Fostering Self-Discipline in Children

I've had numerous conversations with moms about self discipline/perseverance and it seems to be a hot topic!  I've wondered how it is formed optimally in a human being ....

- is it through someone creating discipline FOR the child (hoping it will transform some day into SELF discipline) ...

- is it the child exploring the world freely and completely choosing themselves when and how to "be disciplined" to achieve her goals....

- is it the child exploring the world freely while people around the child joyfully demonstrate self-discipline in their daily routines, learning new things, choosing to take things step-by-step to reach their goals, demonstrating to the child what passion-led learning looks like?  

The first idea is forced and not based in passion or joy.  It is not about the child learning how to self control, it's about the child being controlled by others who claim to know better, like in school or other institutions, and once we're out of those institutions, many of us have a difficult time making clear, joy-based decisions for ourselves, creating our own joyful personal routines based in the things we truly love, expressing ourselves in our soul's highest. The first example would reply:  "forget about that - let's get SERIOUS about life and all its 'harsh realities' and 'un-fun-ness' and do what 'HAS' to be done, follow social norms/settle for a mediocre job/suck it up and do required icky 'duties'"  So going about it from the angle of this first example may lead to a child who is successful for the system, but who does not feel very free or passion-led. 

The second option seems to be a child floating around freely without much in the way of guidance... she is exploring, wondering, observing, pursuing things she enjoys to some degree, but may not have much to launch off of towards her goals.  She may not totally have a sense of how to move from a place of random exploration to really focusing in on learning step-by-step how to achieve something she's passionate about.  She may be avoidant of things that are challenging and requiring patience because she does not know what self-discipline looks like and what its joyful benefits are. 

The third idea - having a free environment in which to "SelfDesign" combined with being surrounded by adults who are demonstrating themselves joyful life learning and exercising self-chosen discipline to achieve their desires -- now this feels like it could lead to a young one who would find optimal methods to good-feeling, joy-based self-discipline and success.

So what is so fascinating about this is how everything always comes back to us and how we are in the world.  When we are on our optimal path, pursuing our dreams, shining our light brightly, we are like light houses for passion and perseverance!  We are creating loveliness for others to see and say "That person sure looks like they are feeling good... and their feeling goodness is helping others see their own goodness.... hey, I can feel that way too!  And be of service to others at the same time!  All I have to do is follow my dreams with all my heart!"  And then they go on to choose the necessary discipline action.  Ah ha!  Greater Good is created!

Desire

Today my son excitedly brought out his shoes after many months of wearing his Sorels here in the still-snowy kootenays.  He carefully began untying the laces of the double-striped black walking shoe I was fortunate to scoop up at the local free store.  He stops to examine the two white stripes on the side, running his fingers along the leather with interest.

"Mom," he says, "I like shoes that have THREE stripes."

I smiled and mirrored back to him,  "You like the look of three stripes on shoes."

He nodded, pleased to have been heard.   "One day I would like to have shoes with three stripes!"

"It is possible." I reply.

The conversation ends as we happily slip on and tie up the double-stripe shoes.  He seems very content at this point with two stripes and the knowing that shoes with three stripes could perhaps grace his feet in the future.

Desire is beautiful and lives in us all. Without desire, we would not be creators in a realm of infinite possibility.   Supporting our child in his desires may be done in a healthy fashion through tuning-in and feeling the desire alongside him.

Imagine laying on the grass beside your child and staring at the clouds passing by for quite some time.  Glorious wonder fills your mind as you watch the winds blow the clouds and perhaps notice the turning of the Earth.  Your child launches a rocket of desire - she states that she would like to look down at the Earth from space some day.  In your relaxed, open, wondrous state you can totally envision this desire through your child's eyes - the hugeness of being in that powerful, breathtaking place.  You feel positive energy about this desire and greet it with deep appreciation and understanding.

When we support our child's desires in a loving fashion, we can greet all of her desires with appreciation and understanding.  We can release our evaluation of the desire and just allow it to "Be".   Being mindful of potential fear-based thoughts that can enter our head and create negative energy will help us to instead choose more loving and supportive ways of communicating.  I could have "read-in" to my son's desire in a number of ways and responded from a fear-based place:

"You want shoes with three stripes?  What's wrong with these??  These shoes are perfectly fine."

"Oh, two stripes are WAY cooler than three stripes.  You know why? .... "

"Well I just got these shoes and we're really lucky to have found these, so just appreciate what you have, mister, because I'm not going out to buy you shoes just because they have three stripes instead of two!"

