Keep them CLOSE

Keep them CLOSE

I've been reading the works of Dr Gordon Neufeld, his life altering work on Attachment Theory, he is a theorist, and he is culminating his life work.

It's amazing.

his book you can find here: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Hold-Your-Kids-Why-Parents-Gordon-Neufeld-Gabor-Mate/9780676974720-item.html

his web site http://www.gordonneufeld.com/

I will be putting on a class SOON where he does the teaching, and we get to discuss afterwards. We will all be better for it!!!

Oh, and in case you chased your way here from the twitter feed of @justinATthomson this is one more thing you should also know, I am also the CEO of Heritage Family Services

see me here http://www.heritagefamilyservices.com/team.html

:-) ya, and I love building things so I also own a cabinet company - confused yet???

ok, Keep them CLOSE

I want you to think about this relationship stuff with you HEART I want you to think about how you FEEL when your kids cry. I want you to know, that most times our intuition wins and I would like to spell it out to you in a couple of simple ways.

First thing you need to know is that kids are developing - and SLOOOOOWLY maturing their way into adults. That said - they are not adults yet so instead of telling them to GROW UP show them how to grow up (trust me I made this mistake LOTS with my dear 11 year old!)

back to intuition.

As a mom (or a dad who watches a mom) what do moms naturally do when their infant cries?

they pull them close and soothe.

Okay what do you do when your 40 year old friend goes through a tragedy? You go over, you listen, you exist in their presence, you stay close.

Well turns out this same thing is what we have lost our intuition on in the last 30-60 years with older kids and teens. Now we use the "timeout" and we do so in an uninformed way. That is, lets ask the question, where did this idea come from? Who invented it? Does it work?

It does work, but not in what we want - that is, it does end behaviour, but at what cost? (the time out was created to keep abusive parents from their kids in the heat of anger but does that include you? no, so why are you using it?) Sending our kids away, and saying, "When you are good you can come out" is the equivalent of saying, when you behave you can exist in my presence. But, that is not what we say to the 16 month old crying baby, and not what we say to our 40 year old friend.

in fact, the things parents are saying to their 15 year olds, - What other relationship would they say those things in?

Hey I get it - this parenting thing isn't easy - but that doesn't mean we get to do it wrong. it might be easy to tell a 15 year old "I don't care about your problem" but, that is not what you want to communicate. And the slippery slope starts with the way we parent our kids at 2yrs 3yrs 4yrs.....

Where is this going... eventually what we want as parents is to matter to our kids. Dr. Neufeld simply states, "You want to matter more to your kids, than their friends matter to them." why? Well, when it comes to giving your kids advice about ecstasy - who do you want giving advice, you, or a 16 year old "friend" How about alcohol? dating relationships? marriage? driving? etc etc etc.

When kids don't "attach" to parents - because parents have been sending them "away" when they do not behave (and many other things I'm just picking on timeouts tonight), kids "attach" to their peers - because a basic human desire is "to be known" - in essence to attach.

Keep them CLOSE

How do you do that? simple (ok not really simple - but it gets easier - trust me) GO AND BE CLOSE TO THEM!!!! Dad's tell your daughters they are beautiful, moms and dads tell your kids that you love them!!! This does not mean that you don't discipline it means that you discipline in the context of a relationship. Be NICE!!! When kids get older you can tell them how frustrated you are with them (AND, how much you love them).

Deep down, when your kids face the disappointments that this life throws at them - you want to be the one that they go to. When they fail - you want them to go to you. When they make mistakes - you want them to come to you. When they get hurt - you want them to come close to you. the list goes on. So, now, NOW - go, and be close to THEM.

Keep them CLOSE

or

Someone else will.

slv2all

what you see is what you get

What you see is what you get.

What do you see?

Change what you see, change what you get, change what you do, change who you are.

What you see informs what you do.

Proof: you see a cardboard box in the middle of the street, you swerve to avoid it.

Well you do….

A five year old wants to build a fort out of it.

A community minded person wants to see who’s it is and see if they can help get it back to its owner.

An opportunist wants to see if there is anything in it of value.

A homeless man wants to live in it.

This from a cardboard box.

How do you see in your spouse?

How do you see your kids?

How do you see your job?

When you wake up in the morning, how do you see your world?

You can wake up, and tell yourself that life is hard, that you have a ton to overcome, that you have to struggle and fight your way through your day.

And.

That is exactly what you will do.

