Inside the 'Terrible Twos'

Do you love it when your toddler says “No” to you? When your 2-year-old child who has only recently begun to walk and to speak in words is rejecting your guidance and replying “No” to you over and over again, you understand why it is called the ‘terrible twos.’ It’s terrible for you and it’s so easy to get frustrated and lose your cool, especially when you didn’t get enough sleep and you are trying to do all the many things on your to-do list. 

“No Mommy No!” 

“Daddy, NO!” 

“No, no nooooooo.”

Maybe there is a way to increase your patience and even find a way to rejoice in this stage of your child’s development. Maybe understanding the child’s experience of being two can help you enjoy this phase of development. Maybe you can even discover a way to enjoy the experience.

When a baby is born, the whole world is new for him. The world reveals itself in colors, sounds, shapes, textures, brightness, warmth and more. The baby is awash in a sea of sensory experiences. It is hard for an adult to imagine the infant’s experience because adults live in a world of intellect and ideas. We categorize our sense perceptions and relate them to other sense impressions. We adults connect our perceptions to concepts. We are thinking most of the time and in the center of our thought is our very own self. The sense of self is something that develops over time in each individual. The two-year-old is just beginning to wake up to a sense of self.

For the infant, there is just perception - no concepts, no intellect, and no sense of self yet. It is hard to imagine this state of being since you who are reading this has an intellect and knows your ‘self’ in relation to others and the world around you. A newborn does not have a sense of self. His world IS his sense experiences. Already at birth, his senses are active and ‘transmitting information’ to the brain. The organs for sight, hearing, taste, warmth, touch and smell are functional at birth, and the nerves that carry the information to the brain are present. The sensory information is received but is processed quite differently than an adult.

One way to describe the situation is that an infant is at one with their perceptions. They do not separate what they are perceiving from self (the one who is perceiving). The infant does not have the experience of ‘this is me, and that is not me.’ Looking at the world in terms of self and other is not the infant’s experience. So at this age, the child is truly one with the parents. It is a crucial part of individual development to separate from your parents to become your own individual self. The child must push away from the parents in his own unique style in various ways at different stages of development. 

The sense of self is a significant aspect of the human experience. We rely on it to guide us in social settings. It is our compass for personal space and boundaries. It is the core by which we process all of our experiences. And like many other human capacities and qualities, it only gradually awakens. Developing into ‘the one who is sensing,’ the self that is experiencing, takes a long time to fully develop. Infants are like enlightened beings - they are literally at one with everything. A fully developed sense of self can finally arise in early adulthood, it’s continuous small steps until then.

When the baby starts to sit up, stand and then walk, it indicates significant development on the road to discovery of self. A walking toddler, walking away from mommy and daddy, is trying to find himself. When he switches from speaking in the third person to first person, he is moving along that road. From “Billy want more” to “Me want more” or “I want,” we can see something new coming into being.

When your 2-year-old is saying “No” to you remember that his sense of self is waking up. He may be experiencing something like this: “No to this, no to that, no to all that is not me. Yes to me. No to you. That is not me. Yes to me. Yes. Yes. Yes. No to what is not me...”

An additional feature of the 2-year-old is that he is at a stage of vastly increased self-mobility. He is drawn to explore and discover - and is now mobile. This exploration is natural and an important mechanism to be able to begin to grasp the world. We adults are concerned about safety, and perhaps neatness, so we try and set boundaries for our young children. Our boundaries. And our boundaries meet the newly arising sense of self. That is the conundrum of the 2-year-old. 

So try and rejoice when he is saying “No” to dinner time, “No” to washing hands, “No” to you. He is growing in an important realm - self is waking up. Hooray. It is the beginning of many years of tension between his awakening sense of self and your creating limits that satisfy your needs for safety, cleanliness and efficiency. The ‘terrible twos’ is a practice ground for the next many years. If you start out with the understanding that the developing sense of self must reject what is not itself, then perhaps your understanding can better carry you through the challenge. If you remember while your child is rejecting what you request and demand, that to your child’s awakening sense of self you are becoming other and this is a necessary element in human development.

“No, no, no....” for the two-year-old means “Yes” to himself. Hooray for development. Your child is two now. This stage too WILL pass. And then the challenges will be different, and harder, and easier.

