September, 2012 - Mace Kingsley

One of the things I hear most often from parents when they come for help with their children is: “I feel like a failure as a parent.” I have to confess that even with a great deal of training even I once felt like this.

The thing I know now that I didn’t realize then, is that even when a person has a great deal of knowledge on handling babies/children/teens, when it comes to your own children, sometimes a parent is just too close to the situation to know best how to handle it. Sometimes we just need an outside person who is exterior to the situation to see the thing we are missing.

I hate to say this, but the truth is that most of the problems that crop up with the children are the things the parents are missing, or the things they themselves are or are not doing or not confronting. Usually this is happening due to lack of knowledge of a better way to handle things. They either do what they have always seen their and other parents do, they have false information or they are miss-applying some correct information they have learned. Our own irrational behaviors, completely justified, get handed down generation to generation. Laughingly, it is often the subject of situation comedies and such. How often do we see a story-line where a parent is trying to handle something their child is doing, which they themselves are doing while we all laugh along at the obviousness of it, the story resolving with the parent figuring it out in the end?

But all is not hopeless and lost. The other truth is that the only way a parent can really fail is to give up! And to find someone to help you or another person that will help your child is not a failure. Remember that saying, “It takes a village to raise a child?.” There is some truth to that. Working at Mace-Kingsley Family Center I was able to talk to other trained people who spotted an obvious error. My daughter and I both were not eating enough protein and therefore getting cranky with each other. Also we needed to spend more time together doing fun things. Most of the time, the answer is so simple that it is easy to miss. Sometimes it is something we are not doing for ourselves that is totally justified and so we miss it in our children.

To get more data on irrational behaviors and the source of them, Mace-Kingsley has an inexpensive DVD that could literally change your life. And if you need help with your children, that does not make you a failure. It makes you smart if you ask someone for help, especially someone with an excellent track record and a reliable, workable technology. Feel free to contact a parent consultant at Mace-Kingsley Family Center at 727-442-3922.

The majority of people I know have the idea of an infinite life. It is a common belief that we are spiritual beings who live to go forward in some fashion or another. Different religions have different ideas and beliefs about this. I recently had a child ask me about the word “infinity” and what it meant to live an infinite life. He thought that it meant only that after one dies and leaves this current body that they would then go forward. I thought about this for a moment and it suddenly dawned on me that truly that was a very limited viewpoint of “infinity”. It made me think about what “infinity” truly is and how one actually creates infinity.

To keep something alive, one gives it attention. To keep something there, one must give it attention and continue to create it. In order for anything to persist, one must create it newly each time or it would deteriorate and eventually crumble, disintegrate or disappear. It is an observable fact.

So to create infinity, one would have to decide on a goal, work to achieve it and when the goal is achieved, be willing to create a new goal and work to achieve that. It is the willingness, attention and constant creation that makes infinity. It is amazing what I recognize for myself when I clear up the words of study material and the confusions of children!

And out of the mouths of babes the child said, “Oh! That is why people get bored and why they are so unhappy. They are waiting to die to live.” I was struck! I suddenly got this idea of a person who had a goal and either had attained it and stopped creating or gave up on it and stopped creating. The person got a job they needed, not that they had a strong purpose or desire for it but to pay the bills, to help the family, to eat. And though they love their family they are bored and not creating fun and life with them.

So they come home and plop themselves in front of a television to be entertained. They sit woodenly with little attention on their own family, as they are interested in the show. Sometimes they share their interest with their family, but then seldom discuss it afterwards. Television and movies are put on to entertain the children “so we can get things done.” Life becomes less and less interesting, the person can become bored, depressed and tired. They must go on for their family so they try to do better and try harder and sometimes they just persevere.

I thought about how different that was from my childhood. When I was growing up we were taught to sew, and embroider, to bake and cook meals from scratch even when there were mixes and ready-made food. My mom taught me to knit when I was seven years old and if we were bored, she handed me something to do or shooed me out of the house to play. Television was only allowed one hour a day and then while we watched, we were knitting or crocheting or embroidering or mending something while we were watching. My dad always had it in his head that if something changed quickly in the environment, we could build a fire and find food to cook a meal and we knew how to do that. We could create and make a future.

Imagine what life would be like if a person was bored or depressed and instead of putting attention on their unhappiness they decided to find someone to help; got involved with their community and helped to clean up a park, help as a tutor in their local school, went down to an assisted living home and cheered up the elderly people or went down to the local hospital to read a story to the children there?

Imagine what it would be like if they decided to take up the art class, dance class, or music class they always had wanted to take and worked at becoming really good at it. Imagine if they created infinity NOW instead of waiting for the end of this life! And imagine if a child could know and understand this at a young age!

At Mace-Kingsley Family Center we work with an extremely effective and observably workable technology that helps families attain true happiness. We help families work in a coordinated effort to attain each of their personal goals together as a team. You can learn more about this by contacting us at 727-442-3922 or by clicking here.

Diane DiGregorio Norgard

Mace-Kingsley Family Center

727-442-3922

Parental Failure

Month: September 2012

Parental Failure

Boredom Vs. Infinity