UnParenting

There is plenty of information available online for navigating the practicalities of everyday life with kids.  Where to look for developmental stages advise, which child care centers are most appropriate for your specific needs, stay-at-home mom strategies, etc. etc.

Today, make a point of becoming aware of these habitual interactions.  The ones you judge good or bad or anywhere in between!  Resist the temptation to think the relationship dye has been caste, because if there is one thing we can change, it’s our perception.  And once we delve into the meaning of a changed perception, miracles in relationships happen!

Patterns can be set pretty easily,and the good news is they can be changed just as, if not more, easily!

So what would you like to see improve or enhance in your relationships with your family?  Does your child default into tantrum mode at the drop of a hat? Are you saying the sames things over and over with no results? Do you throw your hands up in resignation?

These are opportunities for you to attune to your own reactions.  What emotions emerge?  Do you feel sadness? Anger? Frustration? Hopelessness?  Where do you feel it in your body?  Does your stomach hurt, your chest feel heavy, your cheeks redden your throat close up?  Becoming aware of how you react is your first act of freedom.

For more information as to how to transcend some of the patterns, visit AskNatalie .

Parenting.  What does that mean?

It’s beyond the basic suvival definition, as in changing, feeding, housing, keeping alive.

It’s the keeping of the soul.

And it’s no different than any other relationship you have.

We make it complicated but I really have come to understand that ALL relationships can be peaceful and effortless.

When we detach from an outcome, when we detach from needing someone to behave in a way that makes us feel good, all the relationship puzzle pieces fall into place.

We read quite a bit these days about how we be, do and have anything we want.  I believe that, however the starting place can only be from within.  How you react is what sets the tone for the relationship for you, not how the other person behaves.

Think about it.   I’ll bet a same or similar situation can affect you differently, depending on how you feel in that moment. One day it might make you feel powerless or angry, another day you don’t even notice it.

When you learn to let go, miracles happen.

Fielding questions from parents about the best way to “teach” young children, I often revert to research that supports integrated and emergent education models. However, parents influenced by marketing trends and imprudent education mandates are often skeptical by what they view as hackneyed analysis. How thrilling to come across leading edge research, such as David A. Sousa’s, “How the Brain Learns”, which presents evidence of brain development in the first five years of life and the potential this has in the area of early childhood education and beyond.

An exciting revelation of brain research is that educators get to rethink the long-standing “tabula rasa” theory. This refers to the thesis that individuals are born with no innate or built-in mental content, and that their entire resource of knowledge is built up gradually. Researchers now know that children are ready and motivated to learn, not by being fed knowledge, but by discovering the world around them. It’s up to the teachers, parents and caregivers in their lives to provide the inspiration and facilitation. And instead of a mandated curriculum, it’s creativity and individuation that will best ensure a student’s lifelong success.

Children’s curious nature and natural motivation to learn, instinctively facilitate them to walk, talk, master manipulative tasks and do numerous activities that others, from whom they learn, are doing. Educational experiences that allow students to continue learning in the ways that helped them master these important skills are far more beneficial and sustainable than standardized academic programs.

Parents can be erroneously concerned about children learning “the basics”. But what is meant by the “basics?” Sometime during the last century or so, a misguided theory of what is important for all students emerged. Perhaps this model was thought to be important during the industrial age when training people for the labor market was a priority. But we now know that the world is a fast-changing, increasingly open and global society where individuals need to be confident, flexible and independent thinkers and learners. The importance of nurturing these qualities cannot be understated. We’re finally beginning to understand that a child is not “behind” or “learning disabled” if certain concepts do not emerge in a specified timeline. It’s the teachers and parents that are “teaching disabled” when they believe this to be true.

One of the great detriments of current educational precepts is the idea that we compartmentalize information like ABC’s and language and reading in the early years, or as we mature, math and writing and geometry, etc.. This is contrary to recent findings, and challenges our notions of the way people truly learn. Academic subjects that are presented as interrelated can be synthesized in a more meaningful way, thus retained and applied appropriately and in context. According to David Whitebread, author of The Psychology of Teaching and Learning in School, “This natural and powerful way of learning is vastly inhibited when we are presented with new information or experience which does not relate to what we already know”.

Brain development research is confirming that allowing children to continue learning in ways that are organic and inspiring is what true education is all about. Imposing a curriculum with disregard for personal capacity and preferences is an outdated framework in education, parenting and training in general. It’s thrilling to see research support the benefit of fostering an individual’s innate capabilities through a holistic, rather than pigeonholed, approach.

Ever wonder why your child will sometimes go with the flow, nothing can stop her as she bounds off into whatever adventure awaits, while other times she clings and claws as if her very life depended on it?

K.N.R. can be the source of much discord for parents as well as children. The actual condition is often overlooked or misdiagnosed by well meaning parents and professionals. It affects almost 100% of children and adults at some time in their lives.

What is KNR?

Kid’s Not Ready.

Hard to believe? Consider this: Have you ever had a time when you decided to cease the struggle and allow you child to retreat from something, only to find that later on they approach it with the vigor and enthusiasm you’d hoped for initially? Kid wasn’t ready, and now kid is ready.

