I’ve been reading the Continuum Concept email list again and there are a few postings at the moment that reflect our own experience with child rearing – which is that no matter how hard we try to provide the best circumstances for our children it often appears to be making absolutely no difference.
And I’m not just talking here about parents moaning because their kids aren’t perfect but about children (especially around the age 4) who are nearly impossible to live with, and even worse, children who seem quite unhappy a lot of the time.
It leads to a lot of heartache for the parents – and despair about what to do next too.
One thing that occurs to me is that we might be falling into the trap of comparing our children with those raised with more ‘conventional’ child rearing practices which usually involve breaking the child’s will and creating a subdued version of the original personality. The result being that the children either don’t express their feelings to their fullest or that they don’t bother to express them at all, so strong is their subconscious belief that their parents don’t care.
It might be that the results for parents of 4 year olds who were not left to cry as babies and who have been allowed to express themselves is a child in the midst of expressing the full horrors of living in civilisation (which would be perfectly logical). The possible causes for our children’s unhappiness is endless, starting with toxins in the food and environment, passing right through to the unresolved trauma that we as parents express in our daily lives – and then even beyond that to the unresolved trauma that was passed on to our kids in the womb and for which there is just absolutely nothing we can do.
I think 4 year olds are still at the stage where most modes of expression are physical and this combined with what I assume is an increasing ability to sense that not all is well in their world combines to produce these often violent little people. I know it’s better for them to get this stuff out of their system but it’s nearly impossible to cope with on a full time basis – members of our extended family get worn out after just a couple of hours with our kids and that’s when they’re usually at their best.
So far there hasn’t been any really useful advice on the CC list (which is a bad sign because it’s usually such a good resource) and I can’t comment on the individual people because I haven’t even met them but I’m going to assume that the problems stem from a) our chemically toxic environment and b) our own unresolved trauma as parents. I suspect that most people aren’t aware of all the myriad of ways that this affects their own behaviour. I tend to think that I have a good awareness of this ‘myriad of ways’ because I am writing and reading about it a lot of the time, it’s possible that that’s just my denial system kicking in but either way the knowledge of the issues I am aware of is not enough for me to keep myself under control – especially in the pressure cooker situation of a nuclear family with two small children who both want to use that toy right now damn it!
When there’s no where else to turn all I can do is remind myself of the logic of the principle’s of child raising that I believe in and remember that I’m in the middle of a 15-20 year project. Most importantly though I need to remind myself to have patience.
