As parents, we really want what is best for our children. We take all our experiences, our knowledge, and the information we have, and we say, this is what my child must need to have the best possible life. We want that for them. We really, really, really want that for them, but let's go ahead and review a little bit. Remember, as infants, in the womb, we start making connections with our neurons, which create the patterns that we think with. Every time we experience something, we conclude something about it, and our brain doesn't care if it's right or wrong. It just cares about getting its neurochemical reward, because our brain works off a neurochemical reward system. As we experience things, our brain makes connections not based on what is true or what's really going on, but it creates a perception that gets at that reward that it needs. As we move to the next day, we take those connections forward with us and we continue to form connections.
How we see things, what we think is the best thing for our children is all based on not the truth, but our perceptions and our connections that our brain has made to get its neurochemical reward. We think that our child must have this kind of education, or they must do this well in school. We think that this is the only way that there is to be happy. That might be the only way we see right now, but that doesn't make it the only way. When we go into our life, and we take these perceptions with us, we're telling our children that, because of this bad experience I had, I am less of a person, so you need to do better than me.
What are we teaching our children? That mistakes are bad. That if somebody who we don't have control over does something that affects us, then we must be victims, that we must be less than we really are. When we look at our life and think that our child needs to do better than us, or that this is the way they need to be happy, we are confining them and lessening us. I'm not saying just let our children do whatever they want, but to be conscious of our own motivators. Are our perceptions fear based? We want our children to avoid the pain that we had. If that's true, then maybe we need to look at ourselves because pain is there to teach us, to help us to grow. It's not there to make us less. We're not less because of pain. We've experienced pain as information and that information is there to teach us.
I had a student in a kindergarten class who would whine and cry and fuss over everything. If he accidentally bumped a chair, or stumbled a little bit, or somebody looked at him wrong, he would just burst into tears, crying.
One time, he was tipping back in his chair, and he fell over. Then it's a big to-do and he's crying. I go over to check on him, make sure he's okay, give him comfort.
I said, “It sounds like that might have hurt, that might have been painful.”
He says yes.
I said, “Well, what I know about pain is that is there to teach us. Right? If you put your hand on a hot stove, what does that pain tell us? That we need to move our hand.”
He just looks at me and takes a couple of breaths, and I don't say anymore. I don't say, “Well, what do you learn from falling over in your chair?” or anything like that. I just allow him to think about it, and it was something that came up again later.
That's the thing. It's not one incident that teaches our children and it's not one incident that teaches us. It's all these things that we move forward. If we pause and think about what we want, what benefits us, we can look at things any way we want. It's a perception. Our brain creates perceptions to get its neurochemical reward, and we can teach our brain to get the neurochemical reward from the programs that we want, from the thoughts and feelings that lead us to the life that we actually want. Because again, our brain does not care if we're happy, it doesn't care if it's right or wrong, it's just after it's neurochemical reward. When we look at our life and at the life we want for our children, if we look at it from that growth mindset, where we're ready and willing to learn, then the things that happen to us grow us. They don't diminish us. They might cause pain, but pain does not mean suffering. Pain means information that we can use to boost us to where we want to go.
It's okay that we don't know everything. It's not possible to know everything. What we bring is our knowledge. And again, we do want to teach our children, but we also want to be open to other ways to think. If we think that this is the way it needs to be and then judging our kids or judging ourselves because things don't turn out exactly how we want them, then that will create suffering instead of just having that pain that teaches us. Pain can be minimized when we accept that pain and learn from it. If we don't learn from it, if we keep our hand on the stove, then that pain is going to increase because we haven't learned what we needed to, which is to take our hand off. And yes, that's a very simple thing, and life can be a little more complicated.
What I want you to understand is that we don't know everything and it's okay. what benefited us or what we felt would have benefited us in our life now does not necessarily mean that's what will benefit our children, because we don't know what the future will bring, what natural disasters, or worldwide catastrophes, or technologies will be developed to make improvements and ease in our life. That job we thought our child needed for them to make the most money isn't necessarily going to work for them in the future. Even though we have a direction where we're okay with who we are, when we've taken the time to learn from our past and to understand and be okay with ourselves, with whatever journey we had to get here. And then we allow our children to have their journey.
And yes, we do stop our children if they are doing things that are absolutely life threatening, dangerous, etc. But when it comes to things like education, or job choices, or what hobbies they want to grow or develop, we might think it needs to be sports because then you're more likely to get a scholarship. But what if they want to be a standup comedian, or be on one of those shows where you just kind of play off each other? What if that's what interests them? We don't know where all these things are going to lead. We don't know what it is that our children need to learn internally. What connections do they need to make through the experiences they have to be the happy person that they want to become?
It's okay that we don't know, just to be open, to be aware, to have that growth or that learning mindset and to continue to move forward with our children. It's a wonderful opportunity.