Start now to develop the patience and ability to respond to your child. Your buttons don’t need to be pushed by your child’s “challenging your authority.” It is not about you. It is about the natural processes of developing a sense of self. It is inevitable. Maybe you can find some humor in it. Maybe when he is two you can develop tools for connecting with your child that will serve you for the many years to come. Start now. “Yes. Yes. Yes!”

P.S. I would love to hear about your experiences and challenges with your young children. Please share this with your friends who have young children.

And for some tips on keeping the stress levels down here is an article from Dr. Rick Hanson http://www.rickhanson.net/just-one-thing/lower-stress

The Importance of Saying "No"

Why is it so hard to say ‘No’ to our young children? Here are 5 reasons why it is so hard, and why I think it’s important to be able to say ‘No.’ Let me know what you think.

1. We want our children to be happy and to do and have what they want. We want them to have everything to their hearts’ content. We see their sadness when they don’t get to do or have want they want. Our saying ‘No’ leads to our child’s unhappiness.
2. We want our child to like us. If we say ‘No’ to their desires then they won’t like us. If we always give them what they want then they will like us.
3. We don’t want to be thought of as the ‘mean’ parent. Our child will tell the other children, their grandparents and their teachers that we are mean because we never let them do what they want.
4. We read a book explaining that a parent should never say ‘No’ to their children because the children will grow up with repressed desires and resentment.
5. All the other parents are saying ‘Yes’ and you want your child to 'fit in.' And we don’t want our children to have to wait for something we will probably eventually give them or let them do anyway. Why not let it be now?

Young children look to us to guide them into life as a human being. Part of that guidance is the delivery of our values for physical and emotional safety, and healthy life habits as expressed by the boundaries and limits we hold for our children. We don’t have to explain our values. Explaining is not effective with young children anyway. However, we do have to be clear and consistent with our boundaries for the sake of the child’s healthy development, and we can express these boundaries simply and with few words. “No throwing sand. I want everyone to be safe.” Boundaries are a way for the child to experience our care and values, and leads to the child’s feeling of security in the embrace of our care. Even though the child may experience feelings of sadness or anger when they meet our boundaries, the boundaries help to define the child’s world and hence they are free to explore within those boundaries. If your boundaries for the children are clear, their life is less anxious because they are not constantly pushing the limits to find the boundaries.

Children are natural explorers and some children experience ‘No’ way too often in the course of their daily explorations. Their natural impulse to touch and taste and move and drop and experiment is squashed. That surely is not healthy for the child. One approach is to create your young child’s home environment so that your prized possessions are not accessible and you won’t have to say ‘No’ so much. Lock up the hazardous stuff, make it inaccessible. Put away the fragile and ‘special’ things until your child is older and can understand what to touch and what not to. Find ways to create the boundaries without having to use the ‘No’ word so much. Rather than saying what you don’t want, tell your child what you do want. Tell them what they can do. And if you have to say no, offer also what to do instead. “No drawing on the wall. You can draw on paper.”

As your child gets older, it is important that the boundaries loosen gradually. Boundaries are not a static form, they evolve as the child matures and can take more and more self-responsibility. In fact, healthy boundaries for the young child leads to taking self-responsibility as they mature.

Advertisers rely on adults to succumb to whining. They target children with their ads and packaging. If you must bring your child when you go shopping, it is a helpful practice to 

develop the habit of not buying something for them when you shop with them. Then the times you bring something home for them it can be more special and appreciated.

Remember that just because you said ‘No’ once, or many times, doesn’t mean your child won’t ask again, or attempt to do the same behavior you already said ‘No’ to. If we understand that the child is not being malicious and trying to get us upset (they are not!), then perhaps we can be calmer in our saying ‘No’ for the hundreth time. Or thousandth. 

The child is simply trying to do what he wants and uses the strategies he has already found to be successful from his experiences. These strategies were developed through a dynamic interaction with his parents. With us. It is not useful to blame him for not listening, or be angry with him for his purposeful attempt to get us angry. That is not the case. Calmly and patiently we CAN help our children develop new strategies to get what they want, strategies that don’t upset those around them. It takes time and repetition. Lots of it.

