parenting part 1: love and empathy

Being a parent can teach us so many things, yet they could possibly be narrowed down to a few catch phrases:

Be loving. Be honest. Be empathetic.
And perhaps a few don'ts: Don't reject. Don't criticize. Don't hurt.

It's so simple as long as we are aware that every day, from the moment they are born, our children are learning, absorbing, and imprinting, so our parental example will be the first and strongest one that our kids emulate, especially our emotional responses.

Are we relaxed and generally easy going and happy with life, or are we stressed and bitter? Does our example teach our kids that life is an exciting challenging adventure, or that it is a difficult and tedious chore?

Each of us will have our own attitudes towards our children reflected right back at us, and these very attitudes become the atmosphere that permeate our home as our family grows.

What is your home like? Is the general atmosphere loving -- or angry? Cooperative -- or competitive? Giving -- or selfish? Thoughtful -- or thoughtless? Do you like being with your kids? Do they like being with you?

Do you remember what if felt like to be a very young child?

Your world is populated by giants and your body is unfamiliar and uncontrollable. You must ask for everything, first by crying and then, while learning a complicated language, with simple words... because everything is literally beyond your reach. Chairs and cupboards are too high. You fall down often, and you discover wonders that are near your level (the ground) like flowers and bugs... and you are excited to share your discoveries with the giants whom you love and depend upon. You discover the way the sunset looks shining through your eyelashes, how your voice echoes off the bathroom walls, and the tingly strange feeling when your foot "falls asleep". Every day you process vast amounts of new information, from how fire burns fingers to how you are expected to behave in a complex society.

If you can't even picture the above scenario, try again to imagine being a very young child. Imagine this:

Your world is populated by one or more giants, who, like gods, provide you with everything you need to survive. You are utterly under their control, and at the mercy of their whims. Hopefully, your "gods" are benevolent. Sadly, often they are not. Instead their mercurial moods change without warning, and they inflict emotional and/or physical pain upon you, often having no discernible connection with your behavior. You don't understand, but you are powerless. You eventually learn to cope with -- and eventually even emulate -- their behavior, since your brain is "hard wired" to do so.

As you mature, you begin to understand that these "gods" are just people after all, and their mistreatment of you begins to seem unfair and makes you sad, angry, and resentful. As you enter adolescence, you judge your "gods" to be flawed, and you rebel.

Eventually, you have children of your own and you act just like your parents, repeating imprinted patterns and hating yourself for it.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way! Now is the time to choose break the old pattern that may have been carried on for generations.

As conscious parents, we no longer have the luxury of our own neurosis, and we understand that we need no longer be victims of the past. No matter how we were raised, the great news is: we possess the fluid ability to change ourselves.

If we can remember this sensation of childhood, we are fortunate to be equipped with one of the most powerful parenting skills available: empathy.

When we have the ability to actively remember, we tend to treat our children as we would like to have been treated: kindly and with respect. Here is a simple yet powerfully revealing exercise:

Think back to your own childhood. Visualize the house you lived in, see your room, and finally, really look and see the child you once were. Picture this child alone, and in a time of feeling misunderstood, or punished, or lonely. Imagine that you have the power to appear to this child, as a magickal being or as a loving friend. What message would you bring to this child? What does this child need to hear?

A child of harsh and unloving parents needed to know that he was worthy of love.

A child of strictly rational and judgemental parents needed to know that the world really was a magickal place.

A child of physically abusive parents needed to know that she was innocent of any wrongs.

Every one of us has a theme: some deep need we carry in our hearts that often was not met in our childhood. This theme is reflective of the original, perfect potential and unique gifts that each of us is born with.

When unfulfilled, this theme expresses itself negatively, driving us to choose inappropriate relationships, belief systems, and careers.

Conversely, this theme, when positively expressed, will give us untold satisfaction and joy as we reclaim it for ourselves as adults. It is this theme that is a key to our personal evolution and self expression. For some of us, understanding our own theme takes years. Encouraging our children to discover their own theme is an incredible gift we can give them.

And so, as thoughtful, conscious parents, we look for and validate our child's original talents, no matter how they differ from our personal visions for our child's future.

We listen to our children's feelings, in the same way we would have loved to have a parent listen to our own. We help them clarify their thoughts, instead of correcting them and expecting them to have our thoughts.

We encourage their creativity and their intellect, as we would have wanted our parent to encourage and help us. We explain reasons for our decisions clearly (because we remember how we hated being told "because I said so").

Some parents worry that if their kids were to discover that they had flaws, were ever wrong, etc.. they would lose respect for them. Wrong. If your kids are over about seven years old, they are well aware of your flaws. (Remember how clearly you saw your own parents?) Hypocrisy is especially obvious to children!

Which brings us to our next subject: "Authority".

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