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By Casey Grey
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My son just lied to me.
It was not about anything "big" since he's 6 years old but it's something that needs to be addressed sooner than later so that it is not a habit that turns into lying about big things. As a parent, it would be easy to get upset and punish him for this but what would that do? I believe the more important thing is "why did he feel the need to hide something and then lie about it?" Like any problem, the only way to solve it for good is to get to the root cause. I want to make sure my son knows he can tell me ANYTHING and is not afraid to tell me EVERYTHING. Then I will have succeeded as a parent. As Thomas Edison once said... “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that do not work.” The past can be our greatest teacher if we allow it to be.
Do not dwell on the past as there is nothing good that will come of that. Feeling bad or guilty about the past does not serve anybody. Instead, ponder the past in order to be better today. The key word, though, is "today". Do not plan to be better tomorrow. Be better today. Tomorrow will never come. The past is a memory and the future is our imagination. Right now is the only thing that's real. "It seems to me that if you look back on yourself a year ago and aren’t shocked by how stupid you were, you haven’t learned much." I read that quote last night before I closed my eyes for a good night's rest.
I believe there is a lot of wisdom in that comment. The public school system (and most people) reward people who are "right" and punish those who make mistakes. The outcome of this is people who are afraid to fail. In fact, they are so afraid to fail that they never even try. Or worse... When they do fail or make a mistake, they try to cover it up. As a business owner, I need to know the truth from my team. I need to know what works, what does not work, what mistakes we have made and what we have learned from them. Every mistake is a learning opportunity and I have made thousands of mistakes in my business career. As a parent, I want my son to be courageous. I want him to stand up for what he believes in and go after his dreams. I want him to make mistakes because I know those are the greatest lessons. Most importantly, I want him to be comfortable sharing those mistakes with me. As an individual, it's tough to share my mistakes. I get it. I'm human too. But every time I have owned up to a mistake or a failure, it has always made it better. It has become more painful to hold it in than to let it out. We have all done stupid things in our lives and we will likely do many more. As long as you are learning from them and not repeating the past, I say keep being stupid :) Why do we say things that hurt people we love?
In fact, why do we say things that hurt people, period? What is it that comes out of us when we get into an argument? More importantly, what triggered that argument to begin with? We've all been there (I was there last night). Somebody says or does something that "sets us off" or "pushes us over the edge". We then proceed to defend ourselves or attack the other person. Things start coming out of our mouths that have nothing to do with the original comment (or trigger). The reason this happens varies but it always comes from the ego. It's the ego that needs to defend itself and the ego that needs to feel "right". It's the ego that needs to "win". How many times have you "won" an argument and still felt like shit? Is that really a win? If we come from our heart, we would never feel the need to win. We would never need to attack or defend. As humans, we have to accept that this is going to happen. The ego is a part of us. It's part of the human experience. However, I believe it's our job to figure out what our triggers are. Why do certain things trigger such a powerful emotional response? Our subconscious is telling us something and we need to figure out what it is. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for the ones you love. I opened up The Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom the other day to this quote: "I believe that if someone really wants a happy life then it is very important to pursue both internal and external means; in other words, mental development and material development. One could also say 'spiritual development', but when I say 'spiritual' I do not necessarily mean any kind of religious faith. When I use the word 'spiritual' I mean basic human good qualities. These are: human affection, a sense of involvement, honesty, discipline and human intelligence properly guided by good motivation. We have all these qualities from birth; they do not come to us later in our lives." What are you pursuing?
That is something I believe to be true and have believed for as long as I can remember.
Is a 2 year old different from a 6 year old, yes. But what does that mean? Can they learn from each other? Can they grow together? Can they be friends? My wife has almost 5 years on me (although she looks younger than me). My youngest sibling is 6 years younger than me and my oldest sibling is 15 years older than me. I have friends who are much younger than me and friends who are much older than me. Age, in a lot of cases, does not even affect Maturity. There are many mature 10 year olds and many immature 60 year olds. We all have different paths and they often cross at different times. My brother, Chad, for example, has 10 years on me. Growing up, we would have a ton of fun together. My most prominent memories are when he would do WWF (now WWE) moves on me and when we would play tackle football and video games. He took it easy on me on the physical side of things but there was no sympathy on the video game side... Now, over 20 years later, our paths have linked together again. Not only have we partnered at The Conscious Builder, we also started families around the same time. At the beginning of the year, Chad and I had a great conversation. It was so great that Brian decided to work his magic and repost it in our new format. You can listen to some of Chad's stories and our Christmas miracle HERE. No matter how old you are, where you are or who you are, we can all learn from each other. We can all grow together. Is "hard" just a point of view?