So here are 5 reasons why ‘No’ is important in the life of the young child.

1. No one likes to hear ‘whining.’ Whining is the result of parents not wanting their child to be sad. If at the first sign of sadness a ‘No’ turns into a ‘Yes,’ then our child learns that whining is a very successful strategy to get what they want. Also, it's okay for our child to be sad. Then they will develop the capacity to deal with their own sadness. Sadness is one of the basic feelings that undoubtedly will arise at various times in our child's life. Allow children to have the whole range of feelings.
2. Our child will love us all the more for the healthy boundaries and limits we create for them. In the moment they may feel the sadness or anger of their desires thwarted, but in the big picture they will feel secure in our care and guidance for them. Did you read my post about ‘How to Handle a Home Wrecker?” 
3. Saying ‘No’ does not make someone mean. Meanness is trying to make someone feel bad. Creating boundaries for your child is healthy and important. As long as you have reasons for what you are doing to support your child’s development, and calmness in how you are delivering the boundaries then what other adults think about you is their problem. If they ever ask why we said ‘No’ we can explain our reasons and then they can think whatever they choose to think. 
4. We set limits for our young children so they will feel secure and confident. Without clear boundaries the children might be doing behaviors increasingly outlandish as a way to find the boundaries they unconsciously know they need.
5. We live in a consumer culture where we are trained to say ‘Yes’ to all sorts of products and services, and get it immediately - instant gratification. I think experiences of delaying gratification are important so the children can develop capacities for waiting. Honestly, I think our culture is dysfunctional and is causing massive social, economic, health and environmental problems. Going the other way from the ‘mainstream’ seems like a really good idea to me.

P.S. Please let me know what you think about this post, and here is another short article that might be helpful about boundaries and learning to say 'No.'  http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/discipline/tips/discipline-without-saying-no/ 

Spanking? No thanks!

The other day I was driving with the radio on. A parent advice show came on so I listened. I don’t know who the speaker was or what the show was called because my radio soon lost reception for that station. One thing the speaker said was, “Now, I am not recommending spanking your young child, but if you do spank make sure your child understands why they are being spanked.” I wanted to call in but it wasn’t a call-in show. To put it mildly, I was appalled and angry. The speaker spoke as an authority and had a captive audience with no space for different perspectives. I have a different perspective!

First I’ll get to the point. I recommend never spanking your child. Don’t spank in anger, and don’t choose to spank while calm. I don’t like hitting as a persuasion method or boundary delivery technique. There, I said it. Now I’ll explain. 

I want to acknowledge how hard it is to be a parent. As a grandpa, I am one step removed from the level of stress parents experience. I am no longer engaged in the day-to-day activity of parenting while trying to maintain the other necessary realms of daily life. I am guessing that everyone at one time or another feels like hitting someone. I know I sometimes felt that way as a parent. The question becomes how to deal with the triggered feeling that often leads to the reaction response of hitting.

The primary learning modality for young children is imitation. They copy from the example of the loved ones around them. It is not a conscious choice to copy though. It is if the children are compelled to copy by some invisible impulse. Imitation is an unconscious method of learning for the young child.

When babies are born, they cannot walk or talk. How they learn to walk and speak is by copying other the human beings in their environment. If they were not around other human beings they would not learn how to walk and speak like a human. (For example the ‘wolf child of Aveyron’). The children also learn many other things from parents through imitation, notably their strategies to deal with frustration and stress. Simply put, spanking teaches the children that hitting is a way to get the message across when they are frustrated.

Boundaries are important for the children. One of the child’s needs is safety and adults have to hold safe boundaries so the children can develop and thrive within those boundaries. There are other ways than spanking or hitting to show the child boundaries. In fact, using hitting as a tool for creating boundaries shows the child that he or she is not safe because if they do certain things they get hit. What an anxious world that creates.

Staying calm and centered and responsive is not easy. Stress sends most of us into our reactive mode and if spanking and hitting is programmed into us from our own childhood, it is very hard to choose non-violent actions. Parenting is a spiritual journey really because we get the chance to look at our own reactiveness and behavior patterns and work on overcoming those. Parenting is really a path. And if we understand that we are participating in the programming of the reaction patterns in our children, maybe that is enough to help us hold back our impulse to spank. Even if we think we are calm and centered and choosing in the moment to apply a spank to get the message across, we are still teaching the child that one hits when others don’t appear to listen.

