On Children

We would like to share a passage from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kids will be Kids

All our children are gifted in their own special way.  You know what your child's gifts are whether they are in sports or the arts or academia or spiritual wisdom.  Every child excels at something and then every child will be a child.  They may amaze you with their special skills and then amaze you with their mischief.  It's good to recognize these special skills but it is also good to let them be kids.

How to respond to fear

What can you do when your child is scared?  First of all know that fear is a normal and healthy response to a percieved threat.  So for the child, any fear is real since the emotion is real.  But he or she needs help with how to cope since most children are not able to calm themselves down.  It doesn't matter to the child whether you as an adult believe the fear is worthy or even real.  Fear of bees, monsters, a scary donkey in a dream, or a small friendly pet is all the same emotion to a child.

Here are some ideas of how to help your child cope with immediate fear:

• Physical comfort: hugs, cuddling or even holding hands.
• Be calm yourself.  Children easily pick up on your emotions, so do your best to be confident and sure that this can be overcome.
• Remove the child from the scary situation if necessary, at least temporarily.

Depending on the age of your child, you can try some of these techniques for processing scary emotions and to come up with a plan for the future:

• Ask your child for possible solutions.  You might be surprised by what they can think of that could actually work.
• Ask the child to draw what is scary.
• Tell your child a story, either from a book on the subject, or create your own story where the child in the story overcomes the fear.
• An older child can write a story about it and possible solutions.
• Role play about how to handle the situation in the future.
• Teach the child to surround him or herself with protective light.  This does not have to be complicated or difficult.  You can ask the child to imagine light surrounding him or her and suggest to the child that this light will make the child feel safe. 
• Teach the child that he or she has the right to say no.

Divine Insight

It is amazing how children can have such wonderful mature insights.  They can astound you with knowledge that can only come from a higher power.  One of the parents in the group related a story where their young child was going to a funeral and so they were talking about death. The explanation the adult gave was that the soul went to heaven to live forever, and the child said "not always, sometimes you get sent right back."  This simple statement sent the parent on a search into the divine and on their own spiritual path.

What does it mean to be intuitive?

Intuition can take many forms.  All people are intuitive to some degree, but the areas of intuition in our life can vary greatly.  Intuition is a skill that can be practiced and improved.  Author Caron B. Goode, EdD (in her book Raising Intuitive Children: Guide Your Children to Know and Trust Their Gifts) has broken intuitive ability down into five areas. You or your child might fit into one or more of these categories:

Physical Intuitive: Exceptional kinesthetic skills.

Creative Intuitive: Inspired abilities in the arts and music.

Empathic Intuitive: Feeling others' emotions as their own.

Psychic Intuitive: Knowing, hearing, seeing, telepathy and other talents.

Spiritual Intuitive: Knowing that we are all connected to something greater than ourselves.

Aakash: A Resource for Families with Intuitive Children

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