Archive for Children
The basics of the teachers’ important role of children’s happiness
Posted by: | CommentsTeachers often serve as substitute parents and are incorporated into the Parent ego state much as the parents once were. They, too, may give or withhold their potency, protection, and permissions.
By their very position, teachers also teach the basic curriculum for living and in the process contribute to the personality development of children, often in very positive ways. They show what it is to love by teaching cooperation. They demonstrate what it is to think by teaching problem solving and research skills. They model what it is to work by teaching how to study and complete assignments. They encourage play by teaching children how to enjoy recess and sports. They assist the shy child to become involved and the bully to assume self-control instead of trying to control others.
Teachers who inspire the pursuit of happiness may compensate to some extent if a student’s home life is miserable. It is not unusual for some students to idolize and incorporate as parent figures those teachers who treat them with respect and encourage their personal as well as intellectual growth.
Sometimes teachers aren’t so nice, or they play favorites. Their method of teaching and learning may be too restrictive: “Keep your feet flat on the floor, your eyes on your books, and no talking or you will stay after school!” They may discourage children from socializing or banding together out of their own fear of losing control over their students. Other teachers don’t make time for the less-than-perfect students. They don’t provide the special motivation or help that many children need. Learning can become a dreaded chore. Too much control or not enough help can decrease children’s self-esteem. The child may decide, “I’m stupid. I can’t think, and I’ll never amount to anything.”
People who make decisions like “I’m stupid” often become very unhappy. Instead of finding learning easy, or at least interesting, they find the whole process of education more and more difficult. This pattern may continue throughout life so that, even on the job, learning something new is painful.
When we are adults, teachers often come to represent internal authority – the “little voice in the back of our head” who keeps us in line or makes us do the chores or finish the assignment or keep our promises. Sometimes we need this admonishment to do what’s best. If our teachers have had a positive influence, the internal teacher will be a gentle reminder. If we had unhappy experiences in school, we may be very hard on ourselves. We need to learn to be good teachers to ourselves.
The basics of no words communication also making your children happy
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone was once an infant and may occasionally respond to life experiences totally at the feeling level—nonverbally, with cries, screams, or gurgles of delight.
Such regression can occur during times of stress or crisis, when a person may feel helpless, unable to think or even talk. Reliving traumatic childhood experiences, perhaps in trance or hypnotic states, may also induce regression. At such times the person may feel totally incapacitated and unable to take appropriate action. The Child who has no words needs an inner Parent who is encouraging and supportive instead of critical or sadistic.
During the time the new Parent is being constructed, the rational, clear-thinking Adult part of the personality must be in charge. The new Parent under construction is unable to provide enough protection and support. The logical thought, analysis of a situation, and a safe resolution of difficulties must be provided by the Adult ego state in order to protect the Child. It must not seem to be deserting or abandoning the Child. The inner Child will know if that occurs and will return to its previous unhappy state.
To avoid this, a person’s Adult needs to be in continuing contact with the Child, offering logical and sane resolution methods to challenging situations that may arise. Sometimes it helps people to hold a pillow in their arms and rock back and forth. This is an aid to the Child, who begins to experience (or re-experience) much-needed nurturing and the support of a loving new Parent.
The basics of how to give your children positive affirmations of happiness
Posted by: | CommentsMany people feel unhappy or inadequate because as children they did not receive enough positive affirmations, and they do not now feel entitled to give similar positive affirmations to themselves. They put a low value on their own rights to life and liberty and happiness. They need a new inner Parent to encourage them, one that will function more like a good mentor or coach instead a controlling, overprotective, or indifferent parent.
Parenting is what actual parents, stepparents, foster parents or grandparents do and say to children as they are growing up. Generally, they take care of their children, teach them, guide them, and even play with them. Some do it well; others fail dismally or are just so-so—partly competent and partly incompetent at the task.
Some parents, even after their children become adults, continue to treat them as though they were still very young by directly or indirectly telling them what to do and how to do it. These parents don’t want to give up their advice-giving roles and may try to restrict their grown children in many ways.
In response to this kind of controlling parent, some children remain obedient and relinquish their chance to experience freedom and happiness. Feeling inadequate to take charge of their own lives, they tend to comply with inappropriate or unnecessary controls and restrictions. Others, instead of complying, choose to rebel directly or they procrastinate or, feeling hopeless, try to avoid being around people who use controlling styles.
