How would you raise your kids?

[Keef]

I've always asked myself this question.

What would you say if they asked about god or where they come from? 

Would you raise them like every other parent raises their child, or would you take another approach?

What about schooling, type of friends they interact with, what type of food would you feed them, how would handle this?

Would you teach them about non-duality?

I'm interested to know how would above-average conscious people would raise their kids if they had the opportunity

 

[aurum]

12 hours ago, Keef said:

What would you say if they asked about god or where they come from? 

I don't imagine I'd say anything initially. I'd just ask them if they wanted to join me for meditation, as that would largely answer their question.

12 hours ago, Keef said:

Would you raise them like every other parent raises their child, or would you take another approach?

Many parents are extremely unconscious and therefore can't help but raise their children in a similar manner. Which then leads to even more unconscious parents. So that cycle certainly needs to be broken.

Mainly, we need to listen to children more and validate their inner guidance / emotions. Just because they are a child doesn't mean Source isn't speaking to them.

I also don't think the nuclear family is the ideal setup for child raising. It was never meant to be a two person job. Children are meant to be raised more communally. But most people can extremely defensive and protective about other people raising their kids.

12 hours ago, Keef said:

What about schooling, type of friends they interact with, what type of food would you feed them, how would handle this?

Schooling is tough because the education system is largely unconscious. At the same time, home schooling seems to have its own problems. Especially when it comes to children to exploring the world on their own and developing social skills. They can't just be around mom and dad all the time.

Food is another area where we need to start teaching children to start listening to their body instead of just shoving food down their face. Especially since most food available in society is toxic and unreal.

12 hours ago, Keef said:

I'm interested to know how would above-average conscious people would raise their kids if they had the opportunity

Admittedly this is all very theoretical. I don't have kids although I would like them. Perhaps after having kids I'll discover that I was filled with idealistic notions about parenting and how it would work. But I think anyone can see that there are changes that need to happen in the world of parenting.

[At awe]

I think these are good questions. Certainly made me analyze my parenting skills. 

Wondering if there are no parents in this forum or is it so that children as individuals can be so different that generalization doesn’t work. 

Since nobody else stepped in I ‘ll give You my opinion. You can decide, if it’s worth something or not. I consider myself to be average but oh well.

I think that the parent could begin with themselves. Try to analyze and understand their own shortcomings and plusses. Often times it’s necessary to go outside your comfort zone, learn new things, improvise etc.

Find all “broken files” that he/ she downloaded/was programmed with from /by previous generations. Some parenting skills are ok to take over, some a total no no. Good parents brake the cycle of bad techniques.

Good parent is able to switch to child's point of perception. Patience- quite obvious. Eye contact, calm and understanding. Answering all WHY questions, regardless how strange they sound. Really taking time to explain! Giving examples using simple concepts. Letting the child to choose is very important in my opinion. Much more than giving ready answers. Asking high quality questions, to make them think etc.

Above all lots of love, will to understand and really listen.

This is pretty much how I approached this challenge. So far so good. She’s 18.

We shouldn’t forget of course that “above-average “ parents can raise a total brat and bums a decent one?

 

[Keef]

@At awe @aurum Thank you for your replies ?

I agree, I think its very challenging to raise a high conscious family when you know how toxic the world around you is. However, looking forward to get my own kids 

[Luc1nda]

Raising kids would be an interesting one, I dont plan to do it but if I ever did, i'd firstly only have 1, and if I wanted another i'd have one 14-ish years later, around the time when children become a lot more concious and hit puberty, that way I could meet all their needs with undivided attention. 

I'd surround them with people, maybe older, maybe other kids who have concious parents (if there are any lmao) so they learn to socialise with other people. I'd surround them with creative material also, like building blocks or art things (which would be safe), and of course lots of nature, so they have an idea of what the outside world is like. I'd nurture them and give them a lot of love and try my best to be extremely positive around them, and teach them to be curious and go on their own adventures with their imagination. I would surround the house with natural based foods, like fruit, nuts or anything easily digestable and high in protein, I'd take them out to many places such as beaches, forests, cities, and keep them firmly by my side. 

