Support for parents in crisis

People who just know that we need help. We need spiritual people in our lives. People who can help us pay attention to some of the deepest stuff and can have conversations with. One of the most important is the listener. There are people who listen to you but they only want something new and different. But the listener listens to you talk about a child that you’re concerned about, something you’re concerned about and they don’t judge it and they listen each and every time.

Things to think about

Does your school have a chicken soup person?
Does your school recognize spirituality (not religion) that spiritual forces in people?
Do you have a listener in your life? Can you be that to children?
Does your school have an energy person?

Highlights from Playful Wisdom
by Michael Mendizza featuring Bev Bos and Joseph Chilton Pearce

Principals continued

3. View your relationship with your child as a spiritual practice.

By spiritual I mean conscious, steady and sure expressions of the very best you can be at everything—what you think, feel, say and do—because your child is watching, sensing, resonating with what you actually are. The model you present, to a great extent, will shape what he or she becomes. By focusing on being your best, your children will naturally, without punishments or rewards, without comparison or coercion, do the same, be the best they can be naturally because that is the way the world is for them.

4. Be passionately aware of the negative impact social identity has on human development.

This is perhaps the greatest challenge we face as parents. We are not the social-image we think we are. What we call personality or ego is a coping mechanism or strategy to navigate the painful threats that culture—and that means parents—represent. In optimum states of learning and performance, 100 percent of our attention is invested in the experience, leaving no attention to worry about how we look in the eyes of others: “What will they think of me?” The greater our concerns regarding the score, winning, competing, needing the approval of extended family, of the school, the less present we are and that means the less able we are to learn and grow fully and completely. When the glass of milk is tipped, don’t say, “Look what you did.” Say, “Oh my, look at the mess the milk is making.” In this simple way, day in and day out, you lessen the energy and attention that feeds the defensive social ego, the source of greed and violence.

Expanding this theme, be aware that much, if not most, of what we call parenting is conditioning the child to conform to social-cultural norms and expectations. The child’s natural innate intelligence and capacity is far more expansive than the limitations and constraints imposed by a particular culture. One can help the child appreciate and respect the values of others without identifying and domesticating one’s identity to please the needs of others, including and most importantly your needs as a parent to be approved of by the surrounding culture. In this way you help your child become a citizen of humanity and the entire world with its vast and diverse species, instead of identifying and conforming to the neighborhood gang.

I also think that there are also crisis people, chicken soup people, people who show up when they know that you’re tired and you’re weary and they take your kids and they bring the soup. Sometimes we’re those people and sometimes a woman can do too much of that but here’s crisis people, people who just know that we need the help that we need. We need those people. I think we need spiritual people in our lives. People who can help us pay attention to some of the deepest stuff and can have conversations with. I think that’s really important too. I mean this whole list of people, I’m going to say something about that list too, I think one of the most important is the listener and the listener listens to the same old story. There are people who listen to you but they only want something new and different. But the listener listens to you talk about a child that you’re concerned about, something you’re concerned about and they don’t judge it and they listen each and every time. You’re talking about a kid in September, you’re talking about the same kid in May, you’re still concerned, they’re still listening. And boy that listener is important. I think it goes really, really deep. I think very often one of the things that we need is we need an energy person. We need a person when we’re really, really tired, kind of has an energy that helps us get through the day.

I know that when Michael and I travel one of us will have to do it for the other almost all the time when we’re just so dog gone weary we think we can’t breathe, then one of us has just enough energy to go just another step further, an energy person. I used to say that I’m the energy person and if I say I’m going to bed everybody goes to bed. So that’s a little difficult too sometimes but we need energy people in our lives. I also think in some ways we need somebody who’s a great distracter, who can take our mind when you’re working really, really hard. They know, they say oh boy, we can tell they’ve reached the point where they just can’t do anymore. We need a great distracter. Now I think when you look at this long list of people that we probably meet in our lives, and there’s probably more we could add, one of the things that’s frightening is if it’s all one person that has to meet all those needs for everybody, and I think that there’s a great danger. The other thing I think about this list of people, I think there’s probably some moments in your life when you need to drop them a little note and say you know for long you’ve been this person for me, I just want you to know I appreciate it. Not praise, just that. And maybe they didn’t even notice it, that they were the person that does that.

But I think about children and while this is a list probably for adults, it’s the same for kids. They need somebody to listen. They need somebody who knows when you need to be distracted. They need spiritual people hanging around. So at a different level it’s the same for children as it is for adults. We need people. And when you think about how fragmented our lives are and when you think about the places where children spend their time, their whole day, who does that? Who does that for kids who are in a place where the ratio is 1 to 12? Where did they get those kinds of needs met? Where do they get the support? And then people are tired at the end of the day and to me it is really, really, really frightening when I think about kids growing up in this world. There’s probably a lot of those in that list that I really didn’t do for my own children but you know I was there so much of the time. I didn’t go back to work until my children were in school and then I was home when they were home. I probably put more pressure on myself to keep up with everything than I put pressure on them. But I’m deeply, deeply concerned about a world that doesn’t pay attention like this.