It’s what we do with our children that sets the stage for a life of fighting, or a life of love and cooperation.
The thrill and the power of life comes from inside ourselves.
That’s as true for us and our children, as it is for all other life.
If we are wise enough to accept and work with that, we get to be partners with our young in their development, and conflict never happens.
Cooperation and love are what happen instead.
We are going to spend the rest of our lives with these people.
If their self-esteem is fully intact, this will be a wonderful relationship, full of depth, feelings, compassion, and fun.
If their self-esteem is trashed, then that relationship will be shallow, adversarial, and will only be words.
Unfortunately, if we follow the recommended ways of these times, their self-esteem will be reduced or crushed.
The key is nurture!
To nurture is to support their own efforts to become strong and capable.
That’s what the entire natural world does!
Our own world is wrong, and must be ignored.
No live wants to be taken care of!
All that life wants and needs, is it’s own power, and room to develop it.
It only wants temporary protection until it can become strong enough, all to do it all by itself!
Support our young in their efforts to meet life head on, and you will be one of the few and very fortunate who have meaningful relationships.
You will also be one of the people loved without reservation!
If we take advantage of our temporary power over them, and force the behavior we wish, we are going to pay for that in more misery than we would ever have thought possible.
Their self-esteem cannot survive that. Without self-esteem, they cannot love us, communicate properly with us, or please us.
Being stopped in the efforts of their own identity and inner power, and then controlled, is not a simple adjustment for our kids.
It’s the end of their self-esteem!
We will win all the battles, but they will probably never recover.
Every child is different. Their lives come from inside. They will each try to survive this environment in their own unique way.
When we stop them, we have stopped expression of their identity. That’s normally a one way process. That force is of course, called self-esteem.
Life is supposed to be driven from within. Throughout nature this is encouraged! This is basic self-esteem, the drive to survive.
When we stop their drive, we have also stopped their self-esteem.
When it happens at a vulnerable early age, you can imagine the difficulty of ever fixing that.
If we allow children to lead their own development, they become strong. All life does. They become capable, and interesting. These are the kids you want around in your old age.
The degree of cooperation we enjoy with our children exactly matches the degree of cooperation they will establish with everybody else for their entire lives.
If it’s conflict, it will remain that way! The only exception is where an individual manages to repair their self-esteem.
In combination with all the other grown up kids, this sets the mood of our entire world.
If every child grows up in severe conflict with their caregivers, that translates into world-wide war for the resultant adults.
And so, here we are!
That’s what we’ve done!
If enough children grow up in love and cooperation with their caregivers, this translates into a loving cooperative world.
I really hope we can try this next!
It really is that simple folks.
Thanks for listening,
Good luck on your own journey,
Take care,
Norm
I welcome considering other thoughts.