Am I raising a wimp?

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Anna
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Anna »

terhas'tree'white wrote:
hilda rac wrote:@Lana: Bernard did not explain in detail how he was mirroring his children's emotions, but I reckon that if they screamed and whined, he'd do the same. That's how I would go about it, show the child how ridiculous and unacceptable their behaviour is, show the "Don't do to another what you don't want done onto yourself" principle in action. Perhaps Cerise and LJ could give some perspective on this.

yes, maybe they can elaborate on his method. its an interesting approach towards a child. reciprocation. i havent yet considered the ability of a small child to recognize that approach as teaching. when my little sister reciprocates what my niece gives her it escalates. the behavior/emotion/attidude from my niece. i doubt my little sister is reciprocating as b did though. her reciprocation is via playing with my niece. not showing her what she is putting out. would be interesting to see how he did that. to be a mirror instead of the stability. kinda allows the child to form the stability needed. if it works out.
I have have tested it for myself. I wouldn't recommend doing it if one isn't stable within oneself, because it can become abusive if one uses this technique as a justification for exerting one's reaction onto the child. But if one is stable one can mimic a child throwing a tantrum for example and thereby they see their own reaction mirrored and can even start laughing because they see how ridiculous it is, so they're able to, through the mirror, see how the reaction wasn't a real experience but in fact an 'act' or 'role'. But I stress how important it is to be stable and to not go into a state of ridiculing or spiting the child. The mirror must be equal and one.
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KellyPosey
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Yes Anna exactly. It's to show the child the behavior they're doing by doing it back for them to see, but you can't do this from a starting point of blame or have any energy movement within you like doing it from a point of revenge or judgment or mockery or belittling because then you are just showing them the example of participating in that energy and are just reaffirming what they are doing and possibly adding more layers. It's important to only be mimicking the behavior basically just how they are moving themself. So like Anna was mentioning I wouldn't suggest to do this unless you're absolutely clear in your starting point or you will create more consequence.
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CerisePoolman
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Bernard didn't have a "method", so all I can share is the basic principles he lived with us.

Firstly, we did not have a "parent-child" relationship. We were equals. I called him Bernard - not "dad". He didn't patronize. He explained things clearly in a way that we could understand at that particular time in our lives, but it was never "talking down".
An example I can use is of some family of Esteni who visited a year ago or so with a young boy who was about 5 years old. Bernard explained to him that a dog cannot speak to tell you that you are hurting them, so they will bite. This simple explanation was enough to change the child's behaviour towards the dogs.
The next main point was "no means no". There was no negotiation on any point. No amount of nagging could persuade him. The only times he would "change his mind" was if you brought a practical, common sense, relevant point up. When we were kids he would "tease" us if we started nagging for something, saying we had "the gimme's". He'd make funny faces and joke around until we laughed the point out - it changed out focus from the desire to seeing how silly we sounded.
In terms of boundaries, in a lot of ways he gave us the freedom to explore and make our own choices. there was no restriction on movies we could/couldn't watch, or computer games we could/couldn't play. He let us decide what we enjoyed. Obviously this is within the context of us understanding that things like movies and games were not "real" so there were no "possessions" caused by movies / games. In terms of "freedom of choice", he would make us aware of what the consequences of certain choices would be (especially in my "teenage years") but still (mostly) allow us to make the choice for ourselves. There were certain rules he made, for example no alcohol, so it's not like he let us do stupid things - it was always "within reason" - if he saw we were about to fuck up big time he would intervene, but it was always within the principle of giving us the understanding of what our actions would cause.
He was always honest with us, which led to me being "unable" (more like unwilling) to lie to him. I told him when I started smoking. He would not "react" to what I told him about my life, even if it was something I was ashamed of. He would simply discuss the point with me, make sure that it was clear within me.
We would talk every day if he was away. He always made sure we knew he was around and that we could contact him. When I was a teen he and I lived together alone for a while and we would have one night a week where we would go to the movies or something. Even when LJ and I were kids we would go out to movies or something when we were with Bernard on weekends.

