Model Child

Sometimes, being a Conscious Parent can be as frustrating as parenting without awareness but with more complications. It demands that I remain "in the moment" with my child and it also requires me to be creative in getting through the moment.

On the upside, when I am parenting consciously I am rewarded with an undeniable emotional connection with my child. Without a doubt, when I take the time to identify her needs, model empathy and compassion for her feelings and resist the urge to give in to her wants out of convenience, I feel vastly different than when I use force, manipulation or threats (I really don't do those things but let me tell ya, sometimes I feel the burn).

Clearly, it is not always an easy road and in case anyone is ever feeling drained with how much time it can take to parent with awareness or how frustrating it can be when you can't get out of the house by 8:45a.m. because you're busy validating feelings and needs - here's a little story that made me remember why it's all worth it.

My three-year-old daughter ML and I were on our way home from our kid's movement class and ML's buddy Nevin was upset because he wanted to go to a restaurant (we usually went after class). When he found out that we definitely were not "going to the restaurant" he burst into tears.

Nevin's mom and I looked at each other as if to say, "Okay, how are we gonna get out of this one..." and then before either one of us said a word, ML turned to him from her car seat and said, "You wanted to go to the restaurant... You thought we were going." She had so much compassion in her voice and eyes, I didn't know whether to crack-up or cry.

Nevin, intrigued by her tone, calmed down enough to listen. "You really wanted to go to the restaurant." she re-iterated. He nodded his head and whimpered, "Yes, I'm sad!"  Then he wailed once more as the tears poured out.

"I know, I know, You're sad!" ML said,  nodding with him. "You're so SAD! I know..."

After a moment she said, "You thought we were going out to eat! But guess what? We are going to go home to "the Papa Nick" (my husband) restaurant and then you will have a delicious piece of chicken and...."

Somewhere shortly after that sentence, her reasoning turned into a jumbled mess of nonsensical words (she's three) but she did it with a big finish and a smile which made Nevin laugh. Feeling better (and heard), he forgot all about how he wanted to "go to the restaurant" and we averted a 5pm meltdown... or Maia Luna did.

She modeled the TEACH method for Nevin. And his Mama and I didn't have to say a word.

So the next time somebody complains (or suggests) that kids who are parented with unconditional love are the rudest generation in history or that this non-violent parenting stuff is crap - just give 'em the finger and tell them to "model this..." Err, no, no ... I mean, just point to your child, smile and say, "time will tell."

 




Post your thought and comments below!  Share YOUR stories of kids who care!

Schools Killing Creativity?

I stumbled upon this thought-provoking video from a TED conference where Sir Ken Robinson addresses the lack of arts and dance in our educational systems around the world. He surmises that schools are actually killing creativity and crushing the natural talents that all children are born with.



I agree that there is a definite hierarchy that is played out among school subjects with math and science leading the charge followed by language arts and the social sciences. Alas, somewhere at the bottom, if there is enough money or interest, there may be a music or arts program but rarely, if ever, will you see education being taught through dance.

Why is that?

Why do schools not support the full use of our bodily talents? Why do we insist on educating our children from the neck up? Parents are battling to ensure admission to top-notch pre-schools because apparently this is now crucial to securing our child's future (or at least a spot on an ivy league admissions list).

But still, the traditional rote pedagogy served up in most schools is no substitue for a real education and Sir Ken explains why. Hats off to TED and Ken for tackling the inadequate reality of modern education and doing it with a dollop of humor!

Empathy and Justice for All

Coming Soon to a world near you! President Obama is preparing to nominate a successor to Justice David H. Souter and has cited empathy as "an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes."

Wow! I like this Barack character more and more. Though I'm still inclined to take an apolitical view on some things, I see a pattern taking shape and certainly a concerted effort to breathe some fresh air into a rather stale ideology.

First, it was published that his administration asked to communicate with the Global Coherence Initiative and now he's requesting that judicial appointments display empathy. Holy Cow! Could we actually be awakening to the truth?

Love is the only truth, everything else is illusion.

Yep, that includes violence, war and nasty politics. I know, that's a pretty lofty statement but c'mon, look at the logo folks. Me thinks, asking for a justice to have empathy is a huge step in the direction of peace and sanity.

I know the die-hards might dare call me naive and even dangerous in my thinking but I’m sticking by my truth because everything else seems to make my body ill.