Along with any practices you take up to maintain your calm and patience, I also suggest thinking in advance of an alternative you can put in place if the time comes. Plan ahead! There are many resources in print (my book Connecting With Young Children for example) and online (Dr. Rick Hanson’s website and the Parenting Beyond Punishment website) to give you ideas for alternative actions and practices for staying in your responsive centered mode. 

Additionally, the parenting ‘expert’ on the radio mentioned that if you do spank, ‘make sure the child understands why they are being spanked.’ Just a minute here. The part of the brain that does ‘executive function,’ that is involved in understanding consequences, cause and effect, and logic, is named the frontal lobes. It is simply not present in the young child. That part of the brain is the last part of the brain to mature and during adolescence it is still undergoing extensive changes. It continues developing until one is almost thirty years old.  Your young child doesn’t have the neurology to understand why they are being spanked.

How do you get a radio show? Maybe I could have one too. In the meantime, I’ll use this newsletter to get the message to you all.

Please be present enough to THINK of an alternative to spanking. Eventually our whole world will be a better place for it. 

This coming Saturday, March 29, from 11am to 3pm, NEW FORM TECHNOLOGY is having their 1st Anniversary Celebration. New Form Technology is involved in a science of the future -  a science that looks at the objective structure of form and tries to find the intention behind the form. One form they are working with extensively is a discovered geometric solid named the 'Chestahedron.' The NFT center in San Carlos, California is an exciting place of creation, design, conversation and research. The anniversary celebration includes demonstrations of research and projects, food and a lecture by Frank Chester on the relationship of form to the human heart. Don't miss this event!
More information about New Form Technology at their website.

How to Handle a Home Wrecker (in kindergarten)

Today for some reason I was thinking about Brandi, a 5-year-old girl who was in my kindergarten many years ago. I haven’t seen or heard of her in years and I wonder where she has come to in her life’s journey.

When she was in my kindergarten, Brandi was a ‘fireball.’ She was strong and did not have any extra padding on her bones. Light weight and solid, she moved easily and smoothly. She was very articulate and intelligent. She tended to be one of the last children to arrive each day, and I noticed from the start that Brandi did not have an easy time joining into the play of the other children. A regular occurrence was her arriving to many other children already engaged in play, houses built and imaginations unleashed in various activities. Brandi would look around the room and then walk toward some play activity and so often what happened next was a house knocked over and another child sad. “Steve, Brandi wrecked our house.” I saw that my work was cut out for me because Brandi was very determined to do things her way and if she thought I was trying to intervene she grew angry. She shouted “I can do what I want!”

One morning, Brandi was headed for an elaborate house made out of heavy wooden ‘play stands’ that looked a bit tentative in terms of stability. Another child was laying on the floor just inside the ‘house.’ I thought I needed to be close by to make sure everyone was safe and I watched Brandi’s arms prepare to push over the side of the house. I learned already that explaining to Brandi would not work, so I walked in between Brandi and the house. I said, “We will leave the house in peace.” She tried to get around me and push the wall over.  As calmly and gently as possible, I scooped her up and carried her over to the lunch table and sat down.

She seemed quite angry with me by then and said she was “going back over to knock their wall down.” So I sat her on my lap and held her, firmly but not tightly. I wasn’t angry or triggered. I didn’t squeeze her. I didn’t raise my voice - in fact I didn’t say anything. She squirmed and kicked and told me, “I am going to tell my mom, and she is going to call the police, and they are going to take you away....Let me go so I can knock over their house.” I said to her, only once, “I will not let you knock down their house.”

She was fired up and her muscles were tense for a minute or two, and I kept her in my firm hold. It was a protective use of force - not to hurt, but to keep everyone safe. To me, safety is a primary need for all, and a primary responsibility of all teachers! I wanted the other children to be safe, and I wanted to help Brandi develop other strategies for joining in with the other children. I didn’t want to exclude her from being with us as in ‘time-out.’ That seems like punishment to me. I understood that Brandi was simply using a strategy she had developed to get her needs met, a strategy probably developed by the time she was one-year-old. Strategies become habits when they are successful. So Brandi had found a way that worked in her world to get her needs met. The thing is, that strategy didn’t feel good to the other people involved. 

