I was in a restaurant tonight with a good friend and on the table across from us sat a family of 8 people. I overheard a mother coming down heavy on her little child who looked around 5 years old. "Don't do that", "stop being bad", etc. And well perhaps she had justifiable cause to scold her child.
What's generally obvious however with many parents is that their very attitude towards their children is what exacerbates the behaviours in the children they don't like. And telling a little child they're bad and that if they don't stop doing a certain thing then something unfavourable will happen for them is a shame inducing manipulation. It puts the child into a harmful psychological bind.
Children are not born “bad”. Children are little humans growing up and learning about the world. And any "bad" behaviour they pick up is either learned from their parents and people around them in life, else is a reaction to what's going on in situations we've put them in and of which they may not fully understand.
They're not masters of social etiquette and can't live up to our expectations of them. They're bright bundles of creativity, play and exploration. Much closer to what's good and true than you, me or most any other adult could ever be. They've just not yet been conditioned like we have into this overall crazy and corrupt society.
But of course repeatedly telling a kid that they're somehow bad is creating within the child a psychological confusion. One which leads them to feel they are somehow deficient for simply being what they are.
Parents who continually scold their children and bark at them without thought or any compassion for these bright little souls are often within themselves desensitised to feeling intuition and love. Subconscious fears and agitations keeping them bound within the popular beliefs of society and in the stress and superficialities of modern life.
Children are in touch with what's natural and true, with feeling sensitivity and love. They are full of wonder and creativity and are here to explore the planet and all its things. Just like we are but many of us have shut ourselves away from this. Too serious about life we have become, repressed by our insecurities, consumed by our ideals and lazy in our comforts. Locked into a system we don’t really like, unable to be free and to allow our children to be free.
It's no wonder that our children grow to be just like us, entangled within a crazy and corrupt society. Experiencing unhappiness, depression or being ill at ease. Of course that's not all of us but it's many of us.
Please think of what it's like to be a child. Reach inside your own heart and recover your own sense of love and wonder. Then with patience listen to your children from that place and join them in their world whilst helping them adapt to ours. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment