to remind you of who this child is and what he or she faces in the world.” The other one that helps keep my focus is “Imagine how you appear and sound from your child’s point of view, i.e., having you as a parent today, in this moment. How might this modify how you carry yourself in your body and in space, how you speak, what you say. How do you want to relate to your child in this moment”?

I use these as tools with my three children and it allows me to see past their behavior. It helps when I’m getting angry and feel like yelling, to see myself, as they see me. Facing that and looking at it honestly, can be scary sometimes but putting yourself in your child’s place, will show you the world in a whole new way.

This insightful book approaches parenting from a Zen Buddhist position, but will benefit anyone who wishes to learn and maintain gentle/mindful parenting methods, regardless of religious beliefs. If you’re looking for a typical “kids versus parents” book, this is not one of them. Borrow it from the library and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

If you’re interested in purchasing this beautiful book, please click above to be taken to amazon.com’s secured server. Thanks!

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50 Ways to Bring Out Your Child’s Best
Written by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.

1. Let your child discover her own interests. Pay attention the activities she chooses. This free-time play can say a lot about where her gifts lie.

2. Expose your child to a broad spectrum of experiences. They may activate latent talents. Don’t assume that he isn’t gifted in an area because he hasn’t shown an interest.

3. Give your child permission to make mistakes. If she has to do things perfectly, she’ll never take the risks necessary to discover and develop a gift.

4. Ask questions. Help your child open up to he wonders of the world by asking intriguing questions: Why is the sky blue? Find the answers together.

5. Plan special family projects. Shared creativity can awaken and develop new talents.

6. Don’t pressure your child to learn. If children are sent to special lessons every day in the hope of developing their gifts, they may become too stressed or exhausted to shine. Encourage, but don’t push.

7. Have high expectations. But make them realistic.

8. Share your work life. Expose your child to images of success by taking him to work. Let him see you engaged in meaningful activities and allow him to become involved.

9. Provide a sensory-rich environment. Have materials around the home that will stimulate the senses: finger paints, percussion instruments, and puppets.

10. Keep your own passion for learning alive. Your child will be influenced by your example.

11. Don’t limit your child with labels. They may saddle her with a reputation that doesn’t match her inner gifts.

12. Play games together as a family.

13. Have a regular family time for reading, listening to music, talking.

14. Have reference materials available to give your child access to the world.

15. Allow your child to participate in community activities that interest her.

16. Use humor, jokes, silly stories to encourage creativity.

17. Don’t criticize or judge the things your child does. He may give up on his talents if he feels evaluated.

18. Play with your child to show your own sense of playfulness.

19. Share your successes as a family. Talk about good things that happened during the day to enhance self-esteem.

20. Provide your child with access to a home, school or public library computer.

21. Listen to your child. The things he cares about most may provide clues to his special talents.

22. Give your child a special space at home to be creative.

23. Praise your child’s sense of responsibility at home when she completes assigned chores.

24. Visit new places as a family.

25. Give your child open-ended playthings. Toys like blocks and puppets encourage imaginative play.

26. Give your child unstructured time to simply daydream and wonder.

27. Share inspirational stories of people who succeeded in life.

28. Don’t bribe your child with rewards. Using incentives to get children to perform sends a message that learning is not rewarding in its own right

29. Suggest that your child join peer groups that focus on her gifts.

30. Discuss the news to spark interests.

31. Discourage gender bias. Expose your child to both feminine and masculine toys and activities.

32. Avoid comparing your child to others. Help your child compare himself to his own past performance.

33. Be an authoritative parent.

34. Use community events and institutions to activate interests. Take trips to the library, museums, concerts, plays.

35. Give presents that nourish your child’s strengths.

36. Encourage your child to think about her future. Support her visions without directing her into any specific field.

37. Introduce your child to interesting and capable people.

38. Think of your home as a learning place. The kitchen is great for teaching math and science through cooking.

39. Share feelings. A child’s gifts can be stifled by repressed emotions.

40. Encourage your child to read.

41. Honor your child’s creations.

42. Do things with your child in his areas of interest.

43. Teach your child to trust her intuition and believe in her capabilities.

44. Give your child choices. It builds willpower and fuels initiative.

45. Show your child how to use books to further an interest. For example, “how to” books for the “hands-on” learner.

46. Set aside an area of the house for displaying creations and awards.

47. Encourage your child to tackle areas that are difficult for him. Help him learn to confront any limitations.

48. Be a liaison between your child’s special talents and the real world. Help her find outlets for her talents.

49. Introduce children’s literature that honors and develops gifts. Books like the Little Engine That could encourage a “can do” attitude.

50. Accept your child as he or she is.

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Naomi does not teach parents how to “get kids to be/do…” but rather how to be with children so that they are free to be their own magnificent selves. Parents say that what they get out of Naomi’s work is much more than help in parenting – they get self-realization, which frees them to see the child with clarity and wisdom.

Naomi’s Declaration of Complete Confidence in Children:
** Children respond best to modeling and leadership, not control.
** Trust… and wait.
** Choose between your momentary convenience and your long-term goal for your child’s sense of self.
** Enjoy your child for who he is, not for who you would like him to be – he will never be this age again.
** Distinguish between your emotional needs and what your child feels and needs. Act toward your child in harmony with her needs; take care of your emotional needs elsewhere.
** Celebrate your child’s uniqueness as well as your own.

You can sign up for Naomi Aldort’s free newsletter and read some of her parenting articles on her site.

I especially love her views on institutionalized schooling;

School, Learning and Self-Esteem:

When children are represented as empty and ignorant vessels, adults brace themselves for making adults out of them. This means that they must go against the child’s inclinations and coerce him to be whoever the adult want him to be through training and teaching that is imposed and controlled by the adult.

In order to make children into the image of adults we want them to be, our society created institutions that children must go to against their will or through coercion of their will. Children who want to go to school have so totally lost their inner connection that they believe that what they want comes from inside. It doesn’t. What feels good to them is pleasing and fitting in because they have been trained to look outside and not inside.

In order to train a child to accept constant instructions and loss of freedom, society starts at birth, taking the baby away from mother, using cribs, strollers and nannies instead of constant body contact with mother and fathers. The separation continues by taking the child away from mother and from home as early as possible to daycare, preschool and kindergarten. Separating a child from its primal connection strips her of her power.

Being away from his power source, mother, the child is helpless and disconnected; she will do whatever she is told just to gain acceptance and love. She becomes needy of approval to make up for the deep pain and longing for that primal connection. In this way, the powers that see the child as material to be molded get to prove themselves right, not because it is true, but because our ways with children. The child does becomes either pliable and compliant and needing authority, or he confused, aggressive or depressed. Being forced to learn against their will, even motivation vanishes.

I am reminded of Albert Einstein’s famous words, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Indeed, some humans jump back on their feet and recover from childhood within five to twenty years. On the other hand, more often than not, people don’t recover and the culture of successful players of a game not their own gives birth to depression, aggression, dissatisfaction, addictions, food disorder and suffering.

The most extreme aspect of this way of seeing children is drugging them, which is often recommended and even enforced by the school. When a child doesn’t fit the representation he gets either a special fixing program or drugs, or both.

It is lucky that we didn’t have these toxic drugs earlier in the 20th century; Einstein was thrown out of school in Germany, and Edison’s mother was told that he is a dunce and wisely pulled him out of school. Many other leaders escaped the tyranny of school. Today, there is no way to count haw many great minds are dumbed down or drugged out or their wisdom.

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