How we can take away or maintain our children’s joy of life

Babies are completely connected to the whole, they do not yet recognise themselves as individuals. Therefore, they live and feel their feelings and sensations fully and these can change very quickly as a result. They are also not resentful. However, they unconsciously feel guilty and bad when they grow up in unloving environments. They are so connected that they absorb it all. Even foetuses react in the mother’s body to strife and stress she experiences and curl up in pain.

Infants eventually learn that they are individuals. However, they continue to relate everything that happens very much to themselves and their experiences are stored in our subconscious. These prenatal and early childhood imprints up to the age of 6/7 are particularly relevant. In later life we are confronted with them again and again as long as we have not consciously recognised, processed and dissolved them. This requires reflection, coaching and the formation of a different mindset.
Even if a child grows up in what feels like an ideal, loving family environment – which is rarely enough the case in a world where many adults are more or less traumatised and live in a correspondingly degraded environment – the child comes into contact with our education and upbringing system at some point in day care, kindergarten or at the latest in school.

Source: Bild von fancycrave1 auf Pixabay

The children of this system grow up with the knowledge: “I must not make any mistakes”, they constantly hear: “it doesn’t work like that”, “you can’t do it”. The natural enthusiasm and joy is inhibited and the children grow into an “avoidance strategy”. This, in turn, develops fears over time, which we often laboriously work through at an advanced age in order to be creative and uninhibited and live a positive mindset. Today, in the world of work, this is often conveyed under agile working: “80% is enough”, “just do it”, etc. With this mindset, we live in a self-determined way and are able to react to change instead of being stuck in shock. Since we are not driven by fear, but by curiosity and courage, we adopt different perspectives and are intrinsically motivated. We dare to take responsibility and make decisions without fear of making mistakes because we learn from them. We are also more successful in setting boundaries and respecting the boundaries of others. This leads to a higher work-life balance and resilience.

Back to childhood and education: It is not a question of adults not setting boundaries – also to protect the child – for example when it comes to the hot cooker or road traffic. However, it strongly depends on the way this is communicated. Of course, adults are often simply overwhelmed or pass on their own stress, their own negative world view or their lack of self-confidence to the children. They are then allowed to free themselves from this later – or they remain stuck in the mindset of these imprints.

I don’t have children myself (yet) and can only observe this from the outside, e.g. how the teachers and parents talk to the children in the kindergarten next to my house every day. I can’t even count how often a loud ‘no’ sounds through the street.

There are alternative pedagogical concepts that work better and parents and teachers who are at peace with themselves and can respond lovingly to the children. We should make a concerted effort to transfer these good approaches to the majority, starting with our own attitude and self-love. Then the future generation will have a chance to be burdened with less trauma from early childhood. Life brings enough challenges later on.

Source: Bild von Martín Alfonso Sierra Ospino auf Pixabay

A good example was given to me the other day by a person I met at a personality development seminar. She told me that her mother had told her all her life (for some unknown reason other than a lack of self-love and motherly love) and still tells her that she is “evil”. The young woman had stored this in her system for a long time, that she was evil and blocked herself again and again, until she freed herself from this through an earlier seminar and dealing with the subject. In the meantime, she has a daughter of her own to whom she conveys that she is a “lucky child” and very much loved and that she is good the way she is. (While the grandmother continues to tell her granddaughter that she has a bad mother…). Meanwhile, the little girl introduces herself as a lucky child to other people. She will have a completely different childhood and starting conditions than her mother and will go through life as a true lucky child because her mother has dealt with it and can only offer her the support she did not get herself. If she now perhaps gets a few good teachers who encourage her in her potential, the child will probably have a good life and be a joy to those around her.

Our education system – also for higher education as well as vocational training and studies – may be fundamentally reshaped for sustainability and a better life for all in the coming years and decades. It is not only about reflective tutors but also about more liberal learning and a focus on personal development and skills instead of frontal teaching and rote learning (cf. e.g. Zukunftsbilder 2045, pp. 52-57 and more [in German]).

Source of header image: Bild von Rudy and Peter Skitterians auf Pixabay