If I'm honest, I wouldn't want to send them in their first years to any form of school, to avoid bad social pressures and influences, in their first years i'd firmly teach them myself, firstly that learning will help you and make you feel better, or develop some reward system to make things 'fun' and pleasant, then i'd teach them the basics like how to read, basic mathematics, how to tell the time etc, and I'd also prioritise the fact that they should avoid 'taking the path of the least resistance', by this I mean engage them in being active in their learning and not lazy and unenthusuastic. 

A few years down the line, I'll start teaching them basic traps in life, like bad foods, social media, technology, how to deal with bad people, things like addictions, and keep them closest to the truth as possible, but in a way which doesn't traumatize them. I'd then slowly transition them towards school before high school starts, to avoid a sudden and traumatic transition, then thats when they'll start learning a lot of things from personal experience, combined with all the things I would've taught them previously. 

This is when they'll probably start to drift away and rebel, if they started falling down rabbit holes and traps, i'd tell them that calmly and leave it to them whether they want to sort it out or not, and of course i'd tell them HOW to sort out emotional issues, I'd never force them unless they were close to a life threatening or life long damaging situation, i'd let them roam free in the field of life to make sense of it themselves, and they'll learn it all themselves. 

Of course this is only in an ideal world, there would of course be many many outside circumstances where this might not be possible at all, but those are just my thoughts

But if they asked about God, I'd just tell them that God is everything, and I'd tell them to go and find out actively. 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Luc1nda

[Preety_India]

What would you say if they asked about god or where they come from? 

I'll tell them that everything is created by God. 

Would you raise them like every other parent raises their child, or would you take another approach?

I would love them a lot. 

What about schooling, type of friends they interact with, what type of food would you feed them, how would handle this?

They would be sent to a good school. Only proper friends. They will eat what's right for their body 

 

Would you teach them about non-duality?

No. 

I'm interested to know how would above-average conscious people would raise their kids if they had the opportunity

 

[chepushila]

first of all, with the mind

[Emerald]

As someone who has two kids (10 and 6), this is what I've found. 

--

I didn't broach the topic of spirituality with my kids until they started asking questions.

My daughter was a little Buddha when she was under the age of 5, so she'd say stuff like "I feel like I'm the only one who sees things." and "how did all of this get here?" and "Who was I before I was me?" and now she's very much into thinking about "Is any of this real?" 

None of this was ever suggested or discussed by me because I don't want to shoehorn in any religious or spiritual beliefs.

She's just come to these questions on her own. And she tends to have anxiety, and I wonder if it is because she happens to have this deep questioning orientation. I was a very anxious child for this reason... among others. So, I wouldn't want to risk putting my kids in that position if they didn't already naturally have the seeking bone. 

So, I was pretty careful about not sharing too much too quickly with her. And so I just told her that my experiences have been that God is everything and that everything is made out of God and that God is loving. I keep it simple. 

And my son now asks questions about the afterlife and is curious about heaven because he's heard of heaven and hell. And I say that no one really knows what happens afterwards. 

---

As far as raising the kids like other parents, I would say yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that I want my kids to be well-adjusted to the current social structure. So, I do many things the same as other parents. I don't have a sense of needing to be different from most ways of child-rearing unless I really see it as causing problems or genuinely believe that there's a better way to do it.  

However, I see kids as a seed to be watered as opposed to a piece of clay to be molded. So, I do my best to stay out of the way of my kids growth and individuation process. Basically, I put fewer random expectations to be this way or that way onto my kids. Basically, I set the right conditions and boundaries and then let their own individuation process do the work... while also giving them encouragement when they discover new interests. 

--- 

For schooling, I'm a huge proponent of sending kids to public school. I think it is the best way to socialize your child as public school is a youthful microcosm of the wider society. 

For friends, I let my kids gravitate to who they gravitate to intuitively. And so far, my kiddos have had very nice friends. 

Food-wise, I'm not great with this. My son is a very adventurous eater and will eat and enjoy all kinds of foods that usually require a more mature palette to appreciate. So, he's easier to get to eat healthy foods. My daughter is a lot like me when I was a kid... very picky. She has like 6 foods that she likes and none of them are vegetables (unless avocado counts as a vegetable). 