This morning I woke up, swung my feet over my bed, and took a breath.

I was thankful for warmth. Thankful for food. Thankful for running water. Thankful for my beautiful wife. Thankful for my awesome kids. Thankful for my car. Thankful for the gift of transportation. By the time I got to starbucks I had a huge smile on my face, and as I put a lid on my coffee the barista said to me “have a great day!” I said in return “It already is the best day I've ever had!”

Her response kinda shocked me in a cool fun way as she said:

“That is two days in a row!”

That made me smile even more.

Life is beautiful.

All Humans are born with natural potentials. We each are born with the exact same natural potentials. And our goal as parents must be, to understand and explore these potentials.

Beyond our kids, we should seek to understand what the potentials of ourselves are, of what our friends are, of what our spouse is, AND we should seek to draw out the BEST in each other. By being positive, by being energetic, by believing in each other.

You are amazing. Your potential, is probably beyond what you think it is. Life isn’t hard – it is a GIFT!!

You are beautiful, because you were born with the exact same human potential as any other person that has ever walked this globe before you!

Tomorrow, try and see things differently.

For what they really are. Or perhaps….

For what they could be….

:-)

slv2all

You don’t know what you’ve got until its gone.

You don’t know what you’ve got until its gone.

This blog post is about relationships.

And guys I want you to read it.

I came so close to botching this up completely, sometimes, when it’s quiet, and its just me, it really freaks me out how close I got to giving up.

Don’t throw in the towel.

Ok, here it goes. (that was the guy pep talk)

I watched a video recently (apparently a viral one) in which a dad “responds” to his daughters “inappropriate” rant on Facebook by posting a video (to her wall) . In the video, he “lays down the law” and then gets up from his chair and literally puts 6 bullets into her laptop.

What do you think? Appropriate? Funny? Entertaining?

Or how about my favorite (ya, the response I hate)

Whatever…

(ooooh nothing gets me like apathy)

Its 2012, and in this day and age relationships are different, WAY different than they ever have been. We have instant communication, Facebook, twitter, text messaging. Dad’s used to say good bye in the morning, and that was it until supper. If Dad worked away, that was it, for weeks at a time. Now it is different, and part of that is good, and part of it, well, not so good.

So, you have relationships.

Friends, Spouse, Kids, Siblings, etc.

Life used to demand that we keep relationships in check. Because without them you starved to death, or died alone in the cold.

We used to need relationships to survive.

Now you need them to thrive.

More than likely, you can think of one relationship that pisses you off, gets you angry, and well just isn’t working – it doesn’t bring you joy, or fulfillment, or peace or happiness. And, you can also think of times when the relationships you consider good, they make you feel that way too.

Let me try and put this in perspective.

There are moments – pure ones that are full of everything you want in life! Fun moments, when you are out with your friends, and its just good solid times, things are clicking, and you are happy. I’ve had moments like that with my little kids like 3-year-olds, good times giggling away at nothing. Or even just good times, like having a camp fire and couple of beers. Or Heck, what about sex with my wife, when we both want to be with each other?

Good times.

We have all had them. How come we can’t make them last?

Not so long ago, I spent the majority of my life in agony over my relationships. Mad. Angry. As a matter of fact, I was so angry and frustrated that a cop (after asking me three times if I was ok) pulled his badge on me, and asked me one more time. “Sir, are you ok?” I can’t tell you how close I was to doing something really stupid.

What changed?

What makes the good times last? What makes anger short? Forgiveness quick? What makes Relationships that continually bring you Joy?

Simple. Understanding them, and working on them.

And this is what the dad in the viral video gets so wrong, his stupid senseless reaction isn’t building his relationship with his daughter. It’s killing it.

Killing it.

Don’t you think that dad wants to walk his little girl down the aisle some day? I bet he does, and I bet he is frustrated with his relationship with her. And here is the tricky part, that relationship is HIS responsibility. Kids have been whining about their parents since they walked in the desert with Moses – come on people! Provide a safe kids for your kids to belong. For them to mature. Be more important to them than their friends. Attach to them.

I’m not taking all the time to answer everything here tonight. But let me just say this, if your relationships are frustrating you, it is because you don’t understand them. We have lost our intuition about relationships. Especially with our kids. And I can prove it to you.

2 situations:

A 12 month old crying in her high chair because she didn’t get what she wants – what does the mother do? Takes the child out, and brings her close. Does it help to yell? No. Does it help to hit? No. It helps to draw close and soothe.

