by Shonnie | Jul 20, 2012 | Common Challenges, Mindfulness, Self-mastery
Parents truthfully have no knowledge of what our kids should or shouldn’t do. I’m quite certain that most parents would ardently disagree with this statement. And even though I wrote this and wholeheartedly agree with it, I sometimes act as if I do think I know what my daughter should/shouldn’t do. So why, if we parents truly don’t know what our children should do, do we keep up the charade? We believe that parenting is about teaching our children what to do Whether you call it “teaching,” “training,” “guiding,” or “parenting,” most of us see ourselves in the capacity of “wise elder” to our child’s “beginner” status. Unconsciously or consciously we see our children as lacking knowledge of how to behave and we feel compelled to build that knowledge base. There are two problems with this perspective: It casts our children as “less than” rather than whole, worthy, and enough exactly as they are; and it casts us as “better than” rather than simply a child with more enculturation. It ascribes to us a false sense of authority which can shut down our child’s openness to alternative ideas and also put us on a very shaky pedestal of omniscience. What I believe that most parents know is how our culture tells us to behave and how we actually do behave. We’ve assimilated the beliefs of our culture and made up other beliefs out of our own growing up experience. We call it by many names — the “rules,” the “way life works,” the “facts” — but the truth is that our shoulds/shouldn’ts are merely beliefs. “Forgive him, for he...
by Shonnie | Jun 11, 2012 | Common Challenges, Mindfulness, Parenting Practice
“If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore Growing up my parents read to me from the Berenstain Bears stories where the papa bear often touted his wisdom whilst in the midst of doing unwise things. It was funny to watch him say “do as I do,” then get into a big mess, and pretend like his own action hadn’t caused his predicament. Papa bear’s model, however, reminds me of one of the things we often do as parents — pretend like or try to present the image that we’re perfect. Our children know we’re not perfect — heck they’re usually are on the receiving end of our greatest moments of imperfection — so acting as if we are doesn’t fool them. And, of course, even if we don’t like to admit it, we know we’re simply human, so we can’t fool ourselves either. “It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit to forgive them for having witnessed your own.” ~ Jessamyn West Why show your fallibility to your children? I grew up thinking my mom was perfect in some fundamental way. Yes, I knew she yelled at me, was sometimes inattentive, and perhaps a bit too nice, but I carted her around as my role model for how I should be. From this I created an unattainable standard that I was to meet if I was to be loveable and worthy. I’ve spent many of my adult years releasing this impossible demand and still get tripped up by it from time to time. So let’s...
by Shonnie | May 21, 2012 | Common Challenges, Mindfulness, Self-mastery
Feeling guilty over what we’ve done or not done, how we did “it” or why, or what we’re contemplating or fantasizing about doing is probably a universal parenting experience. We’ve been taught that our actions are either “right” or “wrong,” and thus we constantly judge ourselves as either “good enough” or “not enough” based on this judgment (and/or we judge other parents and they judge us). “Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.” ~ Bishop Robert South Guilt doesn’t make us better parents The problem is that feeling guilty doesn’t serve us or our children and it only reinforces the notion that our loveability — and that of our children — is conditional. In other words, when we do “right” we believe we’re worthy, loveable, keep-able but when we do “wrong” we suddenly think we’re unworthy, unloveable, and easy to discard. When this is what we believe and experience ourselves, this is the legacy we pass on to our children. Scott Noelle of EnjoyParenting.com has a great substitution for our guilt. When we feel guilt, let it redirect rather than reduce us. He describes the scenario this way: “You’d simply feel ‘off’ whenever your behavior was out of alignment with your values. That ‘off’ feeling would be a welcome sign that you need to adjust your course. And with your self-worth beyond dispute [because you know you’re loveable regardless of how you behave], you’d be confident in your ability to get back...
by Shonnie | May 11, 2012 | Common Challenges, Community, Mindfulness
Do you ever feel superior to other parents? Do you ever think your way is THE right way? Have you ever felt negatively judged by other parents? Have you ever felt guilty for not doing parenting “right”? I recently read Perchance to Dream, a post about infant sleep and the passion of the commenters and the original author got me thinking more about parenting and judgment and defensiveness. Why we get judgmental or defensive about parenting Parenting is one of the most important and lasting factors in helping each of us become who we are as adults. While there are numerous influences that shape who we are, there is likely no one who would say that parenting has no effect. Given this baseline, most parents have the sense of parenting as a high-stakes endeavor which couples with the nearly universal desire to be a good parent to our children and leaves most of us feeling an incredible amount of pressure to “do it right.” In this pressurized state, many of us seek expertise and answers so we’ll feel “okay” about ourselves and our actions. Unfortunately one of a couple of things may happen once we find the answers. We believe we KNOW what is right and we act as if this knowledge is THE TRUTH. This can make it easy for us to proselytize and simultaneously judge others who haven’t found “the light.” When we’re on the receiving end of a true believer’s judgment, we’re likely to either feel guilty for doing it “wrong,” and/or defend ourselves as right and become just as staunch in our position and practice....