Most of this is relevant to "older" children, but some of the principles apply to all walks of life.
Matti Freeman
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Firstly, we did not have a "parent-child" relationship. We were equals
This is an important point - even today after walking my process for years, I experience a slight fear coming up in relation to calling my parents by their first name - this is really an evil thing that has been accepted becasue it's where the child is brainwashed to believe / experience the parent as being 'more important' than other people
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Carrie
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Obviously this is within the context of us understanding that things like movies and games were not "real" so there were no "possessions" caused by movies / games. In terms of "freedom of choice", he would make us aware of what the consequences of certain choices would be (especially in my "teenage years") but still (mostly) allow us to make the choice for ourselves. There were certain rules he made, for example no alcohol, so it's not like he let us do stupid things - it was always "within reason" - if he saw we were about to fuck up big time he would intervene, but it was always within the principle of giving us the understanding of what our actions would cause.
This is an awesome approach and I completely agree - it's important to educate the child about the consequences of their potential decisions/choices. It is equally important to be there if/when/as the child 'messes up big time' as Cerise explains in her post and to pick the child up, fix any of the negative consequences that are beyond the child's ability to handle on their own, and utilize the moment as a learning opportunity where we have an honest dialogue and discuss solutions in regards to what choices/decisions could have been made and could be made in the future that are easier to live with the consequences of. This type of communication became possible with me and my children at around 4-5 years old and gets easier and easier with the more I practice and the more comfortable they are with discussing situations, events, choices, and reviewing the outcome of decisions made.
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KellyPosey
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Matti wrote:This is an important point - even today after walking my process for years, I experience a slight fear coming up in relation to calling my parents by their first name - this is really an evil thing that has been accepted becasue it's where the child is brainwashed to believe / experience the parent as being 'more important' than other people
Yes and so much of who we are is formed/influenced through this relationship, you can see directly how many of our collective patterns are shaped by how we're treated in our 'formative years'. So much consequence is created by this superior/inferior relationship of parents toward children. An important point I see within this is to remember that there isn't really a such thing as a 'child', it's not like a species unto itself like a dog or a monkey or something, it's just a temporary stage of the developmental process of a human being, so you're not raising a 'child' you're raising a human being.

For me I can look back at my experience as a child and my relationships with my parents, and one of the first things that stands out, was that it became apparent to me from ways that they acted or spoke to me, that my parents saw me as inferior to them in some way, which made no sense to me at all, I didn't see how I was of any less 'value'. Of course, I did not have the vocabulary to express this at the time, but I was still able to see and experience it, and it definitely had a profound impact on me.
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Anna
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Matti wrote:This is an important point - even today after walking my process for years, I experience a slight fear coming up in relation to calling my parents by their first name - this is really an evil thing that has been accepted becasue it's where the child is brainwashed to believe / experience the parent as being 'more important' than other people
I've always called my mom by her first name. It was one of these kind of communist things or ideas of the 70's that parents and children should be more like equals. So it was only when I started having reactions to it and feeling distant from my mother 'as a mother' that I started deliberately calling her 'mom' as a teenager and adult. This was then slightly uncomfortable for me and it still is. It's like addressing a 'role' rather than an actual human being. Kind of similar as to if our parents called us 'daughter' or 'son' consistently and we didn't have any names lol - It's a fascinating point because in many ways I've always known my mother more as a person - calling her by her first name, than necessarily defining her as 'mom'.
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terhas
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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CerisePoolman wrote:he would make us aware of what the consequences of certain choices would be (especially in my "teenage years") but still (mostly) allow us to make the choice for ourselves.
CerisePoolman wrote:Most of this is relevant to "older" children, but some of the principles apply to all walks of life.
this is a point i am having trouble grasping taking care of my little sister of 16. being able to let her make the choice. i think its because i deem the choices i see her make as bad. for her for her future. for example the choice to stay out all night when she is supposed to be home with no communication or the choice to not ask for help with school work when she is failing when help is available from multiple sources or the choice to not go to school. so i end up creating friction trying to talk her into good choices instead of allowing her to make the choice. because she is informed. but then again she is only as informed as she allows herself to be. i guess i fear if i did just allow her to make the choice shed stay out every night and come in when she wants and never communicate with me and just take what she wants from me. and then id have to create consequence for crap behavior. because the real consequences of her actions wont be seen until she and adult and supposed to be taking care of herself. not being able to be somewhere on time when she is supposed to and/or communicate with people or not knowing her work can cause her to lose a job and not be able to pay her bills to support herself in this world. and in the world weve created that is important. her reference points were conflicting also. and not very supportive. reference points meaning the adults that helped to create the things of this 16 year old. very cool to have such a stable point in b despite the "growing pains". i dont always have that with my sister of 16 as i do with my niece of 2. the older they are the more deliberate they become within what they are saying and doing. the older they are the more they decide to do rather than stumble upon the opportunity to learn. ..and the more stability reveals itself as important.

