Child-ing the Parent, Parenting the Child
The Art of Bridging the Gap between the X-Generation and the Generation X.

I am sure most of us parents have been attending Parent-Teacher seminars in the schools where our children go. Like me, you probably noticed that the topic of the seminar is always “Parenting the Child.” The title assumes that the parents are always right, and that children are always to be guided to the right direction. But this time, in this topic, we will try to bridge the gap between us, parents, the X Generation and our children, the Generation X. Nowadays, there are children who already belong to Generation XX.  Everyday, parenting becomes more challenging.  Good luck to all of us.

The Gap
We parents tend to live in the past and our children in the “here and now”. Today, we rear and train our children based on how we were raised by our parents and our parents by their parents and our grandparents by their own, a situation silently resented and sometimes rejected by our children.

Obedience out of fear overshadows respect and suppression of feelings sometimes becomes an alternative that children take rather than self-expression. This happens as either a trigger to or a by-product of parent-child conflicts and problems. Humility for parents is authority in disguise. Often, however, parents have difficulty to let go of their ego, the feeling that they are always right, and humility becomes a virtue hard to come by. The values of trust and openness are rarely practiced in the family and sometimes, they do not exist at all.

The widest gap comes from the training and rearing we got from our own parents. When we combine or mix the Spanish, American and Japanese styles of parenting, our children will suffer from mental indigestion and parental diarrhea.  Our children are already very confused that even the wisdom of Confucius will not be able to solve their confusion.  I can just imagine the difficulty of our children to adapt to the parenting styles of Magellan and wisdom of Jose Rizal when their time now is largely influenced by Bill Gates, President Barrack Obama, or the latest boy band in town.

The Main Essence
Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you and yet they belong not to you.                                                             
                                                                                                       Kahlil Gibran

God is the original and spiritual Parent of all souls.  If this is our consciousness, then, we can accept with open minds that we are all merely God’s chosen stewards and appointed trustees of our children.  Consequently, the burden and responsibility of taking care of them will be less.  It will also help us a lot if we will just consider our tasks of taking care of our children not as a burden but as an opportunity to show unconditional love. Similarly, we can look at taking care of them as an ennobling service rather than a mere responsibility.

The Main Premise
Nothing belongs to us.  Even our own bodies belong to nature and our spirit to God.

Nothing belongs to us, not even our very children.  At the end of the day, every single soul rightfully belongs to God.  In fact, every soul is a child of God. We are just the physical parents, or trustees, of God’s children. If we treat them as our own like physical and material objects, they will become the objects of both our love and hate. Owning them creates fear in us and also gives us the burden of responsibility which is supposed to be shared with God by design.  We will not be at par with other parents if we will consider our children as our own and not God’s. Ownership consciousness creates feelings of pressure, arrogance, and the burdensome ego of “mine”.

The Main Responsibility
Parents as Stewards, Instruments and Trustees (SIT)

God merely entrusted our children to us and our roles are just to love and serve them, no more, no less. Our responsibility is to provide them all their physical, material, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs to become good children of God and good citizens of our country and of the world.  If we practice this by heart, we will be very relaxed and light in the way we relate with our children.

In the Eyes of God, we are all Equals
One of the greatest mistakes that we parents commit in our relationship with our children is when we consider ourselves to be old, mature and experienced – as if we know everything in life. In raising our children, we treat and consider them to be young, immature and inexperienced and therefore, we think that they should not be taken seriously. 

Well, here is something that may provoke your thoughts and probably, will change your ideas and perspective about parent and child relationship.  Your bodies and age may be old and your children’s bodies and age may be young but their souls might be much older than yours and it is just a matter of time when their brains become fully developed and can already absorb the power of their souls. Do not be surprised if one of these days, they will become much smarter than you.  Have you heard some of our very observant relatives and friends saying, “bakit yang batang yan, yang anak mo, kung magisip, kumilos at magsalita, parang matanda?”

If you notice the same thing with your child, it is about time for you to change your parenting styles.  Do not ever underestimate the capacity and capability of your children.  Do not baby-talk them.  Start treating them like adults and you will be amazed how fast they can develop their original but latent skills, talent and personality.  You have not seen the best out of your children. What you are seeing in them now is just a tip of the iceberg, as they say.   The key is to give them your utmost Acceptance, Respect and Trust, the true and real ART of parenting.

Parental Grievance (PG13)
This is an old practice.  Are you still doing this? Let me warn you on this.  Your children, consciously or unconsciously, feel rejected and get hurt in the process every time you have visitors and you tell them harshly to leave, to go to their rooms or play outside the house because your receiving room and the topics are for adults only.  If you will just have a light and friendly chit-chat with your visitors, let them stay and observe because this is the best time and place for them to learn from you and from your visitor-friends.