Does your child:

• Have vague reasoning when avoiding doing something you’d like him to experience?
• Shut down and revert to non-verbal responses?
• Make decisions based on “because I don’t want to”?
• Not perform up to the capabilities you and other adults have determined he is capable of performing?
• Are you having power struggles over what seem to be the silliest things?

These and other symptoms are often the result of KNR.

Kid’s Not Ready. This, quite simply, is often the reason you find yourself exasperated and your child frustrated.

What we often label as power struggles or stubbornness or shyness or insecurity is often KNR.

Sometimes parents view this as Kid’s Not Smart or Kid’s Being Difficult, when what is possibly occurring is Parent’s Not Listening. We all want out kids to be happy and smart and successful and socially adept.
What we need to remember is that our children’s time frame is often different from ours and, in the interest of avoiding unproductive comparisons, other children’s.

From not being ready for separating from parents, or being expected to do tasks or academics that are beyond their current scope of ability, to not feeling ready to enter into a romantic relationship, these phases and stages happen throughout childhood and beyond. When your child is emotionally, cognitively and developmentally ready, the ease at which they approach these things will be worth the wait, patience and understanding it took to get there.

If you’re still not convinced that it might be something as simple as KNR, the next time you find yourself in a situation where you are totally baffled by your child’s behavior or response to something, ask yourself these questions:

1. Has this type of behavior arisen in the past? Is there a connection to how it’s showing up now?
2. Are there other circumstances where the initial response was this type of behavior, and over time shifted?
3. Is this inconsistent with how she approaches other, more familiar circumstances? Have other factors (fear, misunderstanding, dynamics) been ruled out?

Of course only you can accurately assess this. You know you child best, so give yourself some credit for all the great things you do to help your child grow securely into the next phase, and give your child some credit for acting on his intuition or performing to the level at which he is currently able.

What’s the best cure for KNR?

Your responses will of course depend on your child’s age and stage of development. The crucial factor to remember is acknowledging what you are witnessing is what will help your child process. This doesn’t mean you can force your child to be ready, but what this will do is build the trust that will aid in an understanding of what is motivating your child, and help your child attain what it is they need at the time.

Begin with what you see:

“You seem to be disinterested in practicing your times tables.”

“Staying at preschool is hard for you.”

“You’ve been invited to the movies with _____, but don’t want to go.”

Now the hard part. Wait. Listen. Leave lots of silence if necessary. This may not open the floodgates, but if you state the facts of what you see, and leave some space , your child has the opportunity to relax and think about the situation without the feeling of pressure or judgement.

KNR will show up throughout their lives, and with some practice, patience, and personal reflection, you and your child can navigate this unpredictable terrain called family relationships!

Managing your household while doing your best to help aging family members….Yikes! Mastering this is a huge challenge. I’ve just come off of a year of intense parent transition issues while helping my lovely daughters transition into college and young adulthood.

First the care and assistance of mother, step-father, mother-in-law, father-in-law, to the death of step father and mother-in-law (two months apart), and now the focus of my mother and my father-in-law. It’s been a wild ride, and I’ve learned lots.

There was much joy and beauty in it all, and, knock me over with a feather, I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined myself saying that!

It doesn’t have to be wrought with heaviness and angst, unless, of course, you want it to be!

You: Knock Knock

Me: Who’s there?

You: Interupting Cow!

Me: Interupting C

You: MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

2003© Copyright Dan Sewell Ward, All Rights Reserved
( Natalie adds: and the tao of parenting.)

A wise teacher lets others have the floor.

A good teacher is better than a spectacular teacher. Otherwise, the teacher becomes more important than the teaching.

Facilitate what is happening rather than what you think ought to be happening.

Silence says more than words; pay much attention to it.

Continual classroom drama clouds inner work.

Allow time for genuine insight.

A good reputation arises naturally from doing good work. But do not nourish the reputation; the anxiety will be endless. Instead, nourish the work.

To know what is happening, relax, and do not try to figure things out. Listen quietly, be calm, and use reflection.

Let go of selfishness. Let go of your ego, and you will receive what you need. Give away credit, and you will get more. When you desire nothing, much comes to you. The less you make of yourself, the more you are.

Instead of trying hard, be easy. Teach by example, and more will happen.

Trying to appear brilliant does not work.

The gift of a great teacher is to create an awareness of greatness in others.

Because the teacher can see clearly, light is shed on others.

Teach as a leader and a healer. Constant force and intervention will backfire, as will constant yielding. One cannot push the river; a leader’s touch is light.

To manage other lives takes strength; to manage your own life takes real power.

Be happy, content, and at peace with yourself.

Definitions abound, so instead of a supplying you with a thesaural response, I’ll provide my personal account.

