I like to start with “Identity”. We help define the identity of our children by who we tell them they are. Did you ever have a parent hurt you? Make you feel you weren’t good enough? Those are wounds we carry. Kai and I want to establish the identity for our children that they are loved, they are children of God, and reinforce the good qualities we see in them. Yes, ultimately they will define themselves, our goal is so that when it comes to growing up and finding out who they are, and their first steps are already in place for self-love.
We begin this by starting at their name meanings. Kail (there is not “Makail” but there is “Mikail”): means “Gift from God”. Joshua means “Jehovah is generous.” Elena means “Bright one”. This is something to share with them as they grow, to embrace this as beautiful.
We then moved to the qualities we see in them. Yes there are more than these but here are the ones that we see them displaying well at this point in life. We want each child celebrated for their gifts and that they each bring different but equally wonderful things to our family. We talk about these things at prayer time at night. We have also taken a tip from our Pastor, when the children are being corrected, we now ask them: "Is this who you are?" For example: "Is this who you are Joshua? You are kind, brave, and joyful. Is hitting kind, brave, or joyful? Is hitting like Joshua?"
"When your inner voice is anxious, angry, offended, ask yourself
“what is it I need here?” When you can define that, there is an opportunity (not always but often) to meet your need and move on."
Here are some things I’ve learned from “Compassionate Communication” that we are attempting to add in our parenting tool box.
“Everything that people do is an attempt to meet needs.”
“Everyone is doing the best that they can to meet their needs at any given moment.”
“Because every expression is an attempt to meet needs, all attacks, criticism, and judgement are tragic expressions of needs.”
“When you feel heard, you can then listen.”
“Make observations, not evaluations, make requests, not demands.”
We are teaching our children to express their needs, understand that all “needs” or “desires” will not be met as they would like, but their requests will be heard. How make requests verses demands. How to self-care and be aware of their inner voices and outer voices. Children are very raw, they don’t keep much inside. Right now, a lot of this is teaching them proper expression on needs and teaching them that they may heard, but hearing is not the same as acquiescing to a request.
Inner and outer voice is something that Kai and I teach more through example. We all have about 4 ways of responding to things.
1-reactive outer response: The knee jerk things we say out.
2- reactive inner response: reactive, often critical or painful things we tell ourselves.
3- reflective outer response: How we speak after we think first, often compassionate
4- reflective inner response: gentler inner voices, compassionate self loving responses
The idea is to accept that we are all going to respond in these ways but try and move to a more compassionate response if possible. You can’t communicate your needs if you don’t love yourself. You don’t honor your needs if you’re people pleasing. To have inner peace you have to make the choice. When your inner voice is anxious, angry, offended, ask yourself “what is it I need here?” When you can define that, there is an opportunity (not always but often) to meet your need and move on.
More good things to come- I can’t wait to share more with you!