Feb 23, 2015 | Security
The horizontal relationship
When a child hits another child (with fists or words), it’s easy to tell them, “That’s wrong because it hurts someone else. You wouldn’t want them to do that to you.” There are also easy-to-point-to practical consequences of such behavior: “If you hurt other kids, they won’t want to play with you anymore.”
That’s how we address making relationships with one another right when there’s been wrongdoing. Those are the horizontal relationships.
But what about the vertical relationship?
The relationship between a child and the God they believe in? There is often another level of damage to repair that we don’t think to address. Wrongs can create a guilty conscience and distance between a child and their God. How can we help them right that relationship?
The covert dimension of wrongdoing
Sometimes the wrong doesn’t seem to directly affect another person, but the child’s conscience still bothers them. Even if no one else knows about the wrongdoing and no one else appears to be hurt by it, the knowledge of that wrongdoing can be festering inside the child. That’s what I’m calling the vertical relationship– the spiritual dimension of wrongdoing.
That’s an issue between a person and their God: guilt. Healthy guilt occurs when we do something wrong. When we ignore guilt, we deaden and numb it, which results in the deterioration of our conscience, our God-given sense of right and wrong.
Children ask, “What do I do after I mess up?”
Different traditions have different approaches for dealing with guilt. Consider whether this response will fit your child:
- Ask for forgiveness and be willing to make up with the person you hurt, or return the items you stole, or admit you lied and tell the truth.
- Accept the consequence that comes from your teacher or parent.
- Then go out and do something good.
What other ways do you know of for helping children deal with guilt in a healthy way?
Tweetable:
When we ignore guilt, we deaden and numb it, resulting in the deterioration of our conscience. Click to Tweet
Feb 16, 2015 | trust
No. God keeps loving you the same whether you make a wrong choice or a right one.*
But God often provides a consequence.
It might come through your teacher, or from your conscience and you feel miserable the rest of the day, maybe have trouble sleeping that night.
God loves you but God is not pleased with hateful, lying, mean behavior.
Consequences are an important way God expresses love to you.
Sometimes consequences from bad behavior leave you feeling guilty, embarrassed or mad.- You might lose a friend.
- Occasionally you have to find jobs to do in order to earn money to pay for damage done.
- Your family can start to doubt you and act suspicious of you for a long time when your words or actions break their trust.
God hopes you will choose wisely next time because he wants a good life for you, a life of love.
God is for you, not against you. He knows that a good life comes when you live by God’s rules.
Consequences from good behavior give you a happy feeling.
Often you feel that God is pleased with you and proud of you. In fact, one great way to let God know you love him — follow his rules of life.
Many people say that he had people write them down and put them in a book. Different religions have different books: The Torah, The Bible, The Koran. For the most part, these different books will have similar teachings about right and wrong — no lying, stealing or killing. And treat others the way you want to be treated.
You might have a book like this at your house.
For sure you can find one on the computer. Ask an adult you trust. They may have a children’s version of the book and they can help you find some of those rules.
Tweetable: Consequences, not punishment, is how many people prefer to explain God’s response to wrongdoing. Click to Tweet
Dec 29, 2014 | Nourishment
“Morality is not just something that people learn, it is something we are all born with,” wrote Gareth Cook in his recent interview with Yale psychologist Paul Bloom in an issue of Scientific American (Nov 12, 2013) (italics mine).
The interview with Bloom continues:
“At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginning of a sense of fairness.
The sort of research that I’ve been involved with personally, looking at the origins of moral judgment, is difficult to do with very young babies. But we have found that even 3-month-olds respond differently to a character who helps another than to a character who hinders another person.”
This kind of research supports the core of child-centered spirituality–
… that conscience, morals, character are in them already. That the way to develop children’s spirit is found in opening yourself up to their world, in asking them questions and answering theirs, in listening.
It is universal, but we still avoid the topic
Think about the last time you were in a discussion with people of diverse spiritual perspectives about how your child’s human spirit is developing. I’m guessing it wasn’t anytime recently at a play group, team barbeque, or playground bench.
Do we want to normalize it?
In light of the research, this topic is of more importance to children than many of us realize. I wonder if it would be in the best interest of the child to attempt to normalize the topic by talking more opening about cultivating our child’s spirit. For example, asking other parents to give you recommendations for some picture books their child likes with spiritual themes of forgiveness, equality or sharing. Or swapping stories of family spiritual experiences such as visiting an elderly friend or taking a nature walk.
What would it look like if you did that?
Would open interaction point us toward a framework that helps us understand ourselves and others and our place in the world?
Tweetable: At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginning of a sense of fairness. Click to Tweet
Dec 22, 2014 | Nurture
Conscience, reason, character and more. All part of a child’s human spirit–ready for us to explore and cultivate with them.
Where are you seeing growth and change in the children you love? How are you helping to make it possible?
A story from my own childhood comes to mind as I reflect upon these questions. Last week I recognized one way my mother did this for me. It was last week when the doctor questioned me about my foot pain: “Do you wear pointy shoes or did you used to?”
I thought about my pointy shoes and those long-ago piano lessons
When I was 8 or 9, my piano teacher participated in NFSM and all her piano students had a yearly audition, a non-competitive adjudication. We were judged on individual merit in the areas of accuracy, continuity, phrasing, dynamics, rhythm, interpretation, style and technique. That meant four years of daily piano practice.
After going many tearful rounds with me about skipping out on practicing
my mother thought of a game-changer. We went to the thrift store and got dress-up clothes, including beautiful satin high heels. My father sawed off the heels so drastically that they were only slightly higher than my sneakers. But they were stunningly pointed.
After school, for at least one year, I got all dressed up, made dramatic entrances into the living room, walked across the Hollywood Bowl stage and, to deafening applause, began to play Czerny. Frequently I stood to bow before the adoring crowd of furniture.
With one small idea, my mother kept me in the game
so that fruits of character had a chance to ripen. In those four years I grew in diligence, reliability, consistency, and the wherewithal to push through when I don’t feel like it.
Tweetable: Does your child complain constantly about practicing a musical instrument? Try this idea. Click to Tweet
Nov 17, 2014 | Nurture
A child’s human spirit and conscience develop like a new building under construction with scaffolding around it. Parents and other adults provide a framework for support, but the child is the one under development. The point is the child—or the building.
Everybody looks past the scaffolding
They are trying to see around or through the scaffolding to get an idea of what the building is going to look like. So it doesn’t matter what scaffolding looks like, as long as it serves its purpose.
Instead of worrying about what others think of our efforts, what if we keep our focus on the best interests of the child?
What will help develop their human spirit?
- Letting them make mistakes. Not covering those mistakes up, but helping them process wrongdoing so they can learn from it.
- Serving as a sounding board as they think, reflect, and make the kind of internal changes that will allow them to grow.
A friend of mine is struggling with oncoming empty nest syndrome
Two children who have left the nest are doing great, and one is still in high school and becoming very independent. When her second child left home recently, I sent her a note of encouragement saying,
You are now a masters-level parent. They can do much more on their own now, and that’s a sign of success.
When scaffolding is no longer needed, it goes away.
I’d argue that this removal of support doesn’t happen all of a sudden at age 18, but gradually throughout childhood and the teen years as kids take on more responsibility and make wise choices more consistently.
Paradoxically, the sign of good parenting is when they don’t need you anymore.
Tweetable: A child’s human spirit and conscience develop like a new building under construction with scaffolding around it. Click to Tweet