So my first step in that interaction was to create a boundary, and I represented that boundary. Boundaries are hard. No one likes boundaries. They are what prevent us from getting what we think we want when we want it. And they are where we find out who we are. What we do when we meet a boundary, how we handle the stress and the dissatisfaction tell us something about ourselves.

“Physical and social boundaries are important on the path of a healthy developing sense of self. The self can only find itself when it meets boundaries. It is a boundary when the child has a drive to stand yet cannot yet. It experiences the frustration of being unable, and also what it feels like to push through, to keep trying, and develop a new skill or capacity. This is one type of boundary experience. When he runs toward the curb with no sign of slowing before leaping into the street, and the parent loudly says, “Stop!” That is a boundary. He experiences the concern and love coming from the parent, and his trust in his parent grows, even if his words are complaining. It is the same with social boundaries. We adults must provide boundaries of physical and social safety for the children - and then they can experience our values in this realm, without intellectual explanation, simply by meeting the boundary where play behavior would switch to the realm hurting another.” (from my book, Connecting With Young Children - Educating the Will)

So what happened next. Two minutes went by and we sat quietly together, neither saying anything. Then I saw Brandi exhale and watched her whole body relax. She sat peacefully with me for another minute until she asked if she could go and play now. Off she went, cooperatively engaged in play with the others. About five minutes later Brandi came back over and hugged me and said, “Steve, I love you.”

When young children are helped to develops habits of connecting with others that work for both parties involved, it opens the way for the gradual discovery and eventual recognition that there are other human beings in the world who also have needs and desires and feelings. The young child has only a beginning awareness of self, yet it is a self that is the center of the universe for them. As teachers and parents, we can offer the children tools for a human way of relating that can be taken up more and more consciously as they get older, as well as boundaries in social and physical realms that create safety.

Brandi found a social boundary, kicked and screamed at it, and then relaxed in the security of it. She found herself there, at the boundary, and she found and recognized the loving guidance of her kindergarten teacher, me.

I want to hear from you - what challenges do you need help with, what questions are you struggling with?

P.S. Gently yet firmly helping young children to experience boundaries is important for their own development, and to create an environment of safety for them. What do you think about the experience I described? Let me know.

Practicing for More Self Awareness

What happens when you get to the ‘end of you rope?’ When your ‘buttons’ are pressed? When stress levels rise up? When you are ‘triggered?’

For most of us, what happens is that our reaction patterns kick in. These patterns are strategies we developed as young children in response to the stress of not getting what we wanted when we wanted it. And these patterns are imbedded in us as early as our first year. 

Some people name these patterns ‘the double.’ Or ‘the shadow.’ Whatever name you use, it is describing the situation when you are not truly conscious and old habits are ‘operating you’ and determining what you say and do.

Where do these patterns come from? They come from the example of our immediate family, mostly mom and dad, when we were very young. For the young child, all learning is through imitation, and we parents are giving the children plenty to imitate. They copy how we move, how we walk. They learn to speak by copying our speech. They learn how to deal with stress by copying our reaction patterns, what we do when we are ‘triggered.’ They learn what we are happy for them to take up, and they learn the things we do in their presence that we wish we did not do.

So when I reach the end of my rope with young children, I try and remember how imitation functions, and ask myself, “How would I want my child to respond in this situation.” Being aware of my responsibility to the human development of my child can help me reign in my reaction patterns. As the saying goes, ‘we must be the change we want to see.’ 

Did you ever see your child drop something, and then hear her say, “Sh#@t!” 

As the parent, we have options about how we can respond. We can get angry, and scold, and explain why we don’t use that word and on and on. Or we can understand that our child heard someone use that word, perhaps when they dropped the bag of groceries, and quite possible it was us they heard. The child is simply imitating. Remember, that is how they learn.