But I'm really big on not forcing kids to eat what they don't want to eat. I'm also the same way about not forcing kids to eat if they're not hungry. That way, they get attuned to their own bodies for eating cues as opposed to certain mealtimes or us parents forcing them to eat something.

---

I don't teach my kids about non-duality because non-duality must be experienced to understand it properly. And when ADULTS haven't experienced non-duality and have learned about it from some secondary source, they tend to get in traps of solipsism and nihilism and existential crisis. 

So, I don't teach my kids about non-duality at all. And I keep my conversations about spirituality only to what they come to me about asking questions.

A child's job is to grow a healthy ego. So, you don't want to upend that very important developmental process. You don't want to create any developmental delays.

 

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Emerald

[Preety_India]

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

As someone who has two kids (10 and 6), this is what I've found. 

--

I didn't broach the topic of spirituality with my kids until they started asking questions.

My daughter was a little Buddha when she was under the age of 5, so she'd say stuff like "I feel like I'm the only one who sees things." and "how did all of this get here?" and "Who was I before I was me?" and now she's very much into thinking about "Is any of this real?" 

None of this was ever suggested or discussed by me because I don't want to shoehorn in any religious or spiritual beliefs.

She's just come to these questions on her own. And she tends to have anxiety, and I wonder if it is because she happens to have this deep questioning orientation. I was a very anxious child for this reason... among others. So, I wouldn't want to risk putting my kids in that position if they didn't already naturally have the seeking bone. 

So, I was pretty careful about not sharing too much too quickly with her. And so I just told her that my experiences have been that God is everything and that everything is made out of God and that God is loving. I keep it simple. 

And my son now asks questions about the afterlife and is curious about heaven because he's heard of heaven and hell. And I say that no one really knows what happens afterwards. 

---

As far as raising the kids like other parents, I would say yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that I want my kids to be well-adjusted to the current social structure. So, I do many things the same as other parents. I don't have a sense of needing to be different from most ways of child-rearing unless I really see it as causing problems or genuinely believe that there's a better way to do it.  

However, I see kids as a seed to be watered as opposed to a piece of clay to be molded. So, I do my best to stay out of the way of my kids growth and individuation process. Basically, I put fewer random expectations to be this way or that way onto my kids. Basically, I set the right conditions and boundaries and then let their own individuation process do the work... while also giving them encouragement when they discover new interests. 

--- 

For schooling, I'm a huge proponent of sending kids to public school. I think it is the best way to socialize your child as public school is a youthful microcosm of the wider society. 

For friends, I let my kids gravitate to who they gravitate to intuitively. And so far, my kiddos have had very nice friends. 

Food-wise, I'm not great with this. My son is a very adventurous eater and will eat and enjoy all kinds of foods that usually require a more mature palette to appreciate. So, he's easier to get to eat healthy foods. My daughter is a lot like me when I was a kid... very picky. She has like 6 foods that she likes and none of them are vegetables (unless avocado counts as a vegetable). 

But I'm really big on not forcing kids to eat what they don't want to eat. I'm also the same way about not forcing kids to eat if they're not hungry. That way, they get attuned to their own bodies for eating cues as opposed to certain mealtimes or us parents forcing them to eat something.

---

I don't teach my kids about non-duality because non-duality must be experienced to understand it properly. And when ADULTS haven't experienced non-duality and have learned about it from some secondary source, they tend to get in traps of solipsism and nihilism and existential crisis. 

So, I don't teach my kids about non-duality at all. And I keep my conversations about spirituality only to what they come to me about asking questions.

A child's job is to grow a healthy ego. So, you don't want to upend that very important developmental process. You don't want to create any developmental delays.

 

 

You're such a cute mommy.

I like how you pay attention to little details.

 

[Emerald]

30 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

You're such a cute mommy.

I like how you pay attention to little details.

 

Thank you ?

 

[Emerald]

4 hours ago, Preety_India said:

You're such a cute mommy.

I like how you pay attention to little details.

 

Thank you.  

Edit: Oops! I just realized that I responded to this earlier. I thought I'd forgotten to. 

Edited July 24, 2021 by Emerald

[hamedsf]

If I had a son, I'd teach him how to be strong in every fucking aspect imaginable... ?