Don't think of a monkey!

Don’t think of a monkey! Don’t think of a monkey!  Don’t think of a monkey!

What is on your mind?  Let me guess, a monkey.

The minds of children work the same way as ours.  When we use the words “don’t” or can’t” our children tend to skip them and typically just hear the rest of the sentence.  Some examples of this quirk of the mind:

You can’t have desert before dinner.

Typical result:  Child obsessively thinks about desert, and often continues to ask.

Don’t hit your brother!

Typical result:  It doesn't take long before the hitting continues.

You quickly see the pattern here.  There are some things you can do to work with the mind of your child and not hit a brick wall with your perfectly reasonable (to you!) directives.  You can offer alternatives:

You can have one fruit before dinner.

Or:

We are having desert after dinner.

Touch your brother gently.

Or:

You can hit the pillows if you like.

I am sure you can think of many options that would work well for your family.  Have fun playing with language and notice any different results you get.  This is not a magic solution for children’s behavior, but does make a difference.  Please share anything you notice when you practice this!

An Intuitive Moment

All kids are intuitive.  Sometimes it is up to us to regognize it or it might be easily missed. 

One mom in the group was going somewhere by car with her daughther.  Her daughter had taken her shoes off in the car and refused to put them on.  The mom told her she really needed to put them on, but the daughter stubbornly refused.  So the mom, a bit irritated, agreed to put the shoes on.  While doing so, she discovered a tiny tick on her daughter's foot. 

The mom immediately stopped being upset and thanked God for her daughter's unusual behavior.

Sometimes intuition shows up in strange ways, but it is definitely worth paying attention to!  

Children's art

Have you noticed that when young children draw they fill up the whole paper with exuberant color? But sooner or later this expressiveness is replaced with unsure figures, often not filling the space of the paper. And by the time we become adults, many of us have been told that we are no good at art, and we may actually believe this even though as children we loved drawing.

When children draw, some draw colors around people and animals.  Often a well meaning adult tells them there are no colors there, just like a child is sometimes told that they should not draw a face green or or a tree yellow. 

There really is no reason to tell children how to draw.  If they are interested, they can get some art education as they grow up, but there is no benefit to the young child to be instructed to draw the limited reality that adults see. 

So let them experiment and don't limit their expression!  Maybe then, we will have more beautiful surroundings as our children grow up and create more color in our world.

Short Answers

Young children talk in little spurts.  One moment they are talking about a bug or a tree, the next about being hungry or something else totally unrelated.  They don’t stay on one topic for long.  And they are not interested in listening to one topic for long either. 

So when they ask a complicated question, with a long adult complicated answer forming in your mind, you often lose their attention by the time you get a few sentences into any well thought out answer.  So what to do?

Keep it simple!  And also keep in mind that when they ask a question, they have already been thinking about the subject, so you might want to ask them what they think before even attempting to answer.  Then, if you provide an answer, try to keep it short – the younger the child, the shorter the explanations.

Spirituality and Happiness

Here is a link to an article by The Washington Times reporting on two studies done on children and spirituality.  The studies found that children with a sense of spirituality, not necessarily religion, were significantly happier than other children:

"The study itself did not emphasize the importance of institutional religious practices but focused more on the child’s sense of “personal meaning” - and their sense of such basic values as kindness toward others, altruism, meaningful relationships and volunteering."

What do you think?

Emotional Connection

As adults, we sometimes struggle with calming our own emotions.  But at least we know that we have the ability to do so. 

Children on the other hand, often get totally overwhelmed by their emotions.  If we can give them comfort and love when they are upset, they learn over time that after discomfort comes peaceful feelings and connection again.  Over time, a connected child internalizes this cycle of emotional comfort after upset, meaning that they can find inner peace any time they look for it. 

If we let them deal with their emotions by themselves, they are usually not able to get through their feelings and reach inner peace.  Instead they can start acting out to get their emotional needs noticed in other ways.  If this does not work, some give up on seeking connection and start suppressing their emotions to the point that they do not consciously feel much of anything.  Since they are not used to receiving a compassionate response, they feel they have nowhere to turn.  Over time this suppression disconnects them from others and they start to feel all alone in the world. 

With the consistent loving care of an adult, this negative cycle can usually be easily broken with a younger child or a baby.  But with older children, professional help may be needed to get back to connection and emotional health.

The Protective Egg

Have you noticed that if you are in a hurry or angry, your child reacts emotionally to this even if you have been careful to not openly express your feelings? 

This is because young children are so open energetically that they pick up on our thoughts and feelings without any effort on their part.  Adults transmit these feelings and thoughts through energy fields surrounding them.  The energy field of an adult is naturally extended to young children in our care since their fields are much weaker than ours.  Adults can often choose whom to let into this “energy bubble” but this process is more difficult for children.  Since children are energetically more open, they tend to pick up on every nuance of emotion surrounding them. 

As parents, we naturally extend our energy and love towards our children.  Younger children count on the consistent energetic protection of a trusted adult in order to feel safe and secure.  This protection is as crucial as food for young children, especially those under five years old.   

According to author Dorothy Harbour, one simple way of strengthening this protective field is to think about your child with a feeling of pure love as often as possible. 

You can also sit down and take a few deep breaths and imagine that your protective energy and love surrounds both you and your child in the form of an egg made of white light.