2^nd situation Your best friend looses their 14 year old daughter to a car accident. What do you do? You go over, and you may not know what to say, but you stay in their presence. Does it matter if they are swearing and yelling? Or throwing things? No.

So, why is it ok to be different with a 14 year old? Why do we speak harshly? Why do we shame? Why do we tell them to grow up? Why do we tell them we don’t care? Why do we tell them to shut up? Why do we send them away from us, instead of allowing them, in their frustration to share it with us, to be with us?

And then, after pushing our kids away from us for 10 years, why do we wonder that they won’t listen to us, that they would rather listen and impress friends? Why do we then wonder, why they never call, and why they look coldly at us. Why do we wonder when they then turn and push away from us? Why do we wonder why our relationships are shallow?

You just pushed them away during the most important developmental time of their lives, when they needed your influence to help them mature. And now they practically hate you. But the things you said and did, if you did them to any of your friends, how long would they want to be with you?

We have lost our intuition.

Lets get it back.

Deep abiding joy in relationship is possible.

slv2all

Existing or Living

Often, we get bogged down in the daily grind.

A question was asked to @joJDFT by @katrinalandry – she was looking for some writing on it, some perspective. I copied the question, pasted it into note pad, and let it bang around in the grey matter for a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I got my answer.

This is the question: Are you living or just existing?

I’ve done a lot of existing:

A lot of swinging my legs over the bed, taking a breath, (checking twitter….), stretching my shoulders, making my way through the darkness to find my pants, and start my day.

A bowl of cereal.

A step on the scale.

Finish getting dressed.

Start the vehicle. Feed the dog. Share a moment of thankfulness with the creator – looking at the creation around me.

Then:

Meetings, memos, coffee, reading, twitter, training, thinking, coffee, wishing, meeting, hoping, reading twitter, deciding, creating agenda, ideas, responding, questioning, more coffee, responding, processing.

Lunch. Maybe a workout.

Afternoon looks kinda the same. Then drive home, greet my family – try to BE there for them, try to apply what I’m learning about how to connect relationally with those that are important to me. Squeeze in these couple of hours of meaningful time, some teaching for my kids and some love for my wife. Then tasks take over, we do dishes, feed the dog again, etc, etc, fall into bed will hitting – repeat.

5 days a week. All the while asking myself: Are you living or just existing?

Are you LIVING?

What does that even mean?

As near as I can tell, it is the moments when something deep inside me goes POP! It is hard to explain, it isn’t necessarily emotional, but it can be, it’s like a moment when a bunch of stuff gets mysteriously connected. When past dreams and ideas suddenly come to fruition, when passions beget deep abiding joy. The moments when I have felt most alive are the moments when what is currently happening engages a deep sense of purpose mixed with history, and pride, and joy, to the extent that –THIS MOMENT propels me forcibly into the future to want to do more, to be more, to never be satisfied again with status quo.

For a couple of brief moments yesterday, I felt alive.

And it came with the small voice of an awesome man named ‘Jay’ who in his own way, said thank you.

On any given day Berachah Place, is an odd wellspring of help to Red Deer’s hurting and homeless. It is a simple space, located behind Dino’s in downtown, a stones throw from strip clubs, and night clubs. 120 of Red Deer’s homeless get help there.

A shower.

Laundry.

Warmth.

A bite to eat.

Free clothing.

Every once in a while, you wonder if what you have been supporting, what you have been doing makes a difference.

Then you have a crystallizing moment. When a simple yet profound words are spoken.

What does Berachah mean to you?

“It means life.”

These words resonated deep within my soul. And frankly, made me feel for a brief moment, that I was truly living. Somewhere back there, something little that I did, made a difference to a guy named Jay.

To exist, is to plod along, taking from this existence.

To live, is to give life.

I could have never imagined being a part of a story like Jay’s and as we sat there and listened to him recount the tale of addiction, and hurt, and how he was helped, and set free… And as tears welled up, we realized. We are a part of something special.

Because no matter how low, life is special, and giving it the opportunity to grow and flourish is a power each of us have.

This year we are doing our first annual fundraiser. You can help be a part of the story, for a person like Jay. Sign on today by following the links.

Go for a walk.

Help us Help them.

Go to http://www.berachahplace.com/CNOY.html

Blessings

Slv2all

See a video of Jay’s story here: http://tinyurl.com/Berachah-Is-Life