Balance Your Parenting Act with a little (or a lot) of objectivity! Are you one of those parents who turns a blind eye to possible trouble… sort of like those people on the 6 o’clock news where all keep their doors unlocked and when there’s a home-invasion beating and robbery, they say "this never happens in my neighborhood"? Troubled teens don’t just pop up out of the clear blue sky.
If negative events occurred when they were toddler to 5 years old, those things need to be rinsed out while they’re 6, 7, 8. When there is ‘waiting until they’re teenagers to try and handle it’ or ‘hoping they will grow out of it’, it’s a good bet that the pain they’ve been living with for most of their lives will cause them to act out in unsavory ways. They are now bigger and can harm themselves AND OTHERS dramatically.
For example, just because boys tend to be quieter does not mean there is nothing much going on with them. Have a look at this segment on The Today Show where Rosalind Wiseman is interviewed about the study she’s done on boys and published in her new book MASTERMINDS AND WINGMEN. A few quick stats: "for every 100 girls ages 6 to 14 with a learning disability, there are 160 boys with such learning problems, for every 100 girls ages 15 to 19 who commit suicide, 549 boys do! 100% of shooters are boys!
Wake up! Be alert! Put your glasses on! What do you see? Is all truly well? Heed the tips Ms. Wiseman gives in her interview. My favorite: "No grilling". She has a separate ebook just for boys also. Make a point of listening to your teen whenever it is they decide to talk or at least let them relax a while at home before you dive into ‘discovery’. Listen with your whole body and resist the urge to judge and advise. That’s a tough one, I know, but do it anyway.
#18 of 20 Tips…. ‘Teach them how to cope with difficulty. Your spiritual practice is key.’ This tip suggests YOU know how to cope with your own difficulties. I’ll venture to say you do but if you don’t, I’ll share some of my experience.
It was very helpful to me to look for and get a sense of the depth of my son’s connection to his spiritual self. To my pleasure, it was wonderfully deep. When he was just three years old or so, I was often astounded by his ability to translate spiritual symbolism in stories and movies.
Armed with this insight, over time, I could draw analogies that tapped into his deeper understanding spiritually. This ‘deeper understanding’ having a direct correlation to certain levels of intelligence helped me draw base lines. A baseline for keeping him out of jail, for example: Commiting a crime is the height of stupidity. There is no getting away with crimes. One is always found out and doomed to incarceration and/or the worms of mental and moral anguish. Who chooses that? Not smart. He agreed. So far, so good. He’s now 27.
As we know, our spiritual practices are key to coping with difficulties. Meditation techniques are my favorites. If one is to become a virtuoso in anything, this Practice is #1! Joy is paramount in all things. Magic is made here …a wand to be passed to our kids. All other methods of handling situations/difficulties, i.e. improve communication skills, patience, mathematical equation solving… have enhanced effectiveness when they spring from the spiritual base… the Ultimate Teaching, the Core Directive, All-Knowing.
HERE’S A LOADED QUESTION FOR YOU: Are YOU emotionally intelligent?
I reference this article by Jennifer Kahn, ‘Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?’ (to our children).
Good research and information on the subject to be found here but I can’t emphasize enough that the adults around the children need to be practicing ’emotional intelligence’ in order for progress to be made. This is a bullying solution, an academic learning solution and essential ‘life skills’.
Love tickets are received on the holidays. One of my most favorite conversations is about refraining from the kind of spending we do to keep up appearances or with the Jones’. Holiday pressure to ‘buy’ makes it near mandatory because the ‘I love you’ element is thrown in. To show your ‘love’, a gift is a ‘minimum’ requirement to keep or gain someone’s love. That’s why I call them ‘love tickets’.
Holiday planning is crucial when it comes to buying love gifts (or tickets). How to budget? Mary Sackett, one of my most favorite people shared with me that buying gifts items on sale all year long is the way to combat a large amount of last minute excess. Make your list of people you want to buy for in January (it’s usually the same ones every year). Scout out items that are quality that go on sale throughout the year because the seasons change and get multiples and extras of some items in case you’re inspired to give to some ‘new loves’ by December.
Love tickets are fun and even funner if you haven’t broken your bank account in the process. If you find you haven’t paid off the credit card on the money you spent last year on Xmas, then,when necessary,buy cheap, shift the emphasis to spending quality time together, having outtings, creating gifts with your hands and/or adventures that cost little to no money. YOU are the gift. When it is all said and done, your Loves remember how you made them feel more than what you bought them. Get out there and get more LIVE love tickets going!
Do you ‘buy’ when you really cannot afford it? Especially during a Holiday sale?
Just as I was about to do commentary on the article ‘Want Smart Kids? Talk to Them-and Listen to Them’ by Sara Neufeld, the news breaks that they are considering dropping cursive writing from the schools! Thanks to the tech age, cursive writing has become passe’. It’s not enough that their brains are not getting enough ‘talk’ time. Now significant cognitive wiring won’t happen as well.
Heaven forbid we’re bombed back into the stone age. No one will even know how to do smoke signals let alone ‘write’ something. According to Dr. William Klemm in ‘What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain’, "The benefits to brain development (of cursive writing) are similar to what you get with learning to play a musical instrument. Not everybody can afford music lessons but everybody has access to pencil and paper. Not everybody can afford a computer for their kids-maybe such kids are not as deprived as we would think." You see what they are doing with our music and arts programs for children…
Listen people, I firmly believe that the dumbing down of America is real. The goal is to eventually have the general population on the same or similar level as third world countries. We’re already told in sales to speak at an ‘8th grade’ level to Americans because that’s ‘where most of us are’. This grates on my nerves. Care to wake up and do something about this? …Anything?
This attack is on all sides and even our children are on the front line of offense. Public schools are under attack. Teachers are under attack. Homeschooling is not feasible for families working 2 or more jobs at minimum wage to equal what once was one job for the same pay. I know you’re tired but we must be vigilant in our efforts to curb this dumbing down! We are the keepers of sanity here… the guardians of our national treasure!
Do you understand the importance of your child’s brain?
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