Skip to Content
  • Become a Patron
  • My Account
    • My Shop Account
    • My Patron Account
  • Login
0
Parenting for Life

Parenting for Life

  • Home
  • About us
  • Browse
    • Articles
    • Insta blogs
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Self-Forgiveness
  • Living Words
  • More
    • Inspiring
    • Pregnancy & the Body
    • Emotional Turmoil
    • Common Struggles & Questions
    • Fun
  • Shop
    • Basket
    • Checkout

Common Struggles & Questions

Home / Common Struggles & Questions (Page 2)
Article, Common Struggles & Questions

What Drives you: Conditioning or Awareness?

by Leilaon 2nd May 20186th Jun 2018

When we come into this world, we assume all is as it should be. We have absolute trust in our parents and our environment. We enter this world, into the current that is our life. As the water flows, we are carried through different sceneries, different environments and different motions as experiences. Along the way, …

Article, Common Struggles & Questions

Stepping into Freedom & Responsibility – A Toddler’s Brazen Rite of Passage

by Leilaon 15th Apr 201819th Apr 2018

For the past year or so, you’ve had great delight in really getting in touch with your soft spot. Having been shamed as a child for showing emotions, which were backfired by adults as being ‘weakness’ – you’ve had a tough time allowing yourself to just be. To be there for your baby, to take …

Article, Common Struggles & Questions

Fear of Consequence | How Punishment breeds Irresponsibility (and what to do instead!)

by Leilaon 12th Feb 201814th Apr 2018

I was watching a Black Mirror episode, namely episode 3 from season 4 where a woman’s past comes back to haunt her after an insurance investigator starts looking into an incident and has special technology that allows her to peak into people’s memories to get more ‘accurate’ witness reports. In the beginning of the episode …

Article, Common Struggles & Questions

Fairness is the New Entitlement

by Leilaon 11th Jan 201814th Apr 2018

I was playing around with the word Fair or Fairness the other day as it’s a point that very easily sneaks up its head. Especially if you’re someone who’s more rationally, logically inclined – it’s so easy to come up with arguments and point at all the x,y, z variables in your reality or environment …

Common Struggles & Questions, Living Words, Video

Competing with your Partner

by Maiteon 30th Nov 201723rd Apr 2018

As though being a new parent is not challenging enough, we make life so much harder than it needs to be by entertaining odd beliefs and logical fallacies. When you find yourself competing with your partner, know you’ve got some debunking to do . Also check out the School of Ultimate Living Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/schoolofultimateliving/ …

Common Struggles & Questions, Video

Tantrums in Public Spaces

by Leilaon 24th Nov 201723rd Apr 2018

This video was made on request: how do you handle your child’s tantrum in public spaces? 

Common Struggles & Questions, Video

Arguing in front of the Kids

by Leilaon 17th Nov 201726th Apr 2018

Arguing in front of the Kids – should we do it, not do it? Or is it not so much about whether we do it but HOW we do it? 

Posts navigation

Page 1 Page 2
  • Cesar gave Syntia his train tracks about a year ago, and before they were hers, she would play with them together with Cesar. She's had a ton of time to learn the different pieces, how to put them together and build a track, but for some reason, she DID NOT want to build a track by herself and most of all preferred to just watch as someone else built the track for her. 

Lj and I knew she was perfectly capable of building a track for herself and we tried to support her to start small and show herself that she can do it. Or that we'd be here if she gets stuck, but she can at least try on her own. Any such attempts, however, were met with an absolute and firm refusal. So, we did it with her, or for her. 

We started wondering, is this little girl really just taking advantage of us at this point? Are we entertaining this too much? Should we push harder? We knew she could do it, she knew she could do it, but for some reason she just didn't want to do it, at least, not yet. 

And then one day, out of the blue, she takes out her blocks and starts building a track... by herself. Lj quietly waived me over, pointing at her, then signing 'shhht', lol - didn't want to disturb the moment. The track you see in the pic is the first one she built by herself. It wasn't a "beginner's" track like a simple circle or a straight line, it was a more intricate design laid out exactly and precisely how she wanted it to be, including all the elements she wanted to have as a part of it. Kabam, out of the blue. 