Since the beginning of time, persons have acted as substitute parents to others—with or without awareness of it. Women have done this more frequently than men, yet men have also assumed parenting functions. Both fiction and nonfiction and ancient and contemporary history are full of examples of grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, even friends, who acted as substitute parents. Even an institution may perform this role and shape the development of a child in positive or negative ways.
The most common substitute parents are teachers, and healthy children tend to seek out teachers who support their independence and growth and avoid those who interfere with it. A teacher who repeatedly says “You’re very intelligent” may effectively reparent a child who originally was programmed with “You’re stupid.”
In many cases, these teachers are so influential that they are incorporated into the personalities of their charges without awareness. If a teacher’s values are perceived as overly critical or too much like a parent back home, children often lose their natural incentive to learn. If teachers’ values are positive and encouraging, there are likely to be positive results. Substitute parenting by teachers, psychotherapists, or others does not necessarily lead to a sense of independence and feelings of happiness. But, in the process of self-reparenting, these positive values are more likely to occur.
The basics of how to cultivate your children’s happiness
Posted by: | CommentsAll cultures, through their rules and traditions, give and withhold specific rights to pursue personal happiness, and parent figures are the primary conveyors of these beliefs.
The rationale for developing a new part of your personality and becoming like a good parent, mentor, or coach of yourself is based on the belief that liberation and the pursuit of happiness are possible. It is also based on the trust and knowledge that creating new internalized parent figures can counteract the negative parts of the old ones.
In brief, typical parenting styles that interfere with children’s growth toward autonomy include being overly critical, too protective, inconsistent, argumentative, uninvolved, super-organized, or emotionally needy.
Typical parenting styles that contribute to children’s growth include being reasonable, encouraging, consistent, peacemaking, caring, relaxed, and responsible.
Overly critical parents say such things as “You’re stupid and you’ll never amount to anything” or “Can’t you ever do anything right?” or “Get lost.” When operating in the Parent ego state of their personality, people who had overly critical parents will use these same words to themselves or others, or embody them in nonverbal behavior.
A positive, affirmative style is used by reasonable parents. They may be authoritarian in their opinions, but they do not make unreasonable demands or criticize in ways that are sarcastic or vicious.
Overly protective parents say such things as “I’ll drive you whenever it rains,” “Let me do it for you,” “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything,” or “Now you just tell me if those kids are mean to you.” When in the Parent part of the personality, persons who had overly protective parents will act syrupy or over nurturing and interfere with the freedom of others to think for themselves. They often give unwanted advice to other adults as well as to children.
The contrast to this style of parenting is the encouraging parent who, like a supportive coach, gives appropriate training and challenges his or her charges to take acceptable risks.
Inconsistent parents say one thing one day and something different the next. On a Tuesday such a parent may say “I worry about you. You must come home on time” and on Wednesday, say “I don’t care what you do, just leave me alone.” When in the Parent part of their personality, persons who have had inconsistent parents will act similarly, vacillating in what they expect from others.
Clearly, the opposite style of the inconsistent parent is the consistent parent who acts in predictable, positive ways and is thought of by others as trustworthy and dependable.
Argumentative parents often disagree with others about many issues. Their arguments may be loud, even vituperative, or filled with sarcasm that leads to further arguments or violence. Arguments may arise over work, education, money, leisure time, sex and sex roles, how to rear children, or just about anything. Each parent may take a strong opposing view, such as “Religion is important and what I believe is right” versus “You’re wrong; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The opposite of this negative parenting style is the peacemaking style. People using this style do not always agree but usually try some form of negotiation. If that is not possible, they recognize the fact that others are entitled to different points of view.
Uninvolved parents are those who maybe absent from home a lot. When at home, they don’t listen, nor do they share their feelings and thoughts. They may isolate themselves in a particular room or activity and give out the message in one way or another, “Don’t bother me, I’m busy.” They may also act like the proverbial absentminded professor, forgetting birthdays and other special occasions.
