‎"VOICE OF THE UNIVERSAL CHILD" by Bruce Scott

Someone posted this on Facebook and I had to re-copy it here. I think it is one of the most profound pieces for any parent, Ever! Thanks Way of a Peaceful Parent!

"I really am your gift. I am not just a little person who needs to be "raised" and taught, and taken to activities....I came to the people in my life to bring a message: slow down. Feel. Be. Over and over again. When you do, you will notice immediately, that I am not an obstacle to your work, or inconvenient to your daily life, Instead, you will come to appreciate my honesty, humor, presence and love

• Include me before making decisions that affect me.
...
• Do not throw anything away that belongs to me, unless I am asked first.

• Find out what my experience is like with the teachers in school, and believe me. Take action if necessary. Stand up for me too, as a person.

• Talk to me in the same voice you talk to adults with

• Respect my interests even though they may seem just cute to you

• Do not refer to me as a "terrible two" person

• See me as a whole feeling person when I am a teenager. I am more than raging hormones or "just a teenager." I will do the same for you no matter what your age.

• If you are afraid for me, tell me so honestly with your heart.

• Do not punish me ever. Teach me. Hold me. Love me. Trust that I,
just like you, want to do what is right, and don’t want to hurt anyone.

• Help me understand what I don’t know. Don't call me names, or label me or compare me, or make me compete for anything. Help me cooperate and collaborate. Be the example for me.

• Hug me, Kiss me, and Hold me a lot. Be kind with your smile. It’s all ok.

• If you are upset with something in your life, know when you are upset. Don't be angry with me or blame me, or judge me. If you want me to know something and hear you, notice your voice and angry or judgmental thoughts before you give them to me. I, like you, do not feel good when I am admonished, made wrong or blamed. It just doesn't feel good. I want to hear and understand you. I like being connected.

• If you feel embarrassed by something I am doing, hug me. Come closer. I am being myself completely. If I need to be more aware of others, I want to know that. I can hear your kind voice remind me.

• When you are with me, be completely with me. If you are in your thoughts, pretending to be with me, then you are not with me at all.

• Treat me exactly like you would want me to treat you. Exactly.

• Assume that I “see” everything. I am exquisitely sensitive and can feel pretense, falseness, and hidden agendas. I can also feel love.

• Know when you are sarcastic. Sarcasm is mean and creates distance, hurt and separates us, almost without noticing. Humor brings us together.

• If I am fidgety, seem bored, have difficulty sitting still, talk too much, appear to have a short attention span, please join with me. Ask me, with an attitude of wonder, what my experience is in the classroom, or wherever I appear to not want to be. I am not ADD or ADHD, or any diagnosis. I simply want to be where there is life, movement and creativity happening. (ask me what I mean by all this). Together, we’ll find understanding.

When it looks like I am having, what you call a tantrum, it is all I know to do
to make contact, to be heard, to be taken seriously, to be held.

• I am naturally creative. Notice how I make things out of leaves, or sticks, or bubbles, or crayons. Notice how I like to climb and explore, and discover everything all at once. Listen to my imagination at work. That's not just kid stuff. That is what you might do too if you would join with me.

• Sometimes, I know what to do without reading written instructions. I don't have words for it, I just know. I have the ability to see how things go together. I may do things differently than the way you learned. That's ok. Both ways may work. And anyway, I have fun finding my own way. The destination don't matter that much.

• I may take longer than you completing something. That is because I am in no hurry to get anything done. I haven't learned yet that hurrying, being busy and always anxious, are fun.

• I do not need you to always say Yes to me. Actually, yes or no don't matter. What matters is how you hold me in your heart, how you see me, and your appreciation for me. 'Cause when you appreciate me, and see through my eyes too, a yes or no will always be the right thing for both of us.

• I do not need you to be with me. I need you to be with yourself. When you are with yourself, you are with me.

• No matter how old I am, three years old, sixteen, or forty-five, I am not intending to deceive you, take advantage of you, use you or disrespect you. If you have those thoughts or the belief that I am "asking too much," that is not my intent. I am really, searching out ways to make contact, and to be with you, to acknowledge my presence.

• When I cry, I am feeling. Crying can be like sneezing, feeling close to you, singing or running. It is just my body expressing itself. I might have been sad, or hurt or afraid. When I am feeling in my body, I am relieved. All you need do is be present with me so that I know you are there, but not trying to stop me or make me feel better.

• I am wise. I know things. I see things. I know naturally what I need to know. I believe and trust myself and my intuition. Unless I learn to not trust myself. I have to be taught from the outside to not believe the truth of things.