Perhaps... Exercising is hard... That's why most people don't do it. Business is hard.... The majority of businesses go out of business in the first year. Marriage is hard... A good portion of people decide to get divorced. Even meditation is hard! If it were easy, more people would be doing it. In theory it's "easy" to sit and do nothing but sit and do nothing for a few hours and let me know how easy it was. From my experience, all of these things make me better every single day and I have learned that nobody ever grows from doing easy things. We, as parents, are responsible for our kids.
If my son is rude, it's my fault. If my son is mean, it's my fault. If my son is violent, it's my fault. If my son is hyped up on sugar, it's my fault. On the flip side, I can take responsibility for all the great things he does as well. The point is that it's not the fault of the friends, the school, the neighbourhood, the TV shows, the food or anything else. It's us, the parents. We have the most influence. We get to choose what our kids eat, say and do. We get to say "yes" or "no" or "great work" or "I'm proud of you" or "we don't do that" or whatever our kids need in the moment. We get to mold these little miracles into beautiful humans. Unfortunately there's no hand book for this stuff.... But I have learned one very important lesson along the way... Kids do what we do, not what we say. Would you walk under a ladder?
What do you think when a black cat crosses your path? Have you ever broken a mirror? Do you believe in beginners luck? Do you have a rabbit's foot? Do you "knock on wood"? How do you feel about Friday the 13th? How do you feel about the number 666? How about the number 777? Have you ever found a four leaf clover? Superstitions are fascinating to me. I have had many thoughts of all of the above. But what are they really? They are beliefs. And beliefs are powerful. Yesterday I found a 4 leaf clover. I believe something great is coming my way. Have you ever thought about the act of "punishing" somebody?
It may not be something that comes up consciously with adults but it is something that often comes up with kids. When kids do something "bad" parents feel they need to punish them. They give them a "timeout" or ground them or send them to their room. When punishing a kid (or anybody for that matter), what is the goal? The goal is likely to teach them a lesson. But what does that mean? What are you trying to teach them? You're likely trying to teach them that they should not do that thing they just did which is considered "bad". The first question that should be asked, however, is "did they know that what they were doing was bad?" If they did not, then what is punishing them going to teach them? Perhaps they won't want to tell you things in the future at risk of being punished. Perhaps they'll start hiding things from you. Or perhaps they start doing these things to get reactions out of you just to get your attention. One thing is for sure, we are not born "bad". We do not come out thinking "I'm going to do bad things in life." We learn our behaviours. On the other hand, If they did know it was bad, then why did they do it? Yesterday, my son, Sullivan, was playing outside with a friend as I prepared dinner. They were playing with the hose which I said was okay for them to do. When I came out into the garage to get Sullivan for dinner, the ceiling was dripping with water... Needless to say, I was quite upset. In the past, my temper would have got the best of me. This time, I feel I did pretty good. Yes, I slammed a stool down on the garage floor but after that I got a grip and all these questions started running through my head. Sullivan had decided that he was going to turn the sprinkler on in the garage. Have I specifically told Sullivan not to put the sprinkler on in the garage? No. But I know he's smarter than this so I dug a little deeper. Casey: "Sullivan, why did you think it would be a good idea to turn the sprinkler on in the garage?" Sullivan: "I don't know." Casey: "Did you think I would be happy about this?" Sullivan: "No." Casey: "What were you trying to do?" Sullivan: "I don't know." Casey: "Were you trying to make your friend laugh?" Sullivan: "He did laugh." I almost started to laugh at this response but I'm a parent in this situation and I had to keep my disappointed face on, right? As we talked through what happened and I asked questions, I could tell that Sullivan was feeling bad about what he did. He said sorry as well as "Daddy, I want to do something for you but I'm not sure what." So now we come to the punishment stage. Do I give him a timeout or ground him? I did not do either. The punishment is done. He feels terrible about disappointing daddy. After dinner, we went out to the garage and we dried everything up and started running fans. Then it was bathtime and there was no argument from Sullivan. We ended the evening on a good note because going to bed in a shitty state is not good for anybody. Not only was this a good lesson for Sullivan (ie. don't disrespect other people's property to make people laugh or look cool), it was a good lesson for me. I felt terrible about making my son feel terrible. Luckily, I have a very smart wife and she reminded me that it's not our job as parents to take away our kids pain, as much as we want to. It's our job to teach them. To mold them into the best human beings we possibly can. When you're a kid, disappointing your parents is a terrible feeling. And Sullivan knew I was disappointed in the decision he made. He learned his lesson. On the flip side, knowing that your parents are proud of you is an even more powerful feeling. Yes, sometimes our kids "need a lesson". But more often than not, they just need know their mommy and daddy our proud of them. And I'm definitely proud of my little guy. |
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