Feeling Criticized in Parenting? Maybe it is you...

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Ah, Byron Katie...




First a quote:

"If I had a prayer it would be:

please save me from ever believing that I need anyone else's love, approval or appreciation."







Another quote, this time from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"If I love you, what business is that of yours?"

Which spawned a variety of variations often mis-attributed all over the internet, my favourite being:

"It is none of my business what you think of me."

 So much of what parents do seems to be about what it might look like to someone else. What someone else might think about it... or them... or their kids. 

The reality of the situation is, though, that everyone in the world is spending an enormous amount of run-time worrying about what everyone else is thinking. 

For the average person this means something so important, I'm going to put it in bold, and then refrain from adding anything else, because it says it all. 

What this means is that all those people, who are thinking about what other people are thinking about them...

are not thinking about you

or what you're doing

or your kids

(unless it's related somehow to themselves)

...so, chill out...

Dated and Irrelevant Schools: Sundaes Made of Meatballs

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A talented marketing writer, possibly named Seth...something... Rogen is probably not right... 

oh, it's Godin-- wrote a book called Meatball Sundaes, a work about marketing in the new reality of social networks, the 'long tail', and the loss of the ability of major corporations mass-marketing not-very-well-made 'necessities' to the bulge in the middle of the market. 

Essentially this was done, in 1951, by dressing up meatballs to make them look 'special' -- make a sundae with them, because chocolate sauce and whipped cream and a pretty little cherry will make them look better and then they'll not be boring old meatballs anymore...

What has this got to do with anything?

Further to the last idea (schools can --or even should-- hold back the tide of technological advancement), school systems and their conventional supporters (everyone from governments happy about the idea of installing propaganda into the majority of minors' heads, to parents happy to have someone else responsible for the poor output at 18) are locked to into the same crisis-creating past-attached disastrous thinking that got GM, Chrysler, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Ford where they are today:

the world is changing but we are right-- our past tactics succeeded because we 

are right and the changes that have happened in the world are anomalies that we

are confident won't last, don't matter and can't affect us because we are too 

big, too right and successful because of divine right and the correct way of the 

world. This is a temporary set-back caused by a minor misalignment of unrelated 

and ultimately irrelevant stars.

Haha ha.

So... my point is that school systems operate on the cusp of

we do things the right, natural, necessary and modern way

arguing that they serve the real needs of the future adults they teach while dismissing technological and economical advances as if they don't matter at all --not to them, not to the system, not to the children, not to the adults those children will become and not to society.

Because embracing emerging technology is expensive and the schools already own all the obsolete technology, they feel secure and the simple position: we need not adapt. Now that 'knowing' is irrelevant in the face of 'finding out' and fact-gathering is the job of

webcrawlers, not people, it becomes more and more ridiculous to 'teach' facts and insist on kids--or anyone--not using the readily-available tools to answer the questions.

The 'regurgitate what I told you' form of education was poor and flawed half a century ago. Today it is not just poor and flawed, it's irrelevant.

When a system is faced with a massive advance in cheap, portable technology, readily available to the average 10 year old, it has two choices: adapt to the technology or go to war with reality. It's sad to watch a whole system engage in a fruitless war when Sun Tzu,

a thousand years ago, knew that the dumbest war to engage in is the one that cannot be won. 

No system in the history of the world has won the fight against reality. 

As my mum quips: mother nature rolls last. 

If the school system was a tyrant, it could have foreseen the troubles it would have with cell phones and stopped them becoming widely available. 

As much as the system and the people in it would like to be The Tyrant, that is not the way of the world --even if it seems, from here, that once it was.

It isn't. Now:

adapt or suffer

Does it seem ironic to anyone other than me that it is the most educated, the most expert on learning, who cannot conceive of a successful way to use the advances of cellphones to enhance the education, to incorporate them the way books have been, the way inexpensive paper has been, the way large numbers of same-age students have been, the way video, public address systems and even computers have been? 

It amazes me that no one in the system sees the technology as a wonder, a marvel--a boon to the potential of engaging students. Nope... it's all meatball sundaes: 
we did it right in 1951 and that right way will remain right for all time because we have this big system already in place, that's why.

Jammin' Cellphones, Schools Prove They are Lost in the Past

Am I the only dinosaur who remembers calculators being confiscated in classrooms? 

The controversy over a cell phone jammer at a Vancouver Island school reminds me once again about how fantastically-long it takes the school system to adapt to reality.

An utterly-convinced teacher told me, "you won't always have access to a calculator," which, in the age of solar cells and microchips, sounds like he'd never made it out of the era of slide rules. 

I've seen a slide rule. At an auction. 

My mom had to learn how to use one. My kids can't guess what field the term applies to... maybe playground design?

And so we move on...

