by Susan R. Johnson MD, FAAP, Raphael House
Parenting is one of the most awe-inspiring, noble, and challenging professions. Yet, being a parent gets so little support and appreciation from our culture. It was much easier for me to go through medical school, a pediatric residency, a fellowship, and work as a pediatrician, than be a parent. I can't remember ever being so depleted and exhausted as I have been these past 7-1/2 years parenting a child. I think some of the exhaustion comes from the developmental work that I needed to do (and am still doing) on myself, when faced with this bright-eyed, intuitive, energetic, developing boy. Raising a child provided me with the opportunity to re-live my own childhood. I am discovering that all my unresolved feelings and thoughts, that were long ago repressed, now have come bursting forth to the surface.
(To continue article, click "read more" below)
A few months ago, I spent a weekend participating in a Natural Learning Rhythms workshop for parents that was organized by a group in Nevada City called Encompass. Many of the thoughts and ideas about childhood were similar to what I recently had learned during my Waldorf teacher training and anthroposophical medical course. During the workshop, I learned that each age group has its own wisdoms, nourishing "foods," and poisons (or threats) to development. For example, children in the first seven to eight years of life live in their body and their senses. They are sponges to all that they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. They are doers that are trying to integrate their sense of hearing, sense of vision, sense of balance, sense of movement, and many other subtle senses.
Children in this age group also have this incredible capacity to perceive our soul moods. It is not the words we say that teach children of this age group, rather it is who we are on the inside. It is the tone of our voice, our attitudes, our gestures, our mood of soul, and our ability to remain present in the moment (and not be so scattered and overwhelmed by thoughts of past failures and future worries). Children absorb who we are and what is around them into the deepest core of their being. Therefore, we must ask ourselves if we are worthy of their imitation, and if the environment that surrounds our children (what they see and hear) also is worthy of being imitated.
From the parenting workshop, I learned that the 0-to-8-year-old child is trying to discover his or her own strengths, determine his or her own boundaries, and come into his or her own body. These are the wisdoms of this age group. The nourishing foods for this age group include loving touch, security, warmth, flexibility, and nourishment of body, soul, and spirit. Children of this age group need clear rules and boundaries, lots of predictable routines and daily rhythms, good nutrition, lots of sleep, and not too many choices (actions and examples speak louder than words). To threaten children, either physically or verbally, is a poison because it causes them to withdraw physically and etherically (their life forces) and also at a soul and spiritual level. This undermines their ability to discover their strengths, to explore their boundaries, and fully enter into their body.
An important idea I learned from the workshop was that all children, and especially teenagers, act as mirrors of their environment and our culture. Children show us our shadow, and teenagers show us both our shadow as parents and the shadow of our culture. In other words, sometimes the characteristics that we as parents refuse to acknowledge in ourselves, or in our society, can be seen in our children. If we were not allowed to show anger in our childhood, then often our children demonstrate lots of anger and ignite our own. If we were taught to be afraid of anger in our childhood, then our child can control us with outbursts of anger when he or she wants something.
Our relationship to our children, just like our other intimate relationships with family members and friends, continually reveals our shadow, and therefore provides each of us the opportunity to transform and heal our soul.