A few tips on Parenting in the 21st Century….
It’s irrelevant to Healthy Parenting which Century it is…… Natural Parenting is timeless, as it is determined by non linear biological, natural living processes. It is ever present. It is innate. Intrinsic.
It’s important to realise that in these times that all parents are under un-natural stresses brought on by the way of life, that is to say the Societally Mandated practices regarding work, debt, access to shelter, food and land, and power relationships as expressed throughout and promoted by the Dominant Culture. Two jobbing parents. Single Parents out of work? Is that not an oxymoron? Parenting IS work, and is absolutely vital work, and it is also more than work, much more.
It’s pertinent to Societally Mandated Child Rearing Practices which Century it is… whilst there has been some improvement within the context of civilisations, for all indigenous gatherer hunter communities it would appear that any extended contact with western practices they experienced results in a fundamental undermining of their natural traditions. Thus whilst the west slowly makes progress, it is destroying the existing base of natural parenting that is held in those communities
It’s a valid exercise, as a parent or parent to be, to review child rearing practices, as a matter of historical interest, to help contextualise where one has entered into that history at birth.
What one has forgotten that one may have learned as a child regards the rules, written and unwritten, and the mores of life held by those who cared for or ‘reared’ us, we will automatically teach our children, coercively, or most often by manipulation
Every child has a unique growth path that is biologically determined towards optimum health; spiritually, psychologically, physically and emotionally.
Few children in the Dominant Culture ever have their natural biologically determined needs met in full.
Most children in Gatherer-hunter Societies did have their natural biologically determined needs met in full. As nature intends.
Recent research has absolutely proven the case that the natural child needs empathetic parenting for every baseline health measurement known.
The child’s present is a separate reality to the adults past.
Often the adults past (his or her childhood history) unresolved experiences are directing parts of the adult’s response to the present real time interaction with or of a child in his or her care. This past driven reaction dynamic can be interrupted once one is aware of the possibility of such unconscious reactions generated by past experiences intervening in the present situation and thus colouring it, if not absolutely distorting it.
For example, quite often a parent will experience irrational irritation, or even anger, at a young child over insignificant issues, such as knocking a drink over, or making a mess at a table; the adult might become angry and may ‘decide’ to ‘punish’ or ‘chastise’ the infant (a pointless exercise in that the child will learn nothing other than to fear the parent).
http://aruhea.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/the-emotional-plague-stops-here - this article clear outlines these dynamics
"To illustrate, a typical process of scripted emotional response may be as follows: stimulus (A innocently switches light on early in the morning, believing B to be awake); B’s reaction (fear; surprise); state of alert; realization that reaction was inappropriate to stimulus; recollection of (or rather subconscious association with) a pattern of similar events in the past, especially in early childhood, which were a source of emotional reactions designed to ward off annoying/malicious intent on the part of a parent, sibling etc.; subliminal transference of such assumed intent onto A; production of the associated emotional reaction; association on the part of A, in turn, of B’s reaction with similar prior events (unfair unpunishment in the absence of intent to harm); emotional counterreaction (anger, outrage, sense of injustice, sense of betrayal); defensive or hostile reaction by B to what is now perceived as or associated with a threat (fight, flight, freezing); situation spirals out of control…"
http://aruhea.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/the-emotional-plague-stops-here - this article clear outlines these dynamics
"To illustrate, a typical process of scripted emotional response may be as follows: stimulus (A innocently switches light on early in the morning, believing B to be awake); B’s reaction (fear; surprise); state of alert; realization that reaction was inappropriate to stimulus; recollection of (or rather subconscious association with) a pattern of similar events in the past, especially in early childhood, which were a source of emotional reactions designed to ward off annoying/malicious intent on the part of a parent, sibling etc.; subliminal transference of such assumed intent onto A; production of the associated emotional reaction; association on the part of A, in turn, of B’s reaction with similar prior events (unfair unpunishment in the absence of intent to harm); emotional counterreaction (anger, outrage, sense of injustice, sense of betrayal); defensive or hostile reaction by B to what is now perceived as or associated with a threat (fight, flight, freezing); situation spirals out of control…"
One of the factors behind the apparent common occurrence of these kinds of behaviours is that as the adult meets his or her own child growing through a phase that the adult had not grown through healthfully, the adult will try to suppress his or her own sense of loss and pain at that missing part, by blocking the child’s development at that precise stage… and by projecting his or her unwanted feelings onto the child (it might manifest also at an opposite extreme by over reacting in ‘rebellion’ to their own unresolved past with a loss of boundaries, which again can be toxic to the child’s well being, as it sends confused messages to the child)
Children can sense that change towards irritation in the adult far earlier than the adult, and they begin very early to read the adults moods, to focus on the adults moods rather than on them selves, from within, as their centre. This is the beginning of co-dependency. It is also the basis for later manipulation by State Institutions, towards a person who is less self-directed, more externally driven.
However this ability of children to read the moods of the parent can be used by the parent to help him or her develop interrupts to the older patterns. This I describe as actively LISTENING to the child in front of oneself, and of also having empathy for the child one once was. That child too read the moods of the adults who cared for him or her.
Once this is started it has to be practiced for a while before it becomes second nature, and then, later on un-necessary because empathetic relationships will emerge. It remains a life skill. It also requires that the children are enabled, or permitted to note the mood shifts and indicate when they sense the old patterns rising; at that moment the adult can simply stop, breathe a few deep breaths and begin again, after a gentle rebalancing chat with the child or children, to interact with mutual respect intact.
That respect quickly becomes mutual, supportive and empathetic. And it is that empathy that is crucial to healthy parenting. A parent with empathy for his or her self as a child and especially with regard to all that they lived through, good and bad, will always nurture their children towards their unique optimum state of health by observing who their children really are, and by avoiding projecting forgotten experiences or values or lessons onto their children, they break the old cycles of behaviour. The also liberate themselves from any learned self limiting or dysfunctional behaviour patterns. They therefore improve the habitat for all life.
A people who live by empathy will always avoid the use of power, coercion or intimidating tactics, and have no need for rules as such.
Here is an interesting essay and some good links to follow up on all of the above…. and more, so much more.. always remember that natural parenting that is empathetic is innate to our biology.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's your gift to universe
1 comment:
Thanks for the link to my blog!
I wanted to say also this: that parenting is not only a vital task but it is also, when approached consciously in the spirit you describe, a tremendous path of personal liberation. I really urge people not to miss the opportunities it affords.
http://aruhea.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/the-tao-of-parenting/
Post a Comment