Being present with kids

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

They won't be three forever! Their understanding and needs will grow and change as they get older.

Conventional parenting is not about being present with kids. It's about giving kids rules as a replacement for being there. Same can go for information. Information shouldn't be a substitute for being there and being aware. We should let kids know that cars can hurt them, which is why we steer them clear of the street. But we shouldn't then depend on kids understanding. We need to be there. We need to be aware of our child's tendencies to run to the street when in that type of situation. We need to avoid as much as we can places where they can run into the street until they can understand.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Mindful Parenting and unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

There and aware

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Conventional parenting is not about being present with kids. It's about giving kids rules as a replacement for being there. Same can go for information. Information shouldn't be a substitute for being there and being aware. We should let kids know that cars can hurt them, which is why we steer them clear of the street. But we shouldn't then depend on kids understanding. We need to be there. We need to be aware of our child's tendencies to run to the street when in that type of situation. We need to avoid as much as we can places where they can run into the street until they can understand.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/mindfulparenting
photo by Ester Siroky
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Open to the moment

Sometimes it's hard to know whether to look at the flower or at the leaves or at what might be in the darkness behind, or up at the sky, or to turn around and ignore the flower completely. There might be a bird in a nearby tree, or an interesting sound coming from a window.

Plans change. It can be good, upon occasion, to just listen and look and explore. Sometimes it's fine to just see a flower and not say a word about it.

We could call those moments restless confusion and indecision, or we could consider ourselves being open to the moment, in a state of wonder and curiosity.

Keep a positive light on what's outside you and within you, and your world will be a better place.

Being present in the moment
(Text is repeated from 11/19/10, but other details changed.)
Photo by Gail Higgins
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Part of being present!

Solve problems before they become problems. Notice the direction things are heading and change things. Don't let them get hungry, tired, testy to the point where they're hitting or destroying things. Food. Naps. Go home. Put on a video. Draw one away to do something totally different.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Chrissy Florence

Things change

Being a child's partner rather than his adversary makes the balance of knowledge unimportant. Nowadays my children drive me around, help me out, read small print and get things off high shelves. For many years, I did those things for them.

SandraDodd.com/partners

SandraDodd.com/balance

Learning first, and partnership and being present close after, and all the other things flow in around it.


Part of a longer response to an odd question: The other things flow in around it.
See also "Snapshot" on this blog
photo by Karen James
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The other things flow in around it.

(Below is most of my response to a complicated question about the balance of power and relationships, citing Bruno Bettelheim about A.S. Neill, and the assumption that unschoolers were libertarians:)

I've unschooled for over twenty years, and am not a "libertarian," and the unschooling ideals I've aimed for involved learning. They had little to do with Neill or Bettleheim (though I did like reading Bettleheim on fairy tales), but had to do with John Holt, attachment parenting, and observation of other families doing similar things.

Being a child's partner rather than his adversary makes the balance of knowledge unimportant. Nowadays my children drive me around, help me out, read small print and get things off high shelves. For many years, I did those things for them.

SandraDodd.com/partners

SandraDodd.com/balance

Learning first, and partnership and being present close after, and all the other things flow in around it.

photo by Sandra Dodd, of a well dressing in the village of Tissington
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See the joy and learning

Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.

Being Present in the Moment
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Little adjustments

Solve problems before they become problems. (Part of being present!) Notice the direction things are heading and change things. Don't let them get hungry, tired, testy to the point where they're hitting or destroying things. Food. Naps. Go home. Put on a video. Draw one away to do something totally different.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Be sweet and soft

Once a mom came and said she was having a hard time being present with her children. She wrote:

I hate it, and feel like I'm missing out on so many sweet, little moments, but it is so hard for me to be fully present, almost like I can't control it.

I responded:

Well don't hate it. Hate's no good. And you can't "control it." It might be easier to see it as a series of choices, with lots of chances to zone out, and lots of opportunities to focus back in.

People zone in and out all the time. It's not a sin. Live lightly. That's good for your children, if you can come back as easily as you slipped momentarily away, and if you're not hardened with self-recrimination and hate.

