From the Mind…or the Heart?

Just as there is a great variety in adults, there are many different kinds of children. There seems to be a marked difference between some children in how they think, act, and react. It is obvious in some that they do things from their heart. This is the little boy who will see another child crying, and offer the child his favorite toy to make him smile, not realizing until later that he no longer has the toy. This kind of child is fully consumed at the moment with the other person, and the fact that they wanted to make that person happy.

Other children are more “mind” oriented—calculating the pros and cons of their actions or requests that they are given. These ones are more often than not, a bit more self centered—not completely selfish, but they do think something through in relation to how it will affect them and their surroundings and even belongings. This is the one who will see another child crying and look around for something else to give, or run to his parent/caretaker to mention the problem.

Some children, though, are very self-focused, to the point that their needs and desires are all they see and consider when making a request or when thinking about their options. They see how something will affect themselves, and only themselves—not anyone else who might also be affected by the action. This is the child who will grab that last piece of pie, although it is his second and he knows that little sister hasn’t had her first yet. This is also the child who, if this tendency is not guided and reshaped, will grow into the adult who will stop at nothing to get their own way and climb to the top, even to the hurt of others. “Me first” is a natural human tendency, yet some seem to have it much stronger than others, even as a child.

Every child needs to feel loved and understood; every child wants that assurance that someone is there completely for him/her and will not neglect them and their needs. How do you help those children who seem to have more of an analytical nature to do things more from the heart? It is great that a child can think something through before acting, but it can become a hindrance if after thinking it through, they back out of something they can or should do because they deem it “not worth it”.

It is vitally important to help a child to see how their decisions and actions affect others. This can be accomplished with a question like, “Honey, did you notice that there was only one piece of pie for each person? You have already had a piece, and little Jenny hasn’t had hers yet.”

Usually a child will understand that, because pretty much every child has an inborn sense of fairness. If they are a stronger character though, they might just say, “I want it anyway.” How do you encourage a child to think more about others than oneself?

I think we have all heard the Golden Rule: treat others the way we would want to be treated. This is an easy concept for even a young child to understand. Bring up the “how would you feel” aspect of it. We can ask, “How would you feel if you came to get your pie and Jenny had already eaten it?”

A question such as this one will appeal to their inborn sense of fairness, and eventually it can grow to become a thing of the heart, where a child automatically puts himself in the other’s shoes before acting or reacting.

I think this is the hope that all parents share: to raise our children to both think and feel—to be solution oriented and yet empathic, to think “outside the box” and yet still be aware of the effects their actions have on others—and to choose to always treat others the way they want to be treated.

A Perfect Salad

 

Heredity, arachnophobia, and knights

My mother’s stories were just the best, especially when she told us stories of when she was a child growing up. Most of the stories were very funny, and some were exciting or scary. One story I remember that she would tell was when she was a child and went to a camp. She woke in the morning to a gigantic spider, right at the foot of her bed. She said that she had never seen a spider so large, and she did not know whether to scream, or quickly jump out of bed; so she just stayed there, frozen in fear, rooted to the spot. I do not remember what happened next; I think perhaps one of her sisters or one of the other campers “rescued” her.

Besides hearing the previous story more than once, my older sister shared with me a dream that she claimed was recurring. She discovered two spiders (daddy-long-legs I think) and began to pester them. Then the spiders began to grow, bigger and bigger; once they were bigger than her, they started to chase her.

My own experiences with those eight-legged-often-hairy creatures started quite young as well. I was on a friend’s front porch, waiting for her to come out and play, and saw a spider climbing up the wall. Absent-mindedly, I began creeping my fingers towards it. The spider stopped, and before I could react, it turned around and raced up my arm! Another day, another front porch, I noticed a spider with something funny on its back. I touched the little ball with a stick, and suddenly there were tiny spiders crawling everywhere. It was the spider’s egg sack. I was horrified, to say the least.

As much as I tried to get over my fear of spiders as I grew, the whole “mind over matter” thing just didn’t work in regards to spiders. I see a spider, I get a “euky” feeling all over (a.k.a. the shivers) and I call the nearest knight in shining armor to rescue me.

We all know that some things are hereditary: looks, height, metabolism, etc. “It’s in the genes.” They say. Many other things are “adopted” by children, such as a mother’s mannerisms, or their father’s particular gait.

Raising my children, I have noticed that my daughter thinks a whole lot like me. I have obviously never told her how my thought processes work, yet seeing some of the things that she does, and listening to her speak, when she lets me know how she came to a particular decision or mindset, I realize, “Wow. That’s just the way that I used to think when I was young.”

Mindsets, or the way the mind operates, then, seem to be hereditary as well. Of course, my two sons (though younger so I can’t really tell for sure) don’t seem to think quite the same way as I do. On the other hand though, watching them and their natural penchant for trying to fix things and figure out the way they work—that’s their daddy to a tee.

A family friend used to joke that my siblings and I were all afraid of spiders because our mother was. Who knows? Maybe it is true.

I thought to put it to the test. Is fear hereditary, like looks and thought processes? I decided that from the time my children were very small, I would only say positive things about spiders. After all, there had to be something good about them. Let’s see, they kill mosquitoes and…they kill mosquitoes, and they kill mosquitoes. I could not quite say that they were furry and cute, but I did make every earnest attempt to be positive about spiders upon every mention, and I was sure never to cry out for a knight in shining armor when my children were around.

Nevertheless, my two older children showed every sign of the same arachnophobia that I had. I had the highest hopes of them being brave and fearless at the sight of various insects, arachnids and rodents. Yet when I saw them running for help because of an ant, I wondered if perhaps it was a hopeless cause; maybe I would have to resign myself to the fact that there was nothing I could do.

Not always scared--Jessica and a friend searching for bugs

My youngest son was at the crawling stage. He crawled everywhere. He was headstrong and fearless. I happily discovered just how fearless he was the evening that I found a ladybug crawling up my pant leg. I picked it up and showed it to my three kids. The older ones kept a safe distance, but the 15-month-old poked it, grabbed it and was about to taste it as well when I came to the little insect’s rescue. We took the ladybug to the porch and set it on a plant. Back in the living room, I saw a spider, one of those little hopping ones, making its way across the floor. My kids spotted it too. The older ones made a wide berth around it, while the youngest crawled straight up to it and picked it up. He squeezed it and dropped it and picked it up again.

I came to two great conclusions:

1. Fear doesn’t necessarily have to be inherited
2. My son is going to be a knight in shining armor