With nano-technology coming -- soon-- it seems to me the schools (and the people in them) can use the upcoming years to see if they can catch up to Y2K, so maybe by the time the internet is accessible by blinking or something at least they can deal with a cell phone the size of a deck of cards.

One day in the not-to-distant-past, it will become possible for students to access more-information in 5 minutes than the school library can hold, on a piece of hardware that can be readily concealed in a bikini. 

The idea that the people in a school should live as-if this is not the every day reality at life is.. naive. Do I mean 'naive'? Maybe I mean 'ludicrous'? Or 'massively delusional'?

The idea that the school system can hold back the tide is... pervasive.

Do You Control Your Thoughts? Enjoying the Spirit of Inquiry

Editor's Note: This post contains affiliate links. Linda Clement only ever shares links to books she has read and believes are of value. No authors have been harmed in the sharing of these recommendations...

I've been reading Byron Katie lately... I read her personal story of coming to her method probably nearly 20 years ago, but never thought to see if she'd written anything at the time....

Nevertheless: I'm currently reading I Need Your Love... is that true? 

and I just finished Who Would You Be Without Your Story? both of which I found fascinating and hard to put down. They reinforce things I've known for a long time, but don't really live and often forget entirely. 

Hilariously, I had just finished a book recommended by my coach (The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander), which reinforces exactly the same things. Then, about two days after I finished the last of them, I found an article in an Oprah magazine about why goal setting often doesn't work... which repeats the theme.


I love synchronicity!


What I Know

• people (me included) are wrapped up in their thinking far more than they are engaged in what is really happening at any given moment

• everything I believe about the world is a result of two things: my perception and my beliefs (thoughts) about my perceptions


• there is no way to find out if another person experiences their world in the same way I do -- no way to find out if when I say 'that's yellow' and they agree if they see the same colour I do... everyone's brains construct 'reality' alone, and while we can agree on the labels there is no way to know if our brains share the perceptions


• people's motives are always for the best -- no one gets up in the morning intending to mess up anyone's life, including their own, even if that is what happens throughout the day

Baby Tyrant: do infants manipulate and plot to annoy?

I found myself once again in the midst of a surreal conversation...

"There is a difference between needs and wants, and she just wants to nurse, she doesn't need to," says a mom of a 5 month old baby.

"She's 5 months old," says I.

"It's just a habit."

Now, I didn't say, "I find eating a bit of a habit, too. I've gotten quite used to that statement over the years..." but I wanted to.

There are two things wrong with 'it's just a habit' and 'she just wants to nurse.' 

The first thing wrong with those statements is that they are predicated on a philosophy of humanity that I just can't agree with: people are, at their foundations, devious, bratty, bad and undeserving of kindness, love, and generosity. 

This is the really big one that hurts my heart when I think of how stingy some people feel compelled to be toward their loved ones. This compulsion to hold all the goodness of life away from others seems to be to avoid the future: so they won't get spoiled or come to think that they're worthy of love or generosity or anything else completely unreasonable like that. 

That dark view of humanity is quite painful to watch, and I just never know what to say to someone holding that opinion, I don't know how to bridge the gap -- but I want to.

The second thing wrong with those two statements is that they rely on an adult-level understanding of devious behaviour, maliciously aimed at 'getting something' undeserved or unwarranted. 

Now, I will skip over the fact that I don't think adults get up in the morning thinking 'now, how can I screw them out of happiness, love, and good things so they'll be miserable?' While I'm not an optimist, exactly, I am a pragmatist and I know that no one gets up in the morning thinking of anyone more than they are thinking of themselves. They may be thinking about what they get can 'from them' but it is universally 'for me' not to do damage to anyone else.

A friend has the best-ever response to the implication that an infant is capable of such advanced thinking:

Honey, I know that you're little one is exceptionally brilliant and superior to all other human babies born to date and advanced well beyond her age, but at 5 months, there is simply no way she can plot to overthrow her parents.

Babies certainly learn quickly, and every generation is significantly smarter than the last... but, seriously!!

The child can't even open a drawer yet! 

Let the baby be a baby without polluting her motives with anything other than the instincts she has for survival, one of which is the need to keep the big people who are fully capable of throwing her off a 21st floor balcony from doing so.

Babies are fragile, incapable of keeping themselves safe, unable to care for their most basic needs, from cleanliness to nurishment. What would be in it for a baby to antagonize the people who keep him alive? This is such an important question, I think I'll put it in bold...

What would be 'in it' for a baby to antagonize the people 

who keep him alive?

If the baby gets to nurse in the middle of the night -- for any reason -- what is going to be bad about that? Breastmilk is the best possible thing any baby can eat, and direct from mom it comes in a warm and loving embrace, a sense of being cherished, affirmation of the child being worthy of nurturing, and both physical and psychological comfort.

See what I see: you are wrong

Trust... it's a big word, and a big idea. It's something I found along the way, kind of by accident...