KellyPosey wrote:An important point I see within this is to remember that there isn't really a such thing as a 'child', it's not like a species unto itself like a dog or a monkey or something, it's just a temporary stage of the developmental process of a human being, so you're not raising a 'child' you're raising a human being.
yes.
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Bastian Neumann
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Bastian Neumann »

...this is a cool discussion thread! I like to share some additional things, more in general because Lana's specific question seems to be dealt with.

The important principle in living with a child is very simple, as I see it and I will share it from our perspective as parents.
Our child is and was an equal family member from the very beginning. He doesn't need to accomplish something, reach a certain point of age or pattern of behaviour to earn our respect and approval. This must be absolutely clear and natural. This basic equality is in no way dependant from any behaviour patterns he shows. It was even natural before he was born – or planned. This seems to be the hardest thing for many parents as I observe it, and in many cases the reason is obviously that they themselves are inherently uncertain about everything. Therefore many turn to 'methods' and patterns that give them a feeling of certainty and within that they detach more and more from the lively presence and awareness of a child. These methods often contain a hierarchical priciple that is not questioned or even clear to the 'user', it is based on a belief that a parent is the puppet master, just because. That is highly problematic and of no help.

So, when we realized that we simply do not encounter many of these self created 'problems' that other parents share with us and sometimes people ask how we 'do it'. It depends on the situation if we discuss things in detail with them, many times we simply say that we are lucky, but sometimes the simple statement that we live and meet at eye level with him creates a doubtful smile or laughter. This shows that it is not being understood what we say, often it is compared to letting him do whatever he wants and so on. But of course this interpretation is a clear sign that one does not even know one's own 'eye level'. Therefore the process of self development and knowledge of self again turns out to be the key.

We are uncertain in many points as well, but if we make a mistake, we realize it very fast regarding our small social group dynamics and we know what we did and how to correct it, because we did it as a decision and take self responsibility for it. I for example have had difficulties in saying 'no' and be consistent with it. Our son realized that quite fast and he would try and test me out everytime he wanted something or more of something and he knew that we would not accept that request. So I had to work on my own stand and behaviour, I asked myself why I turned in so fast and easy and it was primarily because of my impatience and a deeply imprinted behaviour of avoiding conflicts that exists within and as me. So I had o face these points and layers and I am still working on it from the perspective and startig point of self responsibility and responsibility for the consequnces that this selfish behaviour will mean for the devlopment of my son. But these principles are the same with the interactions and living with my wife and vice versa. There is no difference in the process of establishing a basis of equality between the members of a social group and the upbringing of a child. Except of course the child's basic learning process that puts the responsibility in your hands , but it is the very same responibility that you have always had for yourself.

Equality is a point that children live and understand very well, because they don't even need to understand it. It is there and natural when they meet, this is amazing to see. But parents tend to destroy this, and sometimes they don't even realize how they do it. There are many examples, the exaggeration of praise and compliment and the comparison with other children, how parents treat other children for example in Kindergarten - some even ignore other children when they bring or fetch their own, but not least how they live with their own children, what example they give at home. Voice intonation for example creates a clear but artificial separation between adults and children, because if you talk to children like you were playing a game or something, they will clearly recognize the difference and as I see it they even recognize the degradation behind it. I never understood that behaviour of speking to children in a different voice, most of the time it's a very stupid sounding voice, until today of course.

There are many more examples and as I am writing I realize that I should write a blog about this, but it is cool to share it here with you guys.
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KellyPosey
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

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Bastian wrote:There are many more examples and as I am writing I realize that I should write a blog about this, but it is cool to share it here with you guys.
Cool Bastian, thanks for sharing your experience and cool to blog about it. It's cool how this shows that when we start things from the get-go from a point of equality just how much consequence we actually prevent, compared to relationships that we'd already formed within points of separation, where essentially the trust has been broken, and it can therefore take a lot more time as it can then take a process of re-establishing trust, if it hasn't gone too far. It's such an important point that Cerise touched on in what she shared, the point of 'being there' which is not simply of matter of saying I'm here you can talk to me, but also and fundamentally it's to be a trustworthy individual, which if we haven't sorted out our reactions and such, we're not, and this is why I stopped confiding in/sharing with my own parent because no matter how much they would say they were here and I could 'talk to them about anything' it wasn't actually true because they would go into all sorts of reactions toward what I shared, so eventually I learned that I can't trust them. And then, as a child, you are essentially alone in the world if you can't even trust your parents, the ones responsible for your survival until you can take care of yourself. So it's really so important that we be/become a guide for the children where they know they can come to you for common sense assistance and no judging them or reacting.