An important part of changing a habit is being aware of the habit in the first place. A wonderful tool for developing self-awareness is a seemingly simple exercise described by Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago. It involves looking back over the day. You practice this each night before going to sleep. One way to practice is to sit in a chair (lying down may quickly bring on sleep) and close your eyes. Picture to yourself an image of you sitting in the chair. And then for the next five minutes, go backwards through your day, starting with the moment just before sitting in the chair, and going backwards through the day until first awakening that morning. Steiner suggested that one could do this in about five minutes. It is a quick review, just a brief glance at the various events of the day. 

This exercise provides an opportunity to observe yourself, and discover your ‘trigger points.’ In going backwards, you might notice a moment when you are all worked up about something, and slowly go back a bit until you notice the moment when your ‘button was pushed.’ 

Remember it is called a practice. When we practice something we realize we are trying to improve at it, we are not already perfect at it. This is NOT an exercise in self-judgment. It is a way to discover your own patterns of reaction. Perhaps after observing the same pattern time and again in the nightly review, you might have a spark of awareness in the midst of a situation when you are about to react habitually. “Oh, here I am in a situation where I usually get triggered. How do I want to respond this time?” It might be fleeting, but eventually lasting awareness of your soul habit is created and therefore an opportunity for changing those habits arises. First you see your habits, then you have the possibility of changing them. 

Look again and again at yourself with honesty in this daily practice. Try to find your trigger points, to know yourself better and better, and see the patterns of reacting, your personal ‘buttons.’ This exercise also can allow us to develop compassion and kindness for our shortcomings. Can I feel tenderness and compassion for the very faults and weaknesses that I am struggling with?

Our attempting to better ourselves has significant impact on our child. Striving for self-development is worth imitating. The activity of the adult trying to develop new capacities penetrates deeply into the developing child and can bear fruit much later in life. These are qualities I want to develop further in myself and am actively engaging my will on this path. Indeed it is a path of development for the human being who is striving toward consciousness. 

This week was the birthday of Dr. Rudolf Steiner (pictured above as a young child). He was born 153 years ago in February, 1861, and he died at 64 in 1925. In honor of his birthday, I want to express gratitude for the many suggestions of exercises to help develop our own capacities for independent thinking and freedom from reaction patterns, as well as his many ideas about human development that are available in the many books and published lectures that we can read today. Thank you Dr. Steiner, I know you are out there helping us still!

If this blog is interesting for you and you think your friends might like it, please let them know:-)

I Want To Wear My Tutu!

I want to tell you a real life story. (The names were changed to preserve anonymity.) The result of which led Grandma to look at me in awe, and say, “You did it again. You are magic with children.” 

I don’t think it is magic. I think it is understanding the development of young children and embracing my role of ‘adult.’

One cold winter morning a few weeks ago, 2 year old Jill was wearing her frilly tutu and playing in the kitchen. 5 year-old Jack was getting ready to go with me to the park. Jill said she wanted to go too. Auntie said, “Take off your tutu so you can get your coat on.” Jill said she wanted to wear the tutu. Jill can be very stubborn and sometimes screams and yells (very loudly) as an often successful strategy to get what she wants.

Her grandma was in the kitchen and I could sense her lack of certainty as she said, “Let’s take off the tutu and put on the coat. Okay, Jill?” I could tell that she was tentative and was not going to be firm. She was going to let Jill decide whether or not to take off the tutu and wear the coat. Grandma later confirmed to me that she was not committed to the idea.

Auntie was also in the kitchen. She began explaining to 2-year-old Jill why she should take off the tutu (“It might get dirty, it would get in the way of playing at the playground, it might get ripped, your coat won’t fit with the tutu under it...”) and wear the coat (“It is cold, it is winter, you’ll be cold...”). Auntie was trying to convince Jill why it was a good idea to take off the tutu and wear the coat.

Jill said several times,“No,” she would not take off the tutu, as both Auntie and Grandma continued to talk to her and got closer and closer to her. I was watching this dynamic interaction of the three and saw Jill shaking her head, and her unwillingness so visible in her face. I was inwardly clear that taking off the tutu and wearing the coat was important. So I said, “Jack and Steve are going. Anyone who is coming has to take off their tutu and put on a coat.” Without hesitation, Jill took off the tutu and I helped her get her coat on. And off we went. Two happy children and me, ready to walk to the park.

So what happened? Jill responded calmly and easily when she heard the firm boundary - to go to the park requires no tutu and yes coat. No negotiating or wiggle room. So she relaxed and went along.

