(ThyBlackMan.com) As a spiritual teacher and an artist, I cross paths regularly with many clients who are in the process of “finding themselves”. I’ve crossed paths with retirees who are on a quest to find their purpose, to find their calling, their place in life. Many of my clients are just learning the importance of self expression. They’ve missed multiple opportunities in life because they weren’t able to effectively communicate their needs, wants and desires to others.
While I know, like I know that everything happens in its own perfect timing, I can’t help but wonder what could have been done during these adults formative years to instill a knowledge of self within. In the black community “self knowledge” is usually limited to studying one’s history and while it is important to have a sense of race pride, knowing about those who came before us doesn’t always bring about the clarity of who we are: as an individual.
So the question of the moment is, what can we do as parents to instill character and self knowledge in our youth?
Give Your Children Options. Making decisions is imperative to the process of ‘growing up’. Children must learn, preferably under our guidance, that each decision has benefits for them to reap or consequences to suffer. While our natural instinct is to protect our children, we also must face the fact that our babies are adults far longer than they are children. Society is not taking it easy on youth today! We have to bring our children
to a place where they can make split second decisions without us. They don’t have time to pick up the phone and ask you if its cool to skip school, pop a molly or enjoy a little lovemaking.
When options are presented to them, they must be well equipped and confident in their ability to make a choice and stand in it. For younger children its as simple as picking out 10 outfits and letting them choose what they are going to wear each day. For older children it benefits them to choose what afterschool activities they want to engage in as well as what they want to do career wise. When we present our children with choices, we introduce them to self awareness and personal responsibility.
Teach them! Share your wisdom with your children. Any skill that you’ve learned whether barbering, sewing, accounting, writing, website building, etc. your child should be able to do at least on a beginner level. That’s not to say you should encourage them to follow your footsteps but they should definitely have your skills under their belt. Every child should leave home with a money making skill that was passed down from their parents. In addition to your skills, share childhood and early adulthood stories with your children. During my formative years my grandmother told me countless stories and while I don’t remember each story, I do have the morale of the story.
Even now in my 30s my mom shares stories of when she was growing up. Its something about seeing your parents, not as the “know it all” but as a human being that makes you want to share your experiences with them. If you are too ‘perfect’ your children will attempt to hide everything which means you can’t guide them properly. Be human! Tell a story and share what you learned from you. Even you will benefit from those memories and seeing how far you’ve come in life.
Allow them to lead grace, prayer and/or meditation. I do realize that for most adults when it comes to prayer we recite rather than coming from the heart. While I don’t discourage learning and reciting scripted prayers, I am a lover of hearing children lead prayers. Have you ever experienced a child lead meditation? It’s one of those things better experienced than heard about. Children are naturals when it comes to speaking and listening to Spirit. They aren’t weighed down by expectations, they aren’t carrying around years of suffering. They bring a sense of hopefulness, innocence and love to our spiritual environment. Just don’t be surprised if you end up on a remote island with crystal clear sand, sky blue water and a dolphin that happily takes you on a ride to live for! Oh the places youthful minds will take you, if you allow them to do so.
Encourage Self Expression. Communication rules the nation! Yet when it comes to youth, they are encouraged to “stay in a child’s place”. At times it seems regardless of what they say and how they say it, they’re wrong. It is our responsibility to teach our children how to express their feelings and we must learn to listen. Children learn how to respect others by the respect that we as parents give to them. We should never be too busy to listen. We should be the first to let them know how valuable and important it is for their voice to be heard. Youth who lack communication skills follow the footsteps of other youth who do, wouldn’t you rather your child be a leader? The voice of their peers? The voice of their generation? Encourage them to speak, write, draw, dance or sing their feelings for the world to experience.
Encourage them to ask questions. Yeah, I said it! Closed mouths don’t get fed. Allow them to ask as many questions as they like. This assists them in mastering self express and it also gives you insight to where your child’s head is, what their interests are and the direction they are headed. Followers never ask questions, they just do as they are told! When they don’t understand something in class, let them know its okay to raise their hands to get help. If they disagree with you, let them know its okay to ask questions respectfully.
At times we forget how few years our children have been on this planet and that they’ve only have a few personal experiences to pull from. I’m noticing that many parents get irate when their children ask questions they can’t answer, when in fact we should be thankful that our seed just presented us with an opportunity to expand our horizons. Teach them through our willingness to continue learning, that “I don’t know” isn’t an acceptable answer. If you don’t know, find out! Lead by example.
Have Fun! Allow childhood to be fun again. I’ve seen children with more hectic schedules than mine, they’re parents are cramming everything they felt they didn’t get to experience into the child’s life while conveniently forgetting all the fun times they had as a child. Sometimes in our efforts to make our children’s lives so much better than ours, we end up doing even worse damage. I’m even noticing a trend with parents making their children “exercise”.
How does walking on a treadmill instill healthy living habits in children? Healthy living comes from happiness! Create ways for your child to experience happiness with you. Take a bike ride, challenge them to a game of basketball or tennis, have a coloring contest, have a bake off. Find games and activities that you both enjoy so when they ‘grow up’, they can tell wonderful stories about how they used to wear you out on the chess, checker, monopoly board.
This discussion doesn’t end where this article closes, I’d love to hear from you! What are you doing in your household to assist your children in building character and having a healthy knowledge of self? It still takes a village to raise a child.