The opposite style is demonstrated by the caring parent who may not always be at home and physically available, yet shows caring in other ways. These parents try to participate in some of their children’s activities. They pay attention, really listen, and seldom interrupt. Children with this experience are likely to become independent and feel liberated to think and act for themselves.
Over organized parents want everything to be perfect. They may clean the house or process data continually and rarely show human, childlike warmth and impulsiveness. Furthermore, they spend so much time getting perfectly organized that they seldom show flexibility. Children with this experience often become rebellious or feel like failures. The positive side of this parenting style is the relaxed parent who also expects high achievement and firmly trains children in tasks such as getting homework done on time, yet does it in a patient rather than a rigid manner.
Emotionally needy parents continually expect to be babied and taken care of or expect to be cheered up and made happy or expect to be criticized and then forgiven. Such parents often manipulate their children into taking parental roles at home. When children of these parents are operating in the Parent ego state, they act in similar ways and express similar emotional needs.
On the opposite side of emotionally needy parents are responsible parents who do not wish to burden others with their problems. They take good care of themselves and, like good teachers, are able to offer guidance to others.
The basics of happiness increasing your children’s different needs and wants
Posted by: | CommentsFreedom to experience the creative and happy Child within depends on whether that Child’s needs and wants are lovingly heard. Survival depends on having basic physical needs met. People experience these needs as absolute: “I’m so thirsty I can’t stand it” or “I’m so cold I feel as though I’m freezing to death” or “I’m so tired I feel like collapsing.” Physical needs can often be satisfied by some object or action: a drink, a sweater, a nap, or food.
Wants are different. Getting what you want is seldom necessary for survival, yet is often desired to improve the quality of life. To want is to wish to have something that is missing or to have more of something. The wanting of the inner Child can be intense, especially for those who experience emotional deprivation. For them, it may actually become a survival need.
The words want and need are often used interchangeably. “I really need to go out to dinner tonight” may in fact be “I want to go out to dinner tonight because I don’t want to cook.” “I want to go to bed early” may instead be “My body really needs rest.”
The energy people put into pleasing themselves and getting what they want may be more or less than they use to satisfy their needs. In affluent, consumer-oriented societies, some people may be so self-satisfied that they do not distinguish between their wants and needs.
When people give up hope, they cease to want. Instead of wanting something to be different and being motivated to do something about it, they begin to daydream, or they give up their dreams and resign themselves to unhappiness.
People who do not like themselves, or who imagine no one else could like them, may deny their own wants or ignore their own needs. Those who do not like or respect other people will also believe that others do not have the right to get their needs or wants met.
Getting our needs met is essential and getting our wants met is important. Happiness increases when these occur.
The basics of parenting to help your children to be happy
Posted by: | CommentsTeaching well usually involves knowledge of the subject, interest in helping people learn about it, ability to make the subject come alive and to demonstrate how it can be applied. Any school curriculum consists of various courses that are related to each other in an organized way. Parents need to offer their children a similar opportunity for wholeness. Specifically, they need to teach (often by example) how to love, how to think, how to work, and how to play.
How to love is best taught by providing a home where love is present. Love is more than warm feelings, acts of kindness, nurturing, and approval. Love includes setting limits—saying no as well as yes. Love is sometimes challenged when people are tired, anxious, or critical, or when communication is inadequate and conflict erupts. It is also challenged when tragedy strikes in the form of accident, death, or illness. We need love when despair sets in because a job is lost or a friend betrays us or a colleague doesn’t keep promises. Love is not just an expression of happiness when things are going well. It includes being present for others when things are not going well.
The need to love oneself is also learned at home. Parents who act like martyrs to their children may believe they are showing love. They are not. They many be overindulging their children who will, in turn, take a self-centered view of life and overindulge themselves. Parents who teach love demonstrate by their actions the importance of taking responsibility for yourself and acting in loving ways because you are lovable.
How to think is best taught by encouraging children to do their own thinking and not giving them all the answers. Parents who want their children to think encourage them to observe the external world as well as their internal thoughts and feelings and to think of themselves as unique. They encourage school performance and the use of libraries. They share ideas and assist, if needed, with homework. They treat children like intelligent beings who very often have good ideas and sound solutions to problems.