The words I spoke did not create a Steve vs. Jill situation in my choice of words. I didn’t say, “Jill, you have to take of your tutu to come with us.” I said, “Anyone who is coming...” It was not ‘me’ vs. ‘you’ for Jill. My words made the situation more objective, and less personal.

Also, explaining and trying to convince a 2-year-old is not effective for various reasons. One reason is the desire of the child takes up the whole thought and feeling world for them. Persuasion does not have a place at their table. Also, the child’s neurology is not sufficiently developed to process logic and reasoning. The frontal lobe doesn’t begin to develop for 10 more years. The adult’s intellectual approach of explanation does not meet in the child a neural structure suitable for processing the information.

When we are not clear in what we know is best for the child, when we lack inner confidence, the child senses this. And this is experienced as insecurity for the child. They need our calm and confident guidance and leadership. Of course we don’t know everything and are constantly learning. And hopefully we are observing the results of our choices and decisions as far as how the child is affected. This informs our future choices and decisions for the child. But it important to remember who is the adult. As an adult there are more neurological structures in place, more neural pathways, and many years of more experiences to draw from. 

Somewhere there is a middle ground between authoritarian parenting and a parenting style where the child is in charge. This is where the magic lives. This middle path my friend Margret Meyerkort calls ‘loving firmness.’ The young child needs our calm and clear and non-intellectual guidance that takes into account their stage of development, and well as their needs for safety and fun. 

I’d love to hear from you what you think of this post, and what YOU are struggling with so future blog posts can reflect what you are working on.

P.S. If you like this blog, please tell your friends about it so they can sign up too.

Why Chamakanda?

Some folks have asked, “Why Chamakanda?” "What is that name, where does it come from?" So I’ll tell you the story.

A long time back I listened to a cd by Ephat Mujuru, the late Zimbabwean musician. It included the story of Chamakanda and was accompanied by Ephat on mbira. 

The story of Chamakanda touched me somehow, and I learned it to be able to tell the children in my kindergarten. Several years later in the summer, a band named Mawungira Enharira, some new friends from Zimbabwe, were touring the US, and we were hanging out after one of their shows in Ashland, Oregon. I asked if any of them would tell a story from back home, and they claimed not to know any. So I said, “You must know the story of Chamakanda? It’s from Zimbabwe.” They said they didn’t know the story, and cajoled me to tell it to them. Sheepishly I did, and from then on I have been known as Chamakanda in certain circles.

Click on this link to download my version of the story for free. (It is also available on my cd Chamakanda Tells Stories.) The music is by Mbira dzeMuninga.  Chamakanda the story

And by the way,  my ears are not exceptionally “big, big like a donkey’s ears” as they are for Chamakanda in the story.

I think of folk tales, or ‘fairy tales,’ as a portrayal of the variety af aspects in all of us. Each of us contains all of the characters within us, a la Karl Jung. I have thought about this story a lot, and while dissecting a story seems harsh, here are some themes I have come to about Chamakanda, a humorous story from the Shona people of Zimbabwe. 

Chamakanda is a man who is a friend to the children. He lives alone and spends his days singing and dancing and playing with children.

One of the children is curious because Chamakanda never takes off his hat. He wonders what Chamakanda is hiding. Chamakanda eventually agrees to show the boy but sternly tells him, “You must never tell anyone what is under my hat.”

The boy is a Simpleton-like character, innocent but simple. Not intentionally, the boy does not keep his promise and the secret of what is under Chamakanda’s hat is revealed until eventually everyone knows.

Chamakanda does not want others to know that his ears are “ big, big like a donkey’s ears.” He cannot accept himself as he is and wants to keep aspects of himself hidden. He will not let himself be vulnerable and let others see his true self out of a fear of how they will respond. 

When the community around him learns of his formerly hidden aspect, he decides he must move on to a new community where he can start again without the new community having knowledge of his big ears. Until Chamakanda can accept himself, his whole self, he will continue to wander the world. No community can truly accept him until he accepts himself. To evolve he must accept himself and be vulnerable. Only then will he be an adult, able to relate to the children as well as adults.

Sounds like the story for all of us, just right for this modern time!