Parenting 101
Parents - How would you wholeheartedly answer the following question? "Do you truly feel that you know what you are doing when it comes to interacting and guiding your child properly each and every day?"
I know that I can't answer that question for any one of you, but I do feel that we are all the same in a certain respect in that we are all just doing the best we can in each and every moment. And if we are honest with ourselves (which we need to be), deep down we can admit that we are winging it most of the time.
The problem is that if we are winging it most of the time, then our children unconsciously absorb a certain sense of instability and confusion within themselves.
Why?
Because the actions and guidance that come from that part of ourselves has no true foundation of sorts. The foundation is made from the sands of passing time. The foundation is based in a past that can't change itself and is therefore unstable.
There is nothing new that comes from the past. There's only a rearranging of furniture (so to speak) at that level making it appear as if things change, but in reality they don't. That's the conundrum.
Parenting 101 to me means there needs to be a complete turnaround from what we have been doing to date when it comes to raising our children. No two children are the same, so toss those parenting magazines and books out the window. Each individual child has a specific need that arises in each and every moment. Actually, we all do. That need can't be answered by anything "cookbook" because the moment always calls for something new.
In other words, you can have two of the same scenarios playing out with two different children, and the action (if any) and guidance that the moment calls for can be completely different from one another. It is all based on the need in the moment, the need for each individual child.
Parenting 101 means that we have to toss all (yes all) of our ideas that we have about parenting. Sounds radical, right? Well, why not give it a shot and see what happens? Why not try something altogether new, something completely different? Have we done that yet?
Do you like carrying the burden in your heart of not knowing if you are helping or harming your child? Do you like carrying the burden of passing down negative reactions and patterns to them? Nobody wants that burden. We were never intended to carry that burden.
It was never intended that we give ourselves answers to what the moment calls for. It was intended that we be a willing instrument to receive certain knowledge and understanding given to us by something above us in each and every moment. The intention was for us to be conduits that bridge the gap between what is above with what is below.
But we can't bridge that gap when we give ourselves our own answers to what the moment calls for, as difficult as that may be to see and hear. Giving ourselves our own answers means the answers come from the same level of consciousness, which then only creates repetition - more of itself - nothing new. If you look at the world, you can clearly see that the answers we have given ourselves haven't worked. We need to admit that.
What will it take to go back to Parenting 101? What will it take to go back to the original intention of our lives - to being a conduit for truth and self understanding? You know what it will take? It will take the pain in this world to reach such a pitch that we will finally know we have no choice but to surrender to something different, something higher.
Pain is the perfect teacher if it is used properly. To use it properly means it is transformed into something new instead of reincarnating itself as is currently taking place in the world.
We are all children of the same parent. Parenting 101 is allowing ourselves to be parented by the only true parent that exists in this world - a level of consciousness above our own. It and only it has the answers to our aching hearts.
We need to learn to listen and obey that parent for that parent knows what each and every one of us needs moment to moment. Think about the intelligence in that.
How dare we think our piddly answers could possibly compare.
Image courtesy of: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