Coaching provided me with a mirror in which to take an honest account of how I was behaving in my life. Though painful at times, the pain of not really knowing what I wanted was much greater. My very first coach, Tripp Braden, saw something in me that I did not and allowed me to grow at a natural pace. Though months into our relationship, as it became obvious that he knew all along when I was “trying” and when I was simply “being”, he never let on. This was one of the main reasons he was so effective. He allowed me to be whatever I was being at any given moment. Without restrictions, without judgement. I realize this might sound like an esoteric postulation, and perhaps that’s the point. In fact, as we move into this Age of Aquarius we are discovering more and more of what we don’t understand and succumbing more to trust and faith and intuition. Coaching is an incredible catalyst for the kinds of philosophical presence many of us are moving towards.

If I were given the choice of never having known this growth or being where I am, which is the certainty of knowing within the uncertainty of life, there is nothing earthly that could make me choose the former.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin

These kids are going straight to hell!

Or are they?

Oddly, these words have been a guidepost for me as a parent. My father wrote those words and the ones that follow below, over 30 years ago, in response to our rapidly changing cultural climate. I marvel at how he found the wisdom to look beyond what met the eye.

As a teen, I was proud of how cool my late-in-life parents were. My father was 40 when I was born, amid a sea of twenty-something child bearing suburban couples. Old fashioned by some standards. Visionary by others.

Today, the words soothe me as I watch my teen daughters and their friends engage in activities I could not even dream of at their age.

But the words also chill me, as I read the news of blatant intolerance around the globe.

By the late Basyl H. Tucker, sometime in the early 1970’s:

I saw a boy walk in the place
With hair down to his shoulder
Good Lord, he could be president
Someday when he gets older

These kids are going straight to hell.

Or are they?

The girl who came in with him
Was something to be seen
Hair too red, skirt too short,
Her eyes were painted green!

These kids are going straight to hell.

Or are they?

And then the played the jukebox
Such noise you would not believe!
How they can listen that stuff
I really can’t conceive

These kids are going straight to hell.

Or are they?

Then suddenly it hit me
When I was once their age
There were Tams and Plus Four Knickers
And Zoot Suits were the Rage

We kids were going straight to hell.

Or were we?

The girls wore funny things then too
Hair cut short like men
The way we dressed in those day
I don’t want to see again

We kids were going straight to hell.

Or were we?

And when we played the jukebox
You couldn’t stand the sound
Of Mairzy Doats the Jersey Bounce
And Music Goes ‘Round and ‘Round

We kids were going straight to hell.

Or were we?

So fella’s wear you hair long
And girls your knees don’t hide
For how you wrap the package
Doesn’t tell you what’s inside.

“What would you say if a boy does not
read fluently by 8, it just stays really hard for him?”

I blinked, refocused my eyes, and read again.

Yes, I read it right the first time.

Although this should not have sent waves of incredulity through me, it had more to do with who asked this question, than the question itself. A woman of heart and mind. A woman who recognizes the illusionary parameters our culture constructs for the sake of safety and control. “I’ve got to do something before she drinks the Kool-Aid®”, I thought.

I am, quite truthfully, accustomed to these concerns. I often grapple for the perfect responses, the responses that will pull the chain and illuminate the proverbial light bulb. Sometimes I get lucky, but more often than not, fear takes the lead. It’s not easy going head to head with reactions evolution left behind.

And when you think about it, really really think about it, that is all it is. We, by our very nature, evolve. As we discover more and more about the world around us, we can’t help but reassess what we think we already know.

Yet when it comes to education, we let hype, which is fear disguised as enthusiasm, influence us.

And hype doesn’t overtly say “You will be a loser in the gutter if you don’t learn to read by the time you’re 8″. But it might imply, “Johnny can’t read because HIS PARENTS are losers in the gutter”. Or “This product will make your kids so successful, you won’t have to worry about ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!” and “Every problem on the planet will be solved, because your kids were hooked on phonics, not drugs!”

David Gribble introduces his book, Real Education this way: “In conventional schools children are literally prisoners: the law keeps them in. Learning according to inclination is not an option; children’s inclinations are not considered relevant; adults tell them what they must learn. They make the best of it and enjoy themselves as much as they can, but they are always under someone else’s authority, unable to conduct themselves as they would wish, unable to follow up their own interests. School seems to be designed to destroy their individuality, to turn them all, as the Swiss teacher Jürg Jegge says, into cogwheels that will fit smoothly into the machinery of society.”

It would appear that in education, we take evolutionary steps backward. We get mired in unsubstantiated fear. That, my friend, is not a conduit for learning. It’s a low-level consciousness that keeps us at bay. Think about it. Do most of the people you know have the courage to live to their potential? Do you? If so, read no more.

For the rest of us, let’s ask those courageous individuals who have transcended the confines of conventional rules, what helped them to see their potential.

Chances are you’ll hear things like “passion”; “innate interest”; “intrinsic desire”; “nurturing an interest”; “following my heart”; “doing what came naturally”; “knowing I could”; “inspiration”; “a calling”; “field of study that supported strengths”. If, and that’s a big if, reading fluently by 8 makes the list, I’ll bet it’s directly related to their passion.

So, back to the 8-year-old boy. Admittedly, I personally know this bright, articulate, fascinating young man, so my answer was really a no-brainer.

“So what?”