LET'S TALK ABOUT . . .


                                               "CERTAINTY IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD"


A couple of events recently have prompted this blog about how to live with some kind of certainty in an increasingly uncertain world.  In addition, how do parents raise children in that same milieu.  I have heard two educators refer to the rise of anxiety in their students this fall.  What do we need to consider in putting together our own plan for ourselves and our children that allows us to hold that tension between what is certain and what is uncertain?

We as adults need to figure out how to navigate life with all its uncertainties.  One of the concerns nearest to our hearts and often the most powerful in our lives is the well-being of our children.  When they are not doing well it is an effect of natural affection and parental instinct to carry them on the front or back burners of our hearts, which is often determined by our own perception of where their struggles fall on a continuum of warranted concern.  It is good and healthy for our children to struggle in some ways and not in others.  Do we know the difference?

We need to be parents who know how to live out having "a watchful eye" over them without generating increased levels of anxiety in them, even nonverbally.  We know for a fact that children will just naturally take their cues of concern from their parents verbal and nonverbal communication.  So it is important that we consciously and intentionally monitor our own awareness of what we might be communicating to them on any given day or in any given situation. Then, being aware of our own propensities out of our own issues, we need to teach and model for our children what we hope is a successful plan to develop healthy skill sets in them while still working on our own.

There are several principles we need to consider.  First, try to be age and developmentally appropriate in terms of what each of your children are exposed to. They are all different and at different stages of development.  They each have their own biogenetics, personality constructs, life experiences, birth order tendencies and so forth.  One of the ways we "miss" children is through formulaic parenting.  We need to make it a priority to know each of our children individually so we can effectively meet those nurturance needs.  I call it preplanned parenthood; it has a strong preventative component.

Second, we need to be that safe harbor or pit stop (as adolescents) where they can come and access all the resources we have to offer them, internalize those resources and go back out into their worlds to practice mastery of self and the development of their own unique skill sets.  Most parents would like to believe that just the fact that they possess some kind of love for their children means they are experienced as safe by all their children.  That is not necessarily the case.  This is why we need to know each of our children.

Third, we need to love them in ways that are healthy, developmentally appropriate and that reflect both who we uniquely are as well as who they uniquely are, according to their nurturance needs and love receptors.  We need to be their biggest cheerleaders as they walk out our doors into their daily routines.  We do not, however, want to teach them or condition them toward entitlement or that their worlds will always cater to them; we do this by not doing it in our homes out of a healthy sense of what they need developmentally.  They still need to learn to live in this world.

Fourth, we need to be other-centered parents.  At this point I would love to ask about our reasons for having children.  I believe the choice to have children is a choice to invest in the lives of the next generation for their good.  That is an amazingly gratifying and demanding experience.  It is hard work.  The best legacy many of us will leave this world are the kind of citizens we have invested in leaving to carry on long after we are gone.  Having said all of this, I realize that many children in this world were not the conscious intentional choice of a healthy adult longing to invest in such a legacy.

We cannot control or change the increasing uncertainties of this world on so many levels.  We can, however, do everything within our power to let our children know they have parents who love and accept them as unconditionally as we are capable of and who are willing to be there for them for as long as we can.  Hopefully they will be able to internalize some measure of that and learn to be strong, self-respecting selves who can love and access the nurture they need to meet the challenges on a day to day basis.  I hope they can be certain of their authentic selves and parental love as they walk out into that uncertain world.

One of the glaring issues this blog generates is the issue of not having had that kind of conditioning world for oneself before having your own children who are putting the spot light, without knowing it, on all those deficits in your own conditioning, etc.  This, however, is focused more on children; so we will save that for another day.  We are not without resources for filling those nurturance needs in our own lives while raising our children. 

Until next time . . . this is, Just Janice!