Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago, I examined failure and a very popular belief associated with failure which tries to act as a motivator but I believe ends up doing more harm than good to a person’s psyche and that belief was ‘try, try and try again until you succeed’! This week, as kids head back to school, the emotions of families in most households are on a roller coaster ride. Hence, this week, I would like to examine why it’s even more important to tightly hang on to that compassion and kindness during these times especially when we may feel most stressed and out of control!
Belief: Its important to punish kids so that they can learn how to behave better!!
Don’t we all love to listen to all those heart melting stories when someone shows amazing kindness towards us or someone else. Or, when someone wraps us or someone else up in this soft blanket of compassion when we need it the most! When someone understands us the way we would like them to understand. When someone just listens to us without making us feeling like we are bad people for saying all that we want to say! When someone waits with open arms for our storms to pass so that they can give us that tight hug and let us know that we are still ok after the storm. When someone appreciates us for the small as well as big things that we are capable of. When someone loves us simply because we exist and are part of their lives. When someone accepts us perfectly along with all our imperfections!! Don’t we all love that and deeply desire that kind of love, kindness, compassion, acceptance and connection? So, if we all, regardless of where we come from or how we were raised or what religion or faith we follow or what our family values are, desire the same things; how is it that we can’t give these same things to each other or at the very least our own family members, our kids and our own selves? How is it that while raising kids, we continue to believe that punishment or anger is necessary to get kids into behaving better? Why is it that we continue to blame the state of our lives on external people and events and don’t take responsibility for our inability to manage our negative feelings like anger? Here is my perspective…
Folks, even though we all deeply desire these beautiful things that I mentioned above; however, those times when we need acceptance and compassion and kindness and connection the most, we are unable to extend that to anyone including ourselves and our very young kids because we are too busy judging ourselves, our kids and other people as bad. And we judge them as bad people because we judge negative emotions as bad and therefore whoever displays such emotions or lets them out in the form of anger or any other bad behavior is tagged as a bad person. And because as a society as well as in a family setting, we have such high expectations from everyone including young kids to be able to display good behavior all the time every time; we create an environment of so much shame and embarrassment for the young kids and adults who for whatever reasons at times are unable to manage their emotions and thus their behavior. And because we create so much shame around negative emotions and behavior is why a lot people end up having really bad episodes of anger or bad behavior because they have been holding on to that shame and anger for a very long time. And when they can’t keep this shame and anger inside anymore, they snap and we all know the damage that could be done by people when they snap!!
So, how is it that we can begin to create environments where people feel safe to let their crap out? Well, just like charity begins at home, I feel very strongly that the very first step towards breaking this vicious cycle of shame and embarrassment with regards to all negative human emotions is to learn how to parent our kids with compassion, kindness, acceptance and connection. And when we learn to hang on to compassion and kindness in the midst of our kids yelling and crying and tantrums; what we are teaching our kids is that they are they are not bad people for behaving the way they are behaving and that they are only HUMAN! On top of that, when we are able to stay calm and not yell or get angry at our kid or call them names when they are in the middle of their crap; we also let them know that we accept them and love them regardless of all their imperfections! And when kids know that about their own parents, they don’t feel ashamed about displaying their negative emotions as well as behavior. And when they don’t feel ashamed, they don’t feel like bad people who are unable to manage themselves and their emotions and behavior. And when they don’t feel like bad people, they are able to recover faster from an episode and are able to connect better with themselves and love themselves for who they are. And when they are able to love themselves for who they are, miracles happen!! Miracles happen because they are able to connect with themselves, their parents and everyone else around them on a heart level instead of an ego level! And when they are able to connect on a heart level, they are able to give all the compassion and kindness and love and acceptance. And when they give out all these qualities, they receive them back in abundance!! And honestly, don’t we all want to raise kids who are kind and compassionate?
To anyone who is still not convinced, I would like to say this – I know it’s very hard to stay calm in the middle of a kids’ tantrum and bad behavior especially because most of us were not raised this way and didn’t learn how to manage our own emotions; however, I want you to imagine this. Imagine that you work in a corporation and your boss is a bully. Every time he needs you to do something, instead of encouraging and helping you into doing your best work; he shouts at you and calls you names. So, do you think you will like to be yelled at by your own boss? Will that encourage you to perform your best? Will that motivate you to wake up each morning and show up at work? I don’t think I am going out on a limb if I assume that no one, literally no one, will like to work for a boss like this. So, answer this then – aren’t you doing exactly the same thing to your kids; bullying them when you yell at them and call them names? If you are judging yourself for being a terrible parent right now, I invite you to show yourself some compassion and kindness because this is where it really begins – YOU!!!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, let your crap out because you are human 🙂