Terhas wrote:this is a point i am having trouble grasping taking care of my little sister of 16. being able to let her make the choice. i think its because i deem the choices i see her make as bad. for her for her future. for example the choice to stay out all night when she is supposed to be home with no communication or the choice to not ask for help with school work when she is failing when help is available from multiple sources or the choice to not go to school. so i end up creating friction trying to talk her into good choices instead of allowing her to make the choice. because she is informed. but then again she is only as informed as she allows herself to be. i guess i fear if i did just allow her to make the choice shed stay out every night and come in when she wants and never communicate with me and just take what she wants from me. and then id have to create consequence for crap behavior. because the real consequences of her actions wont be seen until she and adult and supposed to be taking care of herself. not being able to be somewhere on time when she is supposed to and/or communicate with people or not knowing her work can cause her to lose a job and not be able to pay her bills to support herself in this world. and in the world weve created that is important. her reference points were conflicting also. and not very supportive. reference points meaning the adults that helped to create the things of this 16 year old. very cool to have such a stable point in b despite the "growing pains". i dont always have that with my sister of 16 as i do with my niece of 2. the older they are the more deliberate they become within what they are saying and doing. the older they are the more they decide to do rather than stumble upon the opportunity to learn. ..and the more stability reveals itself as important.
I remember my mother not trusting me to make my own decisions and would often impose rules and restricitons on me, than to explain the consequences and allow me to decide for myself. I see a lot of this stems from the idea/belief that children just won't be capable to understand and make the right choice, because since they don't yet know everything of how this world works they do make mistakes, and then it's like we form that definition of them, and then from this belief/definition we don't really actually try to give a proper explanation, and this is also largely due to the fact that we don't know how to give a proper explanation, since we've not walked ourselves into understanding of points, like we do within our process and within DIP, where we get to understand things in greater detail and specificity. As you go along, you're developing your vocabulary, and we've really as a whole not done that, and not even realized that that's what's going on, and we then resort to things like 'because I said so' or 'because you shouldn't do that' and wanting children to just accept that, because we're impatient and don't want to have to actually take the time to walk ourself through to a proper understanding and to be able to express the point effectively. It takes practice and application to develop. But when we look at it, what kind of person are we creating when we are expecting a child to just follow a direction without having a proper understanding?

Now, within this, within the things that were presented to me as explanations when I was a child, however limited, because it was usually spoken to me from a charged point of energy or reaction or fear or not communicated very clearly, I tended to not listen to it or question it, but would rather react to it as 'they are being irrational' and just trying to 'manipulate' and 'control' me, and this of course creates a resistance to whatever is being said to you. So, often the child's seeming 'irrationality' or 'rebelliousness' is a reaction to how we are coming at them from a starting point that isn't clear, and then when they react/don't listen, we think it is something with them, that they are just 'wanting to rebel' or they just 'are that way' yet not considering our own expression within this and the consequence we've created in another. I mean, you'll hear it all the time from parents 'I have no idea why they're acting this way' 'I don't know where this is coming from' and so on, discussions between parents who just 'can't understand' the children's behavior toward them.

So as long as we are coming from any point of reaction, energy, fear, judgment, control, manipulation, force, we really can't expect to be heard or trusted or reacted to rationally. It's like expecting another to do something we aren't even doing ourself. Like - I expect you to ignore what I am participating in and just see the common sense and not react, when I am not even simply sticking to common sense myself but allow myself to go into and be directed by reactions, emotions, and feelings. I mean, when we are coming at it from a point of force/energy/reaction/manipulation we are actually creating the worst possible situation for them to see/hear the common sense in a moment, and thus within that, we're also responsible in a way for the consequences they walk into, because we didn't give them the best possible chance to educate themself.
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