Facebook Parenting
Simple Way #2: The 10 minutes of peace of mind
Human beings communicate in two basic ways, verbal & everything else.
And just as ear plugs stop you from hearing what your kids are verbally saying, having a busy mind prevents you from hearing what your children are telling you through non-verbal cues.
Calm your mind and you will hear what your kids are saying. I know this is going to sound shocking, but if you are a tyrannical ruler desperately trying to hang on to power, then there is one thing you should already know. Happy citizens don’t become angry overnight. You just weren’t listening.
Parents, did you hear that?
To hear some parents talk, it’s as though all of a sudden their child went from loving, sensitive and hard-working, to lazy and dysfunctional. That doesn’t happen. What does happen is you were not listening to what your child was really saying until it became too obvious.
If learning how to listen to your children is not the best way to parent, then it’s certainly very close. However, you can’t listen with an overly busy mind. I know that 10 minutes a week to calm your mind doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you don’t know how to do it, it’s going to feel like eternity.
If you are really stuck, my wife teaches courses on how to attain real peace of mind. Her classes are superbly effective and will help you be a better parent. Feel free to email her: Rbaars@aish.com
Simple Way #3: Get on Facebook.
And every other social media your children are using.
Let me take you back to the days of your childhood. You probably still remember your parents trying to warn you of the many dangers from doing X,Y and lots of Z that they read in the papers. From where they were coming from, it was a new world, one they probably didn’t understand nor could relate to.
You however made up your mind, when it was going to be your turn, you were going to be the cool parents.
And even though it sounds ridiculous now, when Mick Jagger sang about a transistor radio, that was cool. Well, texting is the new Rock-and-Roll, and you need to understand how someone you have never met nor communicated with, ever, can be your friend. Today it’s not hula-hoops they are talking about, but what some teenage phenom’ Tweeted that he had for breakfast.
Listen, I’m not telling you to sport a tattoo, what I am saying is, if you want to relate and connect you have to know what your kids are saying to each other, even if it’s 140 characters or less.