Lizabeth Jenkins-Dale
Reciprocal Positive Adult-Child Collaboration
As a former teacher, I can honestly say that I learned much from my students about life. They were excellent “teachers” to me about life.
Does it matter the direction of the learning? Nope. Does it matter who is the teacher and who is the student when it comes to learning about life? Nope. Is it best when the role of teacher is an easy back and forth swing? Yes. Does the role of teacher mean “the one in charge?” Nope.
As a parent, I have learned a great deal from my daughter and am better for it. There is an inter-wisdom-sharing mechanism between us. It is valued, safe, and beneficial. My honoring her Wisdom led to confidence within herself. She understood and understands today that her Wisdom is reliable to accurately guide her for her life path.
This is positive not only when life is going along smoothly, but also when life is full of those bumps in the road. When trauma, difficulty, or adversity strikes a person’s life, it is imperative that positive support be available…no matter how old the person is, and no matter where it comes from.
Just as children need to experience positive relationships, so do adults. Children being able to share their wisdom with others is important. I believe we all come forth into these bodies to have life experiences with internal Wisdom with a capital W. Wisdom that, if it is honored, discussed, and respected, can come from a variety of sources that isn’t age-specific.
Listen…really listen…and learn. Allow this to be an easy back and forth swing. Install your own inter-wisdom-sharing mechanism into your relationships and be better for it.
Teaching Self-Regulation To Children
Don’t let ‘em in! Catch ‘em! Catch those unwanted feelings, thoughts, and beliefs before they internalize into one’s experience. This is an essential part of self-regulating one’s life.
Those nasty thoughts that say we are not as good as others, that tell us we should be doing something else, that state we are bad, or even worse, that run negative emotional “tapes” over and over in our minds literally destroying our well-being.
Since these feelings, thoughts, and beliefs can do much harm for years, it is essential to catch ‘em before they enter. A mental gate of sorts is needed. Teaching this to children, and even adults, is an important life skill.
We can’t be in front of our child all the time being the guard of the gate, so children must be taught to be their own gate keeper. And, it can be a fun learning, too. Using imagery, a child can establish his or her own gate surrounding him or herself. What is it made of? Bricks? Stone? Wood? How tall is is? Flags at the top? What does the gate look like?
Now, establish the gate keeper. An angelic being? A replica of the child? A frog? Well…anything can be the gate keeper as long as it is effective!
This gate keeper allows the child to sense when negative feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are approaching the gate. Ah ha! Caught! Now, the empowered child has the option of accepting the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs or tossing them out. Yes, self-regulation is an essential life skill.
When Is It Time To Live Mindfully?
It’s January…a new year. Time to go for those new year’s resolutions. When having a quiet time today, I asked Source what was the best way for me to lose weight and gain body balance. The response? My thoughts.
Hmmmmmmm….seems like a pretty easy weight loss program! Then I got more information. Since thoughts create reality, my thoughts are the #1 tool to gaining body balance. “Mindful eating” came to me as well as “mindful non-eating.” That means be mindful when eating as well as when I’m not eating because the moments before eating are just as important as those when I am having breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Ah ha! It made sense and I loved the simplicity. Mindful exercise and mindful non-exercise. Mindful water drinking and mindful non-drinking. So it’s mindfulness all the time. It means keeping my thoughts positive toward the weight loss process which includes patience, patience, patience.
Of course, this can be applied to parenting: mindful all the time of our thoughts regarding our children, their progress, their life stages, their annoyances, their struggles, their successes, and so forth.
If mindfulness seems to be a daunting task, it’s worth giving it a try. Just setting the intention to be aware of your thoughts will bring about awareness if your thoughts are for you, for your children, and for your life or if they’re working against you.
Now, that’s empowerment! Because being aware is always the first step in being an empowered parent. Now you can choose your thoughts. You can shift from “I’m so glad my child is the smartest math child in her class,” to “I’m so glad my child is succeeding in math with such an awesome teacher.” Or shift from, “I’m pissed that John didn’t make his bed this morning,” to “I’m going to discuss tonight our options with the bed making routine.”
Living mindfully all the time, or as much as we can, empowers us 100% of the time we use this life skill. It provides opportunity to evaluate our thoughts to see if they’re working for us or not, and to change them. So much better than just living our lives with random thoughts creating our realities and then wondering why some beneficial and some not-so beneficial events happen in our lives. Mindfulness is quite empowering!