After viewing our interview with Jean Liedloff a parent said, ‘Jean talks about the effects of over protective parenting. I am so guilty of this. My son is much more capable when he is on his own than when he knows I am looking. I am wondering how I could undo this?

Great question, join the club.

As Jean pointed out in the swimming pool example, when the child does not know the parent was looking, the child demonstrated their true capacity. When the child feels a parent is watching – they express the adult’s helpless expectations. And this pattern is established very early. It becomes a reflex.

The guiding principal is to ‘assume competence’ from the beginning. Then the child’s innate capacity and the adult’s expectation are in sync instead of being in conflict. Imaging what this means lifelong!

Hi Lisa…
Interesting and common challenge.
Mentoring a real man in today's world.
 
Every young man is unique. One shoe definitely does not fit all.

I do not know of a rite of passage group that might fit the need.

What does it mean to be a man in today’s world?

I think we need to know where we are pointing before drawing a map.

What are the skills, wisdom and capacities needed to be such a thing?

The Way of the Superior Man : A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire by David Didea
And
Fire in the Belly by Sam Keen
Would be good reading for you and your partner to help you formulate your own views.

How can you draw a map if you don’t know where you are going?

It is amazing that it takes an assassination and senseless mass murder to rile tolerant people. What follows are excerpts from today’s Climate of Hate by New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman.

As David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, has put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”

Please understand – if there wasn’t an egger market for violence it would not appear in the script. While in India I discovered that at least one rape in most films was mandatory. Joseph Chilton Pearce was to be a consultant on children’s TV programming until the sponsor insisted on a steady stream of violence or there would be no show! That’s show business.

What follows connects the dots between a recent interview with Jerry Mander, activist and author of The Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, today’s assassination attempt and a discussion on how politics have changed with Senior California Senator John Vasconcellos.

OK… Here we go.
Democratic Congresswoman Shot in Assassination Attempt

Something special to consider this Holiday Season.

Appreciation is a way of life, much more than it is a holiday. Even the capacity and experience of appreciation is a profound gift. I’m sure trees and flowers in their way appreciate sun and rain. Each species shares its special reality. The experience of being human is truly one of the rarest in the living universe – and if we appreciated that, our unity and diversity each day, what a wonderful world it would be.

I recently released the third edition of Magical Parent – Magical Child co-authored with Joseph Chilton Pearce. If you have not read it – I encourage you to do so now.

From the forward to the third edition:

Magical Parent – Magical Child began with a simple insight; The Future Is Now. If I am aggressive or kind today chances are I will be the same way tomorrow and my children will be too. If I want to bring about real change, a new pattern or possibility, a baby step forward in evolution it must take place now, this moment. By changing how I think, feel and act - now - I create a different next moment. If I don’t change now - I will be tomorrow what I am today.

Gandhi said; ‘be the change we want to see in others’. This insight brings that change, which is the future, into the present. Right now is where all the action is. Now is the only chance we’ve got.

Joseph Chilton Pearce added depth to this basic insight when he described the ‘model imperative’ in his bestselling book, The Magical Child. Each of us represents vast capacities, more and greater than ever imagined. The awakening and development of each capacity requires a model-environment to serve as a catalyst for that potential’s opening and development. No model – no development. That is the ‘model imperative’.

Becoming a Magical Parent is not really different from becoming a world class athlete or singer. All we need is a safe space to practice and experienced mentors (the model-imperative). Magical Parenting means really playing the game called being a parent. When we are really playing, that is, in the state of authentic play failure isn’t possible. Unlike high stakes testing or the World Series, given a safe place to practice and experienced mentors, meeting every challenge becomes an opportunity to expand and develop our capacity to meet every challenge. There are no right or wrong answers. The score of the day is irrelevant. Rather, the goal is continuing expansion of capacity and potential which takes placed naturally in the optimum state called play.

An educator used Magical Parent – Magical Child as the text for her class. She asked a few probing questions. You may find them of interest.

Rachel wrote:
I have a question around bonding/brain/skin-to-skin.  I have a 7 week old, that I am attachment parenting...carrying in arms, co sleeping etc.  I spent a lot of the first 4- days with skin to skin, however since then hardly any skin to skin (as it is winter and I have two other children so it's not convenient.)  Can you give me some information around whether the skin to skin I did for the majority of the first 4-5 days was sufficient for optimal brain development/bonding or whether I should still be doing this?  Thank you. LOVE the website and the work you are all doing - it's the best thing for the world!

Janet wrote:
How should we respond to children bringing their toy gun look-alikes to school and then playing war or fighting games with these? It is not that they are playing the games, but the use of the look alike weapons that I am interested in. Does this in some way do some damage to children because guns/weapons are seen as signifying violence (or protection depending on who you talk to! ) in our culture? Or do adults just end up projecting their fear of these weapons onto the children and a child playing with a look alike weapon is in fact no different from a child picking up a stick and saying bang, bang. I recognize that there may be a range of answers to this depending on the child's background and the culture of the home.

A long time colleague, Kali Woodward, Director at American Youth Literacy Foundation, sent a link to a New York Times article - The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers. The article describes a Harvard study following 12,000 kindergartners for twenty five years and confirms, as many other studies do the long-term impact of early experiences, in this case the value of good a Kindergarten teacher.

The first rung on the ladder holds up the rest. The very early stages of human development provide the foundation for all that follow. As is our habit and social conditioning the research paper focused on Kindergarten Teachers and concluded that the impact of a ‘good one’ translated into lifelong learning and earning potential (in children and therefore long term economic impact) valued at $320,000/year.