How to work is best taught by demonstration and involvement. Parents, who show their children how to handle tools and machinery, without being too critical in the process, help the children develop confidence and self-esteem. Distribution of family chores (dependent upon the ages and capacities of the children and the family situation) teaches children that getting the daily work done can enhance life because it leads to order instead of disorder. Like play, work can be overemphasized. When it is, many people begin to think of it as distasteful. Later, they may choose boring jobs that require neither logical nor creative thinking. An effective parent, by example and precept, shows that work is often enjoyable—both the process of doing it and the product when it is done.
How to play is sometimes the most difficult thing for parents to teach, because they have structured their own lives without play. Thus they demonstrate, in their living and teaching, a “don’t enjoy” injunction. Such parents do not know that play is the “work” of childhood. In play, children experiment with life roles. They use their imagination and expand their creativity. Playing with peers, they learn new interpersonal skills and the value of cooperation for achieving goals. So one of the most important parental tasks is encouraging children to play. People whose parents did not value play need a new Parent who does. Laughter often liberates by reducing personal or interpersonal tension. A playful person can laugh and love, think and work, with more enjoyment for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Basics of Why Children Behave Badly – Temperament
Posted by: | CommentsVariations in children’s temperaments are immense. Children can be easy-going, intense, focused, fidgety, dreamy, distractable, demanding, oppositional, compliant, clingy, fearless, whingeing, dissatisfied, obsessive, disorganized, and volatile. Often you get a mix of these qualities, which makes each parent’s lot different.
The seeds of temperament are pre-programmed at birth. Look at a tiny infant of three months of age and, even at this early stage, you can start to see what joys lie ahead.
Temperament is the foundation on which we parents build our eighteen-year-long construction project. Some children have movable foundations while other children’s foundations are dug so deep in the bedrock they are almost impossible to budge.
Difficult temperaments: the statistics
In the preschool years it is estimated that about 40 per cent of children have a relatively easy temperament, 35 per cent are on middle ground, 15 per cent are quite difficult and 10 per cent are going to be a challenge.
Follow-up studies suggest that the temperament of the preschool years carries through school age with reasonable consistency. If this is true we can expect that about one-third of children will be a breeze, one-third will be manageable and one-tenth will visibly age their parents.
Let’s be honest here: there are some extremely challenging children out there. When I asked one mother, ‘when did you first know you had a problem?’ she answered, At birth. He was born by Caesarean section under epidural. When the obstetrician opened me up the little fellow was looking out wide-eyed at him. The obstetrician passed me the baby and said, “This one’s going to be interesting.” He was right.’
Another mum told me, ‘We only once used a baby sitter. When we arrived home she was standing in the hall. “I don’t want any money,” she said. “I just want out of this house”
This sounds bad, but it can get even more serious. I have had extreme children who crashed the family car, sold their parents’ valuables at a street stall and accidentally burnt down the family home. And you thought you had problems!
Who creates temperament?
I often look at a child and wonder where they got their temperament from. The gentlest of parents can be devastated when they unexpectedly land an-out-of-step child. But the difficult child does not always drop out of the blue: they may be very like their mum or dad.
Temperament is God-given, but God often has a lot of help from us, the parents.
Mothers ask me with wide-eyed innocence, ‘How did I get such an active, non-stop child?’ As she talks I watch Dad rock, fidget, and jiggle and become distracted by what’s outside the window. Others complain their child is impulsive, explosive and has no patience. I ask, Is he like anybody you know?’ Suddenly the penny drops as they realise he is a mini version of the person they chose to marry! An out-of-step child can arrive out of the blue, but often you don’t need to look far to see where they came from.
Troublesome temperaments
There are three temperamental types of children that cause particular pain to parents:
1. Oppositional
2. Demanding
3. Explosive.
When the oppositional child is asked to do something, they will look you in the eye and say, ‘Make me.’ You set a limit and they step over the line as if to say, ‘Come on, and make my day.’ If you say hurry, they go slow. Chores may get done, but everything is an effort.
The demander interrogates, invades your space and is at you like a mosquito. ‘Can we go now? Is it time to go? When will we go? … Let’s go.’ On a long car trip it’s ‘When will be get there? Is it much further?… Are we there yet?’ Demanders never realise how close they come to being put up for adoption or understand why their parents are getting so upset all the time.