When my kids were really little and still thriving on breastmilk alone, it struck me that there were a few things they knew that I had no way of knowing. 

They knew if they were hungry or full. They knew how much they'd had to eat and how much room they had left. 

Whatever I might be the worldwide expert about, when it came to knowing my children better than anyone else, anywhere, it was perfectly obvious that there were some things they knew more about than me.

They knew how they thought and felt. I had access to what they expressed.

They know how they feel -- I can only take their word for it. Even if I think they're confused, if they're convinced they're angry, not sad, they are experiencing it -- I'm only seeing the effects on their faces, any amount of which may be nothing more than muscular habits, or unrelated relaxation.

They know if they're hungry, uncomfortable, weirded out by someone, traumatized by an image or idea or experience, or not. I don't. Contrary to our whole culture's determination about who knows best about children, I can't know. As the mother I can't know.

I can't determine for them what they're thinking or feeling or experiencing. I can't even tell if they see the colour red the same way I do. As close to them as I have been, as well as I have known them -- arguably better than anyone else in the world ever has or ever will -- I can't experience their experience, and I certainly can't tell them what it is. 

They know themselves better than I can ever know them... always.

From this awareness, I grew trust. 

I could either take their word for it or I could determine that they were wrong. Something about that idea just would not go down. I couldn't look at their faces and tell them that what they were experiencing was not happening. Not with credibility. Because it wasn't happening to me.

To this day, the pervasiveness of 'someone else knows better' astonishes me. This week, one of my bright, young adult daughters told me something like 'that's not what you see.'

From somewhere other than my intentional influence, they have both absorbed the culturally 'normal' reaction: you see what I see or you are wrong.

Just Stop: pushing kids to grow up is terrible

There is a fair pressure in our culture to shove children ever faster through the phases and stages of growing up. As a society, we think we know where we want them to be in 20 years, but we don't have faith that they'll get there without force. We do not believe they will automatically and naturally grow and mature. We are wrong.



It takes continual effort to impair a child's natural drive to mature, just as it takes willful effort to stop them from responding to their bodies' needs. When children are trapped for years on end in a closet or cellar (or sensory disability) without any contact with adult activities like walking and talking, yes, children will fail to progress appropriately. For some reason, though, this realisitic concern has bled over onto everyday parenting. Ironically, the result of trying to force children to mature is actually to stunt their growth.

Benjamin Hoff, in The Te of Piglet, describes a time in Chinese history when people felt it was essential for children to learn the art of conversation as early as possible. While the activities that directed this early learning were absolutely effective, the unintended side effect of all that focus on early talking was to push later and later and later the onset of walking.

Today, much the same thing can be seen in the early reading programs: yes, it is possible to teach a child's brain to decode written language earlier than it would on its own. So? At what cost is this 'earlier is better' promotion of reading? I don't know, but it is not possible to divert the energy of the brain's development from its natural path and not derail some other development.

Do early readers wind up as better readers? Absolutely not. I have personally known children who read before their third birthday because their brains were clearly attuned to that task. Today they are indistinguishable from their peers... in fact, they are indistinguishable from the many children I have known who didn't catch on to reading until they were 12. This is also the case with potty training, walking, dancing and playing the violin: by the age of 18 it is impossible to tell who started at 2 and who didn't start until 12.

Beyond this, where is the evidence that all this coercion to do things as early as possible isn't solely responsible for the arrested development seen in the 20-somethings who still wear what look like toddler's clothes and carry stuffed animals (or wear costume ears or tails everywhere) and respond to challenging tasks exactly like 2-year-olds: by refusing to do anything at all, with or without a temper tantrum?



Where is the evidence that it is safe or healthy to manipulate the growth and development pattern of a child?

There is a lot of fear that a child will be (to quote the frightful US government program) 'left behind' if she doesn't get pushed ahead as fast as possible. Well, there is a lot of fear in parenting and children's education, period. But what benefit does this fear of the future have for kids? Children become aware that they are 'behind' or that others are 'ahead' and because of our deranged and contradictory values, quickly learn to believe that this is the same as failing--and worse: being worth less. Their self-esteem becomes predicated on things outside their control (viz: the growth pattern of their brains), which is a simple recipe for a lifetime of misery.

Children, given space and time and access to a variety of people in a variety of settings, will learn everything they need to know, develop all parts of their brains, and become (eventually -- not immediately) well-rounded, fully-grown adults. Just as it is not possible to make an infant into a physically-mature, full-grown adult in 6 years, it is not possible to make an infant into an emotionally-mature, fully-educated adult any faster than it will happen on its own. It is possible to stunt growth, but it is not possible (or desirable) to accelerate it.

Children are driven internally, physically, mentally and emotionally, toward the things that aid their maturation, at exactly the speed that is right for them. Normal, healthy kids in reasonably normal, healthy settings, the children will grow and develop into adults in about 20 years. Try and stop them.