SandraDodd.com/negativity

Be sweet and soft, for your children.

Now, 11 years later, I have a page called "positivity," though both pages are about making choices that take one incrementally toward the more positive.
SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Lydia Koltai

Choosing paths

Jen, who took this beautiful photo of outdoor steps, sent a note with the image:

"Thanks so much for all you’ve done to show us a different path to choose. ❤️"

I like that phrasing, and I appreciated the message. I've thought about it for a couple of days. Unschooling is a different path, for sure. Being present and as patient and as peaceful with children as one can manage to be is a path to choose, too. Neither of those is one path to a shared destination, though. None of us can even see what's at the top of that hill.

Making choices as we go, we can opt out of attractive stairs, or we can come back to them later. Let your path meander. The way is clearer behind than in front, because every day we make many choices.

The trail starts to open up
photo by Jen Fletcher

Doing and being

They don’t live to grow up. They’re living in the present. They don’t relate to questions about what they will do later or be when they’re grown. They’re doing and being now.

SandraDodd.com/sustainable
photo by Colleen Prieto

Being the same

Even when it's not as clear as you're used to, the sun is as bright as can be behind the clouds.

It's the same sun.

Even when it's not as clear as you're used to, love is as bright as can be behind fear and frustration.

It's the same love.

---

Today, be present and patient.


SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Beth Fuller
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Being more present will help.

When connection is good, parents see up close their children's needs, wishes, delights, hesitations, frustrations, joys, interests, ways, limitations and so on, and creatively support them there.

When connection is less good, parents sometimes see their children as needy, demanding or unreasonable, and focus on dealing with practicalities rather than on the child and her needs.

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/being
(but the quote is from an Always Learning post here)
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Being the same

Even when it's not as clear as you're used to, the sun is as bright as can be behind the clouds. It's the same sun. Even when it's not as clear as you're used to, love is as bright as can be behind fear and frustration. It's the same love. Today, be present and patient.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Beth Fuller

Parental improvement

Sometimes parents are needy, and unschooling can help. They can feel fulfilled by being a present, focused, direct parent.

I've gained a lot of happiness from being a good parent. Not "better than," but as good a parent as I could figure out how to be. Better than I would have been if I hadn't focussed on that.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Holly Dodd
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More time

The best thing that ever happened to me was that being a present, attentive, happy mother became one of my passions. When moms start sorting their "own time" from their children's time, their time as a mother from their time as a person, then they're going to be unhappy, or their children will be unhappy. If a mom can become a partner to her children, they are less needy and she will have more time. It seems crazy, but it works. 🙂

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Parental passion

When someone wrote "With younger kids, there is no opportunity to pursue my own passions," Pam Sorooshian responded:

Make becoming a fantastic mom your passion. Make learning all about those kids of yours, your passion. Make having a peaceful and joyful home your passion.

Then you can pursue that while still being fully present with your kids.

—Pam Sorooshian

some commentary on Facebook
or you could read about "Me Time"
photo by Kinsey Norris

Savor the present

Taste your food, or holiday sweets, and feel the familiarity that you might miss someday.

SandraDodd.com/being
clickable photo by Sandra Dodd
(well all photos are clickable, but this one leads somewhere)

Learning, becoming, presence

A beautiful response from Pam Sorooshian:

The stated problem:
"With younger kids, there is no opportunity to pursue my own passions."

Pam's suggested solution:

Make becoming a fantastic mom your passion. Make learning all about those kids of yours, your passion. Make having a peaceful and joyful home your passion.

Then you can pursue that while still being fully present with your kids.

One source of that, which leads to another
photo by Sarah S.

Comfort and strength

I have comforted my "inner child" by comforting my own children. I have felt like a stronger, better person by being a stronger, better mom. Then it's not imagination, it's reality.

Helping them grow up whole helped me feel more full and whole myself.

Changing the present, healing the past, hope for the future
(from a comment I made there)
photo by Sabrina Peng
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