The explosive child is fitted with a very short fuse. Their sister innocently sits on their Game Boy and the detonation is felt three blocks down the street. These children are like a stick of unstable gelignite: any sudden movement and you get your head blown off. They don’t know when to back off or turn the other cheek.
I mention these difficult temperaments not to depress parents but to explain the differences. Even if you have scored an easy, compliant child, don’t get too smug, because your luck may not hold out forever. If you hove a child with a difficult temperament, don’t take it personally.
The Basics of Non-allergic Food Intolerance in Children
Posted by: | CommentsFood intolerance not mediated by some disturbance of the immune mechanism may be due to untoward metabolic responses to food. There are some undoubted examples of this, such as enzyme defects, pharmacological reactions or irritant effects, but also a great deal of controversy. However, some claims of harmful effects of certain foods and their components remain unproven.
Lactose intolerance
Lactose is the carbohydrate present in all mammalian milks. Lactose intolerance results from a deficiency of the enzyme lactase which is normally present in the brush border of the enterocytes lining the small bowel. The symptoms of lactose intolerance are diarrhoea and failure to thrive with foamy, acid stools, and the presence of lactose in the stool. This can be detected simply by testing the liquid stool for reducing substances.
Very rarely lactose intolerance is present from birth (primary lactase deficiency), and would be incompatible with prolonged survival unless the infant was placed on a lactose-free formula. Secondary lactose intolerance is much more common and is seen in all conditions where there is damage to the intestinal mucosa. Thus it may occur with, or following, such diseases as gastro-enteritis, coeliac disease, or CMPI. In these conditions it is usually transient. Treatment consists of avoiding lactose containing foods until the bowel has recovered its lactase activity. Soya infant formulas contain no lactose and are suitable for this purpose provided the rest of the diet is lactose free. This is, in all respects similar to a milk-free diet but some fermented products, such as certain cheeses may in fact be lactose free and could be included in the diet. It is important to remember that some drugs may contain lactose.
Another form of lactose intolerance is seen in most racial groups other than Caucasians. This is the gradual disappearance of lactase activity from the bowel mucosa during later childhood so that in many peoples a proportion of the population is lactose-intolerant by adolescence, particularly boys. On ingestion of milk, abdominal distension, pain and diarrhoea occurs and these individuals quickly learn to avoid or limit milk or to ingest it only in a fermented form where the lactose has been converted to lactic acid. The nutritional importance of this phenomenon is that raw milk might not be a suitable dietary supplement for these older children and adolescents and that they might consequently become calcium deficient.
The Basics of When You Are Considering Not Having Children – Choices Others Have Made
Posted by: | CommentsMary reconciled herself, not without struggle, to the fact that when she married her fiance, whom she had known for five years, they would not have children. “He was very clear right from the beginning that he didn’t want children,” Mary said. She was in her late thirties when she began this relationship; now 42, she acknowledged that she might not have considered the full implications of her fiance’s choice when they first discussed the issue. “Maybe I thought he would change his mind, or maybe the issue of children seemed less important in our giddy early days together. About two years ago I went through what could be called a crisis about the issue. I was pressuring him about having children, saying things like ‘I know you didn’t want children before, but I thought you would want them with me.’ He reminded me that he had laid out his feelings very clearly and had never given me any impression that it would be otherwise. I thought I had accepted it, but on some level I guess I hadn’t.”
Mary contemplated ending her relationship with him and in fact she stopped seeing him for a time. At the time, they hadn’t yet agreed to marry. “I thought I’d start over, but the fact was, I missed him terribly, and I don’t think there is anyone more suitable for me out there. I could go looking, and maybe I would meet someone who is willing to have children later in life. But that person wouldn’t have all the qualities that made me fall in love with him.”
Mary and her fiance eventually healed their rift and were set to many at the end of the year. Even though she decided to accept life without children, she didn’t entirely get over her sense that that wasn’t exactly what she had planned. “I still want to be important in a child’s life,” she told me. “I have two nephews I’ve decided to see more often. My neighbor across the street is a single mother with two small kids. They’ve been running out to greet me lately, especially since they’ve started to see me walking. Even though it looks like my own children aren’t going to be part of the grand scheme of my life, I still want to make time to create a role for myself as a mentor and friend to children I care about.”