• I sometimes feel safe in the world. Sometimes I don't. If I feel or sense something, and others don't, (maybe even make fun of me), I get even more scared. I can feel so alone and wrong. It helps when you take me seriously, regardless of my age, and ask me more questions about what I “see,” feel or sense. I might be seeing something you need to know.

• I really am your gift. I am not just a little person who needs to be "raised" and taught, and taken to activities. I am not, by accident in your life. Incredible or unbelievable as this may sound, I came to the people in my life to bring a message: slow down. Feel. Be. Over and over again. When you do, you will notice immediately, that I am not an obstacle to your work, or inconvenient to your daily life. Instead, you will come to appreciate my honesty, humor, presence and love.

Be yourself, and if you don’t know for sure, what yourself is, ask me. (Bruce Scott)

Own the vibration of being Overwhelmed

It’s been a bit of a crazy week. The countdown to our trip is on a roll, our children are feeling the stress and excitement, and my husband and I have to-do lists a mile long. Although, I sometimes wonder if we do have to-do lists or if we’re just so use to having them that we make up extra stuff to fill them up… hmmm.
Anyway, somewhere down the line I pushed my “overwhelmed” button. It was an interesting thing to watch really. From things going by un-noticed, stress falling off my back like water from a duck, suddenly little things started to niggle me. I started picking up the paper, talking about negative events, I started to notice the things that were going wrong, just little things started to become part of the day… the niggling things, the “oh that bugs me” things, that I usually try to avoid like the plague.
Yes, I realize this is a parenting blog, and suddenly I’m talking about myself, but I’ve sometimes wondered what our children think of my writing about their experiences as I do… maybe one about myself will even things out a bit.
It was almost comedic watching Law of Attraction respond… quickly too… 911 quick.
So the niggling things, grew more… well niggly. My frustration was met with more, our poor children were soon wondering why their mother looked so drained and was barely listening. The more frustrated I got, the more focused on the negative, the more down on myself I got. I was aware of my state, so told myself I wouldn’t be able to write well in that state, I started to criticize my own work, started on a spiral…. Oh yeah it’s been a doozy of a week.
LOA made a few negative comments come in regarding my work, a few people didn’t understand my parenting perspective. I watched as I put focus on those few, rather then the ever grown 590 people on Facebook! Yes the Overwhelmed button had been pushed… HARD!
Suddenly all our children would call me at once, they would get hurt at once, need me at once. Then my mother would talk to me, my husband would ask me something, and just when I thought I had my moment at night to find calm and write, BOOM, our little boy would wake up, and sensing I was off, want to cuddle me all night long.
I better jump to the good stuff before I feel down again.
Spiritually Awareness doesn’t mean you’re always on the mark. It doesn’t mean you run around always feeling amazing… It’s about the awareness and doing the work to get on target again. We have to own our vibration, and the feel space we’re in, in order to improve it.
You know what released my button? When I shifted focus from it. Rather then beating the drum of “I’m disconnected, disconnected, overwhelmed, overwhelmed”, I looked around and finally saw… Really SAW the little boy tugging at my pant leg asking me to play. So I did. I dropped everything and played. I chased, played trucks, played ball, built towers, read books, made funny faces, talked about animals noises, gave baths, splashed, and played. I went from being the rushed around, disconnected, not listening mom, and played. I felt better… and I was doing better.
Our daughters are getting older. They don’t want me on my hands and knees pushing little cars around. No, jiving with them has reached a different place now, and I know what it is. Listening. They love to have me listen intently to them, to meet them in that place of knowingness where I can finish their sentences, and maybe make a joke or two. When I’m overwhelmed I rush everyone thru everything. I don’t stop and listen as I convince myself I’m too overwhelmed to take my focus away from my own thoughts right now.
Tonight, I spent ages brushing my daughter’s hair, talking with her, laughing together. I then chatted with our eldest, who could talk about her feelings, and finally had a mother who was listening. Its amazing how feeling like a better mother relieves the overwhelmed sense of parenting.
So many parents get overwhelmed, and we all seem to blame our kids for us being in that state. But its just about shifting focus, it’s about enjoying the moment, loving the time, savouring the experience.
This week I re-learnt that in fact, our children are truly the best way to get out of that state, and no one gets us there except ourselves.

Abraham Hicks had a great quote this week, basically it was that Now is like planning our future. It’s the Now that creates what later will bring. So when we shift focus from where we’ve been, or where’s we’re going, and create the feel good Now, everything else, simply takes care of itself. In this Now, I will feel better… and play.

Win a copy of Who They Really Are!