Obama goes on to say,

"I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families... [to have] that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles...”

Obama previously had addressed empathy on the campaign trail and in his second book, The Audacity of Hopenaming the capacity to understand others "at the heart of my moral code."

Conservatives, predictably, are deriding Obama's comments. Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), for example, called empathy "a code for liberal activism" and Wendy Long, legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation network and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas said, "what's wrong with that is it is being partial instead of being impartial. A judge is supposed to have empathy for no one but simply to follow the law."

If you equate judicial empathy with personal preference, then okay, I see your point. But I think it is a bit of a stretch to presuppose that empathetic judges will lead to liberal activism and to further postulate that sitting and former judges have not taken into account their own feelings, morality and experiences is an overly trusting conclusion considering what we know about human tendencies.

Empathy does not mean preference nor is it synonymous with sympathy. Merriam Webster defines empathy as:

1: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it.

2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this.

Empathy does not assume preference, only understanding. Empathy is a natural state of human compassion.

I would tend to agree with the conviction that the law should be blind, empathetic to no one and that somehow this is the only way our system can function under the Constitution IF the world was black and white but from my progressive panorama - this is not the case.

While I respect the law as a framework to protect and uphold basic freedoms and ideas like don't kill, steal or hurt others, there are no absolutes.

I, personally, do not perceive Supreme Court cases to be as clear-cut as some speculate and their decisions are certainly not the end-all-be-all that some filter their perception through. If laws were that discernible there would be no need to convene a court to argue sides.

Though Obama was ridiculed by the right for his pronouncement, I will always champion common sense, compassion and rationality over a strict adherence to laws which are subject to interpretation and predisposed to change with the times.

As an equal-opportunity-brainer, I prefer the left side to work in conjunction with the right when making sound decisions. So hear hear, to the promotion of our full frontal lobes to the judicial branch of government. May you live long and prosper, spreading truth in all the land.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been making the news headlines recently. The convention or the CRC, as it is often referred to, is an international human rights treaty that sets forth a list of basic human liberties for children under the age of eighteen.

The CRC, as of 2008, has been ratified by 193 nations, except the United States and Somalia. Both Senator Barbara Boxer and President Obama have stated their support for the treaty and have vowed to revisit US ratification during this administration.

That has some right-wingers flapping in their coops. Michael Farris, president of ParentalRights.org is one such conservative who believes that the adoption of this treaty by the United States is somehow aiding and abetting the [almost imperceptible] erosion of our American liberties. He's also proposed an amendment to the constitution that would somehow "undeniably" secure the rights of the parents as having sole authority over what happens to their children.

Doesn't this pretty much exist as an implicit assumption anyway, without needing to elucidate it with a constitutional amendment? He regards the treaty (which seems pretty family friendly to me) and anti-parent judges (his words, not mine) as an imminent danger to parental rights in America.

Okay, forgive me, but what in the fudge are anti-parent judges? Is he claiming that the family services division of our legal system is against parents? Is it a lackadaisical approach to parenting they detest or just a general dislike of those who breed?

C'mon. I know there is corruption in the legal system but to claim that anti-parent judges are going to somehow influence or take away a good parent's rights on such a grand-scale that you actually need to propose a constitutional amendment sounds a bit overly suspicious to me.

Even I, a lover of good conspiracy theories, think Farris is taking the language of the treaty and making some pretty bold and widely-drawn assumptions. From what I can tell, the CRC provides nothing more than the basic human rights over one's mind and body that all humans deserve and spells it out for children specifically.

I'm not particularly for or against the signing of this treaty but the fact that Farris is using scare tactics on Fox News to make his "UN will take away your parental rights" argument makes all the fuss seem that much less credible to me.

Farris recently wrote a detailed critique of the Rights of the Child treaty, contending that it potentially could bar U.S. parents from spanking their children and empower young people to have abortions and choose a religion without parental consent.

No more spanking, choose your own religion and have rights over your body by not allowing another person to force you to bear a child that you do not want?

Hmmm, my violin is not bowing, Mr. Farris.

I'm all for keeping Big Brother out of my home but this treaty has not shown me signs that it has the potentiality to infringe on my parental rights and neither has Michael Farris convinced me that he knows what he is talking about.

On a sidenote: After posting some such version of the above comment on another website, my site was visited by .mil - apparently the military is monitoring us anyway :)