University of the Parents (UP)
Parents as Teachers in Schools for Parenting

While parenting is universal, its nature is still highly unique and its method highly individualized.  The best method of teaching and learning is still through sharing among parents. No person or parent is absolutely an authority on parenting. Otherwise, if there is one, parenting has long been part of the curriculum in colleges and universities.  They say that the best teacher is experience and there is no doubt about it.  But the best method is still a formal and guided sharing of experiences among parents themselves.

Love to Last and Lust to Dust
Our children were born not out of pure love, but out of lust.  Having them here on earth is not a right, but a mere privilege for us as God’s trustees.  We are just their physical and biological parents.  God is their true and spiritual Parent.  As He rears and treats us, so must we do to our children.

No child was born out of love.  They were all born out of sex-lust.  You may agree or disagree with me on this premise, but just the same, allow me to express my personal thoughts on this.  I have to qualify my statement that is why I used the words ‘pure love’ because I personally believe that the foundation of life and relationship is purity, and these are purity of thoughts, words, actions, relationships and connections.

In each and every opportunity I have of sharing this topic with others, I always ask these thought-provoking questions to the participants and here, I will pose the very same questions to you, my readers.  I would like you also to remember this always.  God’s grand design for sexual intercourse was for procreation and not for recreation. 

When you first saw and met your spouse, what was the first attribute or quality which attracted you most to him or to her? Do you really make love or you just do sex with each other? Are you really expressing your love for your partner when you do sex or you are busy thinking and visualizing a third party for you be able to perform well?

If our first attraction to our spouse is his or her physical qualities and attributes, then, it is lust and not love at first sight.  Love is not and will never be synonymous or interchangeable with sex because love is spiritual energy, while we spend a lot of physical energy in sex.

Things That We, Parents Use Which Have Some Effects On Or Affect Our Children:
1. Thoughts
2. Words   
3. Belt
4. Broom
5. Stick
6. Ruler   
7. Hands
8. Fists
9. Elbow
10. Legs
11. Feet
12. Ears
13. Eyes

Let me share how I used all of these things in disciplining before.  What I had before were mostly waste and even bad thoughts and harsh, pointed and hurting words for my children.  I used belt, broom, stick and ruler in hitting them in the guise of disciplining them which I learned from my parents.  I often used also my fast hands, solid fists, pointed elbow, heavy legs and very light feet for the same reason which I saw from my parents and other parents in our neighborhood. I used my ears pretending to be deaf when they reason out; my big eyes, pointed lips and finger when I scold them. 

One time, I had a fight with my wife, Ellen, and my children, ages 6 and 4 years then, bore the brunt of my anger as I turned to them and hit them hard with a broom alternately several times. I hit them so many times that I could not remember anymore how many.  That was a very traumatic experience for me and definitely, for my children.  They both cried and I went to my room and also cried full of guilt and frustration.  I went back and embraced them and they just stared at me and probably wanted to ask me why I did that to them.  After that incident, I made a promise that I would never do that to them again. I have not hit my children with anything for more than 24 years now.
           
The 350 Degrees Turn Around
As loving and responsible physical parents, we can make a turn around, change our styles and use the following instead.  I am pretty sure that you and your children will appreciate and enjoy these things:
1. The Thoughts of Love
2. The Words of Wisdom
3. The Eyes of Trust
4. The Ears of Tolerance
5. The Hands of Gentleness
6. The Elbows of Jest and Lightness
7. The Finger of Discipline
8. The Legs of Patience
9. The Feet of Empathy
10. The Belt of Protection
11. The Stick of Flexibility
12. The Broom of Humility

With thoughts of love and words of wisdom coming from us, our children will definitely learn to love and understand us, their brothers and sisters, our helpers, their classmates and everyone whom they will be in contact with in and out of our homes.

With our eyes of trust, ears of tolerance, gentle hands, elbows of jest and lightness, our children will be able to learn how to trust themselves more, develop tolerance to situations and towards other people. They will have not only very gentle, but healing hands, and become light and begin to learn how to crack wholesome jokes. Their presence will be a gift to other people because we as parents have shown them the way.

Instead of pointing our blaming finger at our children, why not point it towards the path and directions for change.  Let us try to use also our ears of patience by listening to their feelings even though we sometimes perceive these feelings to be childish. As we listen to their hearts and minds, let us also console them by showing that we are with them all the way. This is empathy in action.

