"Constant repetition carries conviction" – Robert Collier
Yeah I know it does but must parents actually say it 10,000 times themselves? When the washing machine was invented, we stopped washing most of our clothing by hand. When the dishwasher was invented, we stopped washing most of our dishes by hand. When the Victrola was invented, we could hear music without being at the concert.
Why, with ALL that we parents MUST do, can’t we catch a break and have the CD or MP3 say it sometimes? Why not have an App that Saves Your Breath? You follow?
My romantic journey to the development of Save Your Breath began about 20 years ago as I was having to tell my Son for the HUNDREDTH time to pick his clothing up off of the floor. My parental experience was fraught with stress needing single moms help, anxiety over whether I was ‘doing it right’ (parenting) and worry over how to make ends meet. Continuously firing in the background, separation and divorce were taking their repeating silent kill shots to my self esteem. I needed WAY more cooperation from my kid.
I wondered how others coped with this pressure. Surely I was not the only one going through these exercises. Why was there not a regular broadcast of the trials and demands of parenthood? Why were people having conversations about ANYTHING other than ‘Let me tell you about the parenthood experience in detail’? It was as if there was collusion on the part of all parents everywhere against people with no kids…don’t tell them, let them find out the hard way.
After request number 101 to my Son to pick up his clothing, wash the dishes or some such, I said I may as well be talking to the wall. If his head is as thick as the wall, I’m going to need some help and the CD ‘Harper:"I’ll Say It Again"'(now the Save Your Breath CD) was born. Now, I could select #5, point the player in his direction and go have a cup of coffee! …or make breakfast! …or finish dressing! Man! Did I catch a break! How sweet it is. It got to the point where he’d do as I ask after the first request because he didn’t want to hear the CD!
Got a lot of newspaper, radio and television media attention for creating that one also. NBC flew my son and I out to New York, put us up in the Hilton in Rockefella Center, had my own limo & driver for the two days we were there…interviewed by Bryant Gumbel on The ‘Today’ Show. Ah, the memories. …But, I digress. The point was and still is to help us Parents with tools that relieve some of the stress of everyday parental life. The point was and still is to get the conversation audible and to the mainstream of dialogs. Perhaps we’ll be able to yield fewer teen pregnancies to boot! …with the REAL WORLD conversation floating freely.
I did a blog yesterday as a matter of closure to this recent conversation about corporeal punishment and the effects it has on the brains of children. Just want to comment further on that by saying that we can ease the entire situation in broad strokes with ‘forgiveness’ and ‘gratitude’. Forgiving our parents for being harsh with us and forgiving our Grandparents for being harsh with our parents when they were little, etc. and so on in that direction in infinite ancestry and by forgiving ourselves as we perceive we have been too harsh. Asking your child for forgiveness is a good idea but is a judgement call on your part, i.e. the age and maturity of the child. If you’re thinking not to because they may hold it against you, well, they are anyway so you may as well come clean.
Raising humans, in many cases, is extremely difficult. Do forgiveness exercises often, do ‘gratitude’ exercises also. Ones that also express directly to your child how grateful you are they they have come into your life. Tell of the many things they do and say and how they make you feel for which you are grateful. Breathe deeply, relax…take your time with this and make it a habit. In a workshop that I did many years ago, I was able to forgive MY Mother thusly: I was here in California at the time and the Moderator asked “If your mother were in New York right now seeking your forgiveness and she got down on her knees and walked, on her bloody knees across the United States to you begging for forgiveness, would you forgive her? Keep in mind, she is before you now, in tears with bloody knees. Would you forgive her?
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