There are other things where Syntia 'took her sweet time', like learning how to walk and potty training, where it was clear at some point that she was able to do it, but for some reason, pulled back or didn't want to do it all by herself just yet. It's so easy as parents to freak out over that, to think that children should develop skills in a particular way, like 'starting small' or doing something by yourself as soon as you're able to. But not all kids are the same in this. [Continued in comments..]
  • When Cesar got his first bycicle this week it quickly became clear that we'd have to get one for Syntia too. So, yesterday we took her to the shop and we told her she'd get to pick out her own bike. When we showed her a bike her size she was at first psyched about it, but she also noticed many other vehicles for little ones. And after trying out some of the other ones, she didn't want anything to do with the bycicle anymore. Lj and I explained why we'd suggested an actual bycicle over a ride on toy car, but she'd already made up her mind. We considered our options for a moment. We knew that coming home and seeing Cesar's bike again, she might want to ride one of those instead, we also knew a bike would last her longer and that she'd want to go with on bike rides, but... we'd also said she'd get to pick. We could have waltzed through her choice and gotten her the bike we thought was best, but then we'd be undermining her and ourselves as well by not living our words. While we could see the potential of her enjoying riding a bike, knowing that yes, it would take a learning curve but she'd also get the hang of it quite quickly, that was just not where she was at. I also remembered so many times being told I would get to choose something and when push came to shove, someone else made the final call and usually it wasn't what I had chosen. They would have good reasons and considerations for it, but it didn't give me the chance to figure those out for myself. So, a push car it is. Indeed, when she saw Cesar's bike, she wanted to ride one of those again and yes, when Gian and Cesar went out on a bike ride last night she wanted to go with and she couldn't keep up, but she's also enjoyed hours playing with her push car. We reminded her of her choice and what the natural consequences and limitations are. There was no tantrums or drama, she understood and accepted responsibility for her choice. When she's ready to make the switch, we'll be here to support her.
  • Leila and I had been talking about getting chalks to do drawings on the floor with the kids, but we'd either keep forgetting to look for them or when we did remember, the shops we were at didn't have them. Then one day Syntia was playing with what looked like a black rock that she'd found, and as she was scratching it on the floor, it was drawing black lines. I looked at the 'rock' a bit closer and it turned out to be a small shard of charcoal, a remnant from our last braai. Since then we've been using charcoal to make drawings on the pavement. All the time we were waiting to get 'the right tool' to draw with, we had a perfectly capable alternative readily available. It was a good reminder not to wait for the supposedly 'perfect conditions' or 'perfect tools' before starting or doing something I've been wanting to do. You know those thoughts where you go 'oh but once I have this or that sorted, it will be so much easier to get going on that other point'. And then when this and that is sorted, this other point doesn't at all seem to be easier to get started on, lol. How often in our  lives do we put things off because of the so-called circumstances not being ideal? Convincing ourselves that it just wasn't the right time, that things just didn't work out or that we just didn't have access to what we needed to do it properly... No matter when or with what we eventually get started, what will always be the most crucial part is that self-movement, that decision, that initiative and that self-will... to just start.
  • A few months ago we were faced with an important decision: whether or not we would be staying in South Africa where we have built our lives over the course of the past 10 years, or whether we would leave the
country.

A decision of this magnitude that pertains to uprooting your life and raises questions about your continued livelihood, tends to activate all sorts of fears and survival programming. As parents we make decisions on behalf of others all the time. Sometimes these are small decisions, sometimes they will forever change the course of not only our own lives, but that of others as well. When I found myself faced with this a decision, one that did not only involve me, my children, my animals, but also the lives of others in the community we’ve been living in – I felt overcome by insecurity, doubt and worry. What took me by surprise the most was not the extent of the decision, or the plethora of factors and dimensions we needed to consider, the multitude of options we needed to explore and compute... it was ME: seeing that I didn’t have anything to stand on. It wasn’t so much the decision making itself that I feared, it was not knowing how to even approach such a decision and trust myself within it.

Link to the blog in bio..
.
. 
#decisionmaking #decisions #emigrating #feelinginqdequate #frozen #hotomakeadecision #leavingmycountry #leavingmyhome #lifechanges #lifechangingdecisions #lost #overwhelmed #panama #south africa #principles #selfhonesty #startingover #unrest #walkingintotheunknown
  • In South Africa we sometimes get loadshedding where the electricity gets turned off for a couple of hours at a time to take off pressure from the power grid when it's under strain. We decided it was an opportune time to shed some loads off and go to our little dam that filled up nicely with the summer rains. We brought the dogs too this time. Cesar insisted to take the lead with Nibble. Some things are timeless in their simplicity and enjoyment. We took swims in rivers, lakes and dams throughout history and its still a hit. Some things remain important no matter how much external evolution takes place - though we sometimes get distracted by all the new possibilities that we forget the core values that stand through time that brought them about. We may become caught up in social media popularity - forgetting the initial value of authenticity and true connection within relationships. A phone can keep communication going and keep you connected to people you care about - or it can become exactly that which removes you from having real present moments with those you care deeply and are closest to you. Take a moment to evaluate the role of all the resources that are present in your reality and evaluate your relationship, your starting point in why and how you use them. The tool is never the problem, it's the one who wields it that determines its effect. Do your tools serve you, or do you live to serve your tools?

#loadshedding #southafrica #parenting #motherhood #values #history #evolution #timeless #service #technology #slowdown #unschooling #homeschooling #wildschooling #consciousparenting #awareness #awareparenting
Follow Us!

Recent Posts

  • Playing Minecraft
    ArticleInspiringLiving is Learning

    Switch to Creative Mode – A Cesar and Minecraft Inspired Post

  • ArticleGive as you would like to ReceiveInspiringSelf-Honesty

    Same Vision, Different Paths

Subscribe and Follow

Categories

  • Living Words
  • Self-Forgiveness
  • Pregnancy & the Body
  • Emotional Turmoil
  • Common Struggles & Questions
  • Inspiring
  • Patron Only
  • Fun
  • Podcast
  • Living Principles
  • Living is Learning

Archives

Recommended

  • Desteni Universe
  • Parenting – Perfecting the Human Race
  • Desteni ‘I’ Process – Courses & Coaching
  • School of Ultimate Living
  • Self & Living

Like us on Facebook

2021 Copyright Parenting for Life. Blossom Feminine | Developed By Blossom Themes. Powered by WordPress.Privacy Policy & Disclaimer