“There are so many rules at Carrie’s house!” my 10-year-old daughter tells me. “Rules about what they have to do when they get up in the morning, and during the day, and when they go to bed at night. They actually have a chart posted on their bedroom door.”
Lia simply cannot believe it. I search my mind, looking for a rule, any rule, we might have in our home. Let’s see, rising at a certain time? No, unless we’re going somewhere that requires an early start. Everyone sleeps as long as they need to feel rested. Eating everything on one’s plate? No, each person eats as much as their bodies feel comfortable with. Going to bed at a certain time? Well, we can certainly all tell when we’re tired.
Making the right choice
As homeschoolers, we accept that each family does what is right for them, but when Lia began telling me about her friend’s household, a seed of doubt stirred inside me, the kind of seed that, left to grow, creates a crack in one’s foundation. “You probably should have some rules,” a voice inside my head chided me. “What kind of children are you raising? They’ll go out in the world and find that it is made up of rules. They’ll flounder or become rebellious.”
I heard the voice, but couldn’t quite buy it. I know how I feel about our son and daughter – they’re interesting people, the renaissance type – and others continually tell me that our children are two of the most polite, kind, and decent people they have met. How did they get this way without rules? I decided to search the question more deeply, and perhaps pull the plug on that voice of doubt.
At the beginning
We didn’t begin parenting with the idea that we wouldn’t have rules. We didn’t begin parenting with any expectations other than that we would raise our children to be human beings. My husband and I have spent most of our adult lives exploring exactly what that is. We are certain that inside each of us lies the wisdom we need to live healthy lives. The challenge has been to learn to access that wisdom. We knew when we began our family that the feeling body was the key, but what we didn’t realize is that children have a much easier time of reaching their feelings than adults, IF we don’t talk them out of it. They also know how their physical bodies feel, IF we don’t talk them out of it.
Invite a checking in
So rather than telling them what we think, what they “should” do, or providing a set of rules, all we really have to do as parents is ask our children to check in with themselves. This is not the same as the popular concept of giving kids choices. I am talking about helping our children develop the self-awareness and discernment that naturally bring about good choices on their part.
My daughter, even as early as age six or seven, would often take only two bites of her dessert, put her spoon down, and declare, “That’s enough for me! I don’t want my stomach to hurt.”
She discovered at a young age that if she ate too many sweets, she would suffer consequences. When she was three and four, she would get diarrhea if she ate more than two sweet foods, including fruit, in a day.
Our son, always eager for a like-minded friend but rarely able to find one, proclaimed after an exhausting overnight visit with a boy his own age, “I just can’t do it! My ears hurt from the noise, I have a headache, and his mom won’t stop talking. It’s not worth it.”
Building self awareness
Good judgment. Hard to find these days, when there are so many seductions in the world. Our children have benefitted from our allowing them to honor their feelings, although they are still pressed upon to give them up. Lia’s friend wants to do something dangerous. Our son, 16, flip-flops almost daily regarding closing his Facebook account, aware of its addictive quality and its negative effect on his nervous system.
What we work on in our household is noticing the difference between desire, as in “I want another piece of cake”; ideas, as in “I know I shouldn’t have another piece of cake because it’s not really good for me”; and what our feeling and physical bodies are telling us, as in “My stomach is starting to tighten up, I have a little bit of a runny nose, and when I imagine having another piece, it’s as if everything’s closing down around me and I feel tired.”
You may think this a tall order for a five-year-old, but you would be surprised how eager a child can be to tell you exactly what he’s feeling, and what he wants.
As our children got older, we would hear dilemmas such as, “I really, really want to stay overnight at Carrie’s tomorrow night, but she likes to stay up so late, and that makes it easy for me to get sick.” Or, “I really want to go with Michael to the fair tomorrow, but I’m not sure I’ll have enough energy for my tournament the next day.” Desires are ever-present, but so is an understanding of where they lead.
Tracking a desire
When we’re really on it, we attempt to track a desire to its source. Typically, the desire is pointing to some unease, a nervousness, frustration, or fear.
“I want some ice cream. Now.”
“What are you feeling?”
“Mad. Can I have some ice cream?”
“What are you mad about?”
“I don’t know. I’m just mad. Now, can I have some ice cream?”
“How about just staying with the mad feeling first? Close your eyes and tell me what’s there. What are you mad about?”
“I don’t know. I just want to be mad.”
“Okay, let yourself be mad for as long as it takes to feel what it is you’re mad about.”
Because I have not agreed to let him numb out with ice cream, my son is left with a much more alive, albeit uncomfortable, situation, one that will bring him to his truth. Then we can have a discussion about how he might truly address his concern, rather than apply a “fix.” And by the time we get that far, the desire for ice cream has usually disappeared.
Confident in the body’s messages
As we’ve practiced making decisions from within, our children have become more confident in relying on the messages they receive from their own bodies and feelings, which in turn has given us parents more confidence that when they aren’t around us, they will still be okay.
Does this mean we never make poor decisions? Hardly. We’re still learning. I find it ironic that while my husband and I have been vigilant about asking our children, “How does that feel?” it is tremendously easy to ignore that simple question with ourselves and jump into old habits we acquired in families that did not ask the question. I have made a vow, for example, to stop and eat when I am hungry (believe me, at 110 pounds and a lightening-speed metabolism, I need to). This means I have to check in while doing anything else and notice how I’m feeling. In the past, I would go for a whole day without eating, overriding my hunger out of robotic mode.
Receiving feedback
The side-benefit of increasing our self-awareness is that when we do make poor decisions, we receive feedback that helps us make better decisions next time. And in that reality, there are no “bad” decisions, only learning.
“Mom, I just can’t decide if I should keep on with my clarinet lessons,” my daughter agonizes. “I know I’m not practicing as much as I should, but the songs are getting so difficult.”
“So, it’s not being as fun?”
“Not as fun. Daddy said I could stop for awhile, but I just can’t give up my clarinet,” she says with tears in her eyes.
“Okay,” I tell her, “what if we cancel this week’s lesson and you try playing only when you truly want to play? Let’s see what happens, how you feel then.”
“I guess,” she replies skeptically.
I have come to recognize that Lia has many voices inside her head that tell her what she should or shouldn’t be doing. Many are based on fears and “what-ifs.” Unspoken and unchecked, those hidden voices become tyrants.
“What are your fears?” I ask.
“I’m afraid of losing what I’ve learned.”
“You need to take the pressure off yourself,” I tell her. “Then you can get back in touch with your real motivation for playing. It may seem like a risk, but it will lead you to the next step. You’ll know for yourself, not because someone else told you to practice. And you know, a love of music never goes away.”
We have even taken the feeling question to the pre-consumption moment. “How would your body feel if you ate eat that cookie?” or “How does it feel when you consider going to Carrie’s house, contracted or expansive?” Our goal is to help our children make their choices by becoming previous. In other words, if, before making their choices, they search a possible choice by first feeling it, then their power of discernment grows. All the information they need is available, if they’re willing to stop a moment, feel it, and really listen.
Following nature’s rules
In the end, I realize that we do have rules in our home. But they are not man-made rules. They are nature’s rules. We get sick when we eat foods that take us out of balance. We become tense and unhappy when we override our spiritual dimension. These are the laws of human beings, and I am happy to live by them. The more we honor our nature, the more vibrant and fulfilling our family’s days become.