The wonderful folks at the Natural Parenting Network have organized a giveaway of my book, Who They Really Are: a guide to being a spiritually aware parent! All you have to do is go to this link http://naturalparentsnetwork.com/giveaway-who-they-really-are/ and answer the question in comments as your initial entry! There are then multiple entry options including making comments on this site, so read the fine print for more chances to win!

They did a lovely job of reviewing the book as well, and I would love to extend my thanks! I love the suggestion of giving the book as a baby shower present or other gift, as in the back of my head this was what I had in mind somewhere.

The book is written to tap into what is your personal experience, and through out the book it is pointed out that no matter what, pregnancy, birth, and parenting are your experience. Each of us define these experiences, and on the broader scale, there is a spiritual element of expansion, growth and joy. On the flip side, pregnancy, birth, and childhood is a co-creation with your child. They aren't some thing, they have a spiritual journey too, and even how they come into this world is part of that. Therefore, this book is about tapping into your own instincts, listening to your own connection to your baby and co-creating together. I really hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It was written through the infancy of our little boy, which is one of the most thrilling, enlightening times of my life.

Alright, enough blabbing... go to the link, enter to win, enjoy the review, check out more of Natural Parent Network, and All the best to whoever Wins!

Showing Off with Pride and Joy

We all feel so proud of our children and we love to share that pride with those around us.

It’s been an interesting time these past few weeks. We’ve been staying with my parents in preparation for our trip in June and it’s been quite the learning curve for our little boy.
In new surroundings it was difficult to get him jiving again, but after a few explorations and experiments we got him burbling about. However, with new people around it was hard to keep his cute, playful actions un-noticed. Naturally, in parenting pride and joy, we’ve been calling people over and drawing their attention to his play and cute ways, even as a point of conversation. At first it was a healthy distraction to tell our son to “go tell Grandma,” or “go show Grandpa.” However, over the last few days, although any outsider would tell you he was a happy, little guy, his father and I sensed an ungrounded, disconnected hyperness and spinniness to his 21 month old step. He seemed unfocused and it was effecting him. He got a cold, which was unlike his healthy self and quite honestly, as usually our kids only get sick when they aren’t feeling themselves, it had us wondering what was up.
And then it dawned on me. Suddenly our son was burbling and playing about for other people’s reaction rather then it organically coming out of his inner bliss. He was aware of the show and the performance was what was driving him. We had all gotten into the habit of using him as a reason to feel better ourselves, he’d make us smile, and with his burbling laugh and fun ways, he was sacrificing his own feel good position to make us feel good as a group.
As a spiritually aware parent it’s important not to let our children govern our feeling places for good or for bad. We can’t use them as an excuse to have a bad day or to have a good one. Sure, we can distract ourselves with them, appreciating them, loving them and feeling the joy of watching them play and laugh being everything they really are, but it’s a fine line to passing on the message that we are happy when they are cute and not happy when they aren’t feeling in a fun-loving mood. It creates a false sense of joy for our little ones.
So how do we avoid it when quite frankly it’s a natural reaction to show off our kids sometimes?
Today was the test day. We started with cutting out drawing people’s attention to what our lad was doing. We even told our daughters to stop saying “aw look at him” or “go show your grandparents”. I set him up with a few toys, and sat with him quietly. We watched Mr. Rogers, read a bit, built some towers, found his toy saw and let him pretend to cut away. I watched as he fell back into a sense of self, (looking awfully cute doing it, I’ll admit to you), he chattered, he cooed, he burbled he jived. He then chased his sisters bubbles for an hour, laughing his head off. And we told no one about any of it. Sure my parents might have passed him once or twice, but there wasn’t a sense of showing off, or performing, only being.
He came and sat with me and fell asleep, rather then putting him to bed right away, I let him sit in my arms, sending him messages of security and safety. He then went to bed and napped for 2 hours. He woke up with a sense of groundedness and contentment, as well as ready to rock and roll, playing with us all for a few more hours.
Over the years my husband and I have often talked about the phrase “don’t show off”, and the negative concepts behind it. We felt it squashed a sense of ourselves growing up, as if we had to blend into the crowd. However, today it had me wondering. Perhaps its right, we shouldn’t encourage our children to show off, as then it becomes about other people’s opinions rather then our own instincts. We want our children to do what they do, as it flows directly from everything they are, rather then what they think the grownups around them want to see. Our son is the most lovely, adorable, fun, inspiring little man, and he’s amazing to watch in action. I would love to record everything he does and show the world, but if I did it would stop. No rather, I will let him thrive, glow, and play at his own discretion, I will glow with pride at the sight of it, but not breathe a word to draw people’s attention to it. They will just have to silently appreciate it themselves.