Raising Joyful Children
The movements of a baby or small child are very fluid because they are at such ease in their bodies and express joy when they play. Babies don’t think about when they will cry; they just do it from awareness that their cry will elicit a response from someone that will meet their needs. Children don’t think about each momentary activity. It is their nature to just “be”, without any judgment of themselves or anyone around them.
Children function from this awareness in every moment of their day. They function from consciousness, awareness and the joy of life. It isn’t until others begin to project judgments and points of view at them that they begin to override their awareness and judge themselves, their behavior, their choices and others around them.
We can nurture a child’s innate awareness and the joy of living by letting go of all our preconceived points of view regarding children and everything we were taught, read and experienced about children. By starting from a clean slate, it is possible to function from a place of “knowing”. Knowing is instantaneous; it comes first without any effort. Thinking, planning and figuring things out comes after we have accessed our knowing.
To bring up joyful children, a dynamic tool for parenting is to “live in the question.” A question empowers, and an answer or conclusion does just the opposite. Rather than coming to conclusions about behaviors and situations, a conscious parent asks questions to create awareness around a situation. For instance, if a child is cranky when they come home from school, we may conclude that they are tired. Then we decide that if they rest, they will get over the crankiness. Because that may not be the real reason they are cranky, resting might not change the behavior. If instead we ask the child what is going on with them, we may discover instead that they had a difficult interaction with another child at school. Now we can deal with the situation from that vantage point and have more success in allowing the child to work through their feelings. Questions allow us to live in the moment, instead of functioning from past experiences that may jade our view.
Children are conscious beings in little bodies. Parenting in the traditional sense requires control—we are supposed to know what’s best for our children, have the answers, protect them and keep them from harm. If instead we truly listened to children to become aware of what they require in any given moment, and if they listen to their bodies and know what kind of food their body needs, we could trust in their knowing. Perhaps the shyness they display is not shyness at all but an awareness of people.
Consciousness, as defined by Gary Douglas, of Access Consciousness, includes everything without judgment. It is the willingness and capacity to be totally aware and totally present in all areas of our lives. Consciousness is the ability to continually awaken to more possibility, more choice and more life. Bringing up joyful children becomes much easier when we are willing to function from our own awareness.
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