I was raised by two authoritarian parents. Discipline in my house was forced strongly. Spanking was the most common method of punishment, not teaching. Rules, obligations and tasks were imposed on my sister and myself and as a child I had more duties to fulfill than freedom. This method gave me a sense of discipline that kept me strong against life’s ordeals later but did not help my self-actualization.
It gave me more despair than hope. It did not facilitate a proper sense of perspective or a proper concern of priorities. My world remained somehow hidden from my parents and eventually myself.
Fortunately, things have changed radically in “parenting” since my generation and society’s greater task of nurturing and raising children has followed a revolutionary way that achieves its goals.
Evolving our relationship with our children means entering their world.
We have to follow their culture. We must listen to the music they like. The films they see. Parents usually call their children to their world. But… in reality, it works the other way around. We need to know their world because it is from there that we will call their soul when we want to say something.
It’s through their world that we can touch their soul when needed.
It’s through there that we can talk about all the important things.
Ask more and talk less. You will be amazed of how many things you will learn. Our kids are here to teach us, to make us remember how it is to be free and sensitive and kind and polite souls. They are here to soothe our pains, to hold us gentle, to keep us warm, to make our home a joyful place to live in. They are here to hug us and forgive us and make us feel better. They do it all the time. Just stop for a while and pay attention.
They are wise. Under the deceptive guise of parent-child relationship we have the opportunity to create an existential and spiritual bonding which surpasses the traditional role many parents choose unwisely to follow.
Being a parent is an invitation to embrace a way of being both for them and ourselves which demands no less than everything.
It is about helping them find themselves, facilitating with dedication their self exploration in order to make them competent to express their real self when we won’t be there. Being willing to listen to them and entering their world is a brave opportunity of growing them up while letting them growing us up. It’s an opportunity of keeping the self actualization motivation alive because showing real interest is the best way to contribute to the formation of self assured and happy adults.
Profound faith in their infinite worth as human beings is the only prerequisite we need to feel. The use of the core conditions of each and every genuine relation: empathy, unconditional positive regard and genuineness, is the path to follow.
Every parent should be prepared to meet at a relational depth with his children but in order to do so these core conditions should be offered to them before generously given.
I truly believe that we miss what really counts in our child’s development and that is so unfortunate.
Try to read behind the lines and address the feelings that drive your child’s behavior. Do not punish. Place rules but be there to replace them, to change them, to alter them as they grow. Rules are important as there are everywhere in life. As there are in football for instance. There is a coach. There is a goalkeeper.
We do not use the hands. Show them the rules of life. Keep your role, clear but be tender.
Honor your role in the family because we can’t escape from it. Honor yourself and you will honor your child and their feelings.
First respect them and then prepare them for the adult world. Teach them that we do not play basket with the feet or football with the hands but teach them also to keep alive their desires. Help them translate their desires according to the rules of the game of life. Teach them how to feel sorrow and happiness, how to want and follow their dreams, how to cry and laugh but for their own sake not yours.
Offer them the most basic human need they need: trust, by being there present and helpful. Tell them what they need to hear: “I love you unconditionally is a de facto truth. It is as it is, because I am your mom. Point final.” That is what they really need to know and from there establish, in the spirit of an alliance, a meaningful connection. From that point of view you can place any boundaries you wish and they will follow because they can sense it is for their safety and through goodwill not adversary or hostility.
Form this framework of acceptance and true interest, and they will receive the greatest present one can take: the conviction that they are people of infinite worth