If I'd taken a route similar to the above, I would have been squashing his legitimate desire, convincing him out of his dream and insinuating that it's invalid.  Small of an example as this is, the above responses are disempowering him in that moment.  If I am unconsciously communicating in this fashion on a regular basis, these seemingly trivial communications add up in the long run.

In addition to desire-squashing and invalidation, I would also be teaching my son many complex things that I might not truly want to convey through the above responses: I'd be teaching him to make assumptions and to jump to conclusions; I'd be instilling in him views of scarcity;  I'd be conveying the message to him that others' desires are more appropriate for him than his own; and, I'd be demonstrating ways to manipulate people out of their personal desires.

Keeping the desire alive in your child means putting yourself "in his shoes" as much as possible in order to truly connect to and understand his desire.  When your child is desiring something you may wish he wasn't, put yourself on the grass staring at the clouds in that moment, and ask yourself - really, what's so bad about that desire?  I can see how he'd want that!

Now you're tuned-in to the infinite creativity alive in your child.

Needy Babies and Children

From birth, the tiny human being is equipped with a wonderful tool to alert the care giver that she is in need.  A baby's cry stimulates a mother to promptly move to care for the child.  As the child slowly grows and matures, vocal sounds evolve and the child has a wide variety of sounds, words, tones and expressions to communicate the details of her needs with greater precision.  As the child grows older, many parents experience a lessening in their level of patience with their child expressing her needs.   This may be correlated with the parent experiencing the burden of increased social pressures to raise "independent" children - children that don't require much from mom and dad.   

This is a most curious myth that exists in our heads and for many parents is very palpable, perhaps to the point of feeling quite uncomfortable.... even excruciating.  

Parents who buy-into this line of thinking may begin to question the positive intent of the child.  Words like "manipulation" or "demanding" or "needy" may come to mind when referring to the child.  Parents may think that they should start weaning the child off of them as a provider for their needs.  They begin pushing their youngster away in attempts to "teach them independence".  They may feel inner confusion about this choice, which is often an alert that the belief is mis-aligned with their inner truth and with the unique level of need of their child.   They may seek out information and advice that supports and upholds the misaligned belief to need-wean, and even when they find it, they continue to feel confused and "not quite right" about following the advice. 

Not going along with social pressures can bring up feelings of self-criticism, insecurity and fears of looking like a "bad" parent.  We may tell ourselves "stories" to justify our disconnected actions  --  that the child "shouldn't be so clingy", "shouldn't need me so much at this age", "shouldn't want to be held so regularly", and so on.  We feel dissonance between our ability to intuitively know what is right for our child and her unique needs and what the "experts" might say.  It can be very difficult to trust in and follow the cues of our children because we fear our intuition may be "off".  We fear that society will disapprove of our methods if they appear unusual. 

Sadly, when parents accept this pressure and buy-in to societal standards of child behaviour and needs, they perpetuate old myths that steer us away from being intuitive and flexible with our children.  They move us in a direction of thinking that something could be "wrong" with our child and their personal level of need or development.  This can push us to choose actions that create distrust and disconnection and perhaps fail to support our child where she is at.  The child senses the shift in the level of attentiveness for her needs -- the pre-mature attempts to push her away or in a direction she is not yet ready for -- and her cries for attentiveness become more emphatic.  The deeper the old, disadvantageous assumptions are ingrained in us, the more stubbornly we stick to resisting our child's legitimate need-based communications.  Without conscious change, this will escalate for some time until the child develops habitually dysfunctional ways of communicating her needs or emotionally shuts down, perhaps manifesting the very "dysfunction" that the parent was fearing and attempting to prevent.

Becoming aware of parenting practices that are Optimal for loving evolution means placing everything that feels inauthentic, or "not quite right" under the microscope.  When we closely examine societal assumptions, we can see that changing the way we think about caring for our children and how we choose to respond to them can have huge impact in our society.   Continuing to shed assumptions that no longer serve us in the highest way brings us ever-closer to the peaceful, loving race we all wish to be.  We, parents of today, have complete free choice in how we choose to Be with our children.  This, in turn, influences the conscious evolution of the next generation on the planet.  Imagine the exponential increase in loving connection and joy that our children will have with their children if we raise them in a conscious, Love-led fashion?  We can dismantle and discard the out-dated, control-based beliefs and choose something higher and better for our families.  In doing so, we offer an amazingly joyful and free existence to our children... then their children.... and infinitely on....    
Parents: how powerful of a purpose is THAT?!?