We protect our loose pants with a belt and we therefore should not take this out of our pants and use it to hit our children to discipline them.  I saw a man who took out his belt from his pants, reached and saved a drowning boy from the pool.  I think that was the best way anyone ever used a belt.  Sometimes, we have to reach out to our children, especially, in times when they need us most.  Who knows, these simple acts can save them from the claws of drug addiction or any form of vice.

Sticks are very flexible and so must we be to our children.  Guided flexibility is not bad at all.  In fact, when we practice this value, our children will not be as stiff and stern with others. The broom, when tied, signifies unity and with the parents’ humility and loving understanding, it can unite the family.
    
Fantasized Catastrophizing

’Worry’ is thinking more and doing less.  ‘Concern’ is thinking less and doing more and ‘Problem’ is talking more, thinking less and doing nothing. Be more creative and positive.

The words ‘fantasized catasthrophizing’ may not be not too familiar or correct to us, but a writer used these in his book just to emphasize our tendency to fantasize and think of bad things that might happen to us or to our loved ones. Despite of the fact that we all very know that we and our loved ones are not really benefiting from this, we still do it.

Let me tell you a story about a loving, caring and very protective mother and her favorite 3rd-year-medical-student son.  The son is very kind and disciplined.  He is always home right after his class at around 5:30 to 6:30pm.  One day, her son was an hour late.  The mother calmly tried to console herself that his son was probably with his classmates for a group study which he sometimes does. 

After two hours, the mother was already worried.  Her thoughts were getting catastrophic because she knew that his son brought the car and she was already entertaining the idea that he might have gone out with his classmates for a couple of bottles of beer.  She was already afraid that her son might meet an accident and she started to get mad.  At 2am the following day, a nurse in a nearby hospital called the mother to inform and tell her to come to the hospital because her son met an accident.

We must always remember that everything is made up of energy and the best communication is through vibration because vibration defies distance, space and time.  Have you experienced thinking over and over for an extended period of time good things about one of your children, relatives and friends abroad and all of a sudden, the phone rings and the one whom you are thinking about is on the other line talking about the same thing that you were thinking about?  This proves the above statement is probably correct.

What happened to the mother and son is simply a physical manifestation of this statement.  The son got the mother’s vibrations, became worried and afraid that her mother is angry with him and eventually, lost his focus in driving, thus, met an accident, exactly as the mother consistently thought of. So, let me warn you.  Our thoughts are very powerful.  Use them wisely.

If one of us happens to be in the same situation in the near future, may I suggest that instead of spending your energy worrying, becoming afraid and getting mad by thinking of bad things that might happen to your children, why not spend the same energy and time in praying, giving good wishes, good feelings and positive thoughts and vibrations to your loved ones who are out there somewhere and very far from you. They are sure to get those vibrations in one way or another.

The Value of Balance

1. Love and Law
2. Discipline and Flexibility
3. Freedom and Responsibility
4. Authority and Accountability
5. Silence with Sweet Words

Let us try using the value of balance in the daily challenges of rearing and relating with our children. They know that we all love them but they should also realize that in any unit of organization, there are always rules and regulations to follow. The family is one such unit. Both parents and children should make individual efforts to lovingly respect the family laws, more popularly known as house rules. Some examples of these rules are eating dinner together in proper attire, watching TV up to 9 pm on schools days, and doing their share of household chores.  Involve your children in setting these laws or rules and regulations. Let them own these laws, house rules and regulations so that they will practice living by them.

Sometimes we are too dogmatic.  Our children need freedom so why not give it to them? Just make sure that we explain to them the responsibility attached to that freedom.  Tell them, “Do you want freedom? I will give it to you. But what will you give us in return?  Do you know your responsibility for having it?”  If we parents do this, our children will learn how to become more responsible and will think twice before asking anything from us , especially if they are not yet sure if they can give back something in return..

Similarly, if one of our children, especially our eldest child will ask us to be given authority, this is perfectly fine.  Give it, but again, we should ask if he or she knows the accountability which is also attached to the degree of authority that is being asked for. An example of this is when your child asks for a blanket authority to use your office driver when he needs him. A good parent should emphasize to him that he has to be responsible enough to make sure that he should follow all the company’s policies and procedures for personal use of the driver and be accountable for the consequences of using the driver such as delayed deliveries of basic services assigned to the driver. 

As parents, we should also make effort to balance silence with sweet words.  Let us avoid giving them silent treatment.  It is better for us to talk to them in a very sweet manner using kind, gentle and sweet words.