teach kindness

Analytical thinking is the number one leader today. Everyone explains to me how to not do something. All the time. The first message I get when I try to discuss some solution is what is wrong with my idea, and of course, I am not opposed to constructive criticism and amendments however, I have started to get very discouraged when all of the initial responses I got, were how not to do it rather than how to ameliorate it.

Why do we have this initial necessity to put down the person? Often times it happens that the person who is discouraged is a child. I guess, we all have now heard about at least some of the extensive research on child development, and understand that to get this kind of message to a child constantly he will start to believe he is good for nothing.

Let’s take a moment here and meditate on the topic. We usually get so engrossed in our adult life that when the child comes our way with whatever we tend to respond very adult-like, thinking she will understand. Or that she will need to understand. While all this was generally understood as the way how to grow up, you don’t want your child to grow up too quickly. Because if you quicken the process it can happen that much is lost. Imagine how GMO vegetable tastes. It was genetically altered to be quickly delicious looking and resistant to diseases but the taste got lost somehow in the process. We all want our young generation to be disease resistant however, it cannot be done as fast as we imagine.

The first thing we need to understand is that human being is a super-complex system. A child at a young age doesn’t respond well to our logic and rational thinking. She responds best to emotional language. This is the reason why you simply cannot lie to your toddler however much you try to. Toddlers don’t use analytic language, they have not yet developed it. And so if a newborn sees his primary caregiver in distress he can instantly understand that she is not safe. Even if you think you are “just” mildly stressed from work a child thinks she is in danger.

We start to prep kids from an early age to use analytical thinking, but that is not the only way thinking goes. As we grow older we suppress our intuition and even emotion in favour of logic. Dr. Tara Swart in her book the Source talks about 6 ways of thinking; logical, emotional, intuition, motivation, physical thinking(mind-body connection), and creativity. Why do we favour one over another? She explains that all are important to employ.

So let’s use common sense in children and let’s not discourage them right from the beginning of their lives with our logic. Let’s teach them with kindness how to approach problems. Let’s teach them that to be kind to others is a base ground, so when they are dealing with difficulties later in their life they will approach them from kind hearts instead of a place of negativity and anxiety.

Today’s article is short and more of an introduction to a few books and an invitation to the general kindness we all need more of in our lives.

As usual, I’ll leave you again with two book recommendations that sparked my interest in this topic. The first one is aforementioned Dr. Tara Swart’s The Source, which I have not yet read it but listened to the author talking on a podcast. It’s on my TBR for a very poetic reason… I hate the Secret book! However, I am willing to look for the science behind it if there is one. And this book promises just that — science. So, I am looking forward to reading it and maybe discovering some new findings.

The second book is Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate. I strongly recommend reading it, not only if you or your child has ADD but generally. He talks about the importance of the mother-child relationship and attunement in the first years of a child’s life and what can happen if we resolve to use analytics with the child instead of emotion and intuition.

There is one more thing… It is not only me who talks about the need for a more kind and humane attitude. Look here. There are more of us.