Liz Valloor

No two children develop at the same rate. How long it takes one child to take first steps, speak first words is unique to that child. It is important to be aware of our expectations and feelings in relation to our children’s development. I distinctly remember feeling that perhaps developmentally my child was delayed because my friend’s child was walking at ten months old. Not one of my children walked until fourteen months.

Some children love academic work. It is natural to them but could be poor at sports. Gross motor skills may not be as developed. It is interesting to observe where our preferences lie. If my child knows how to read by four but can’t ride a bicycle and I am excited about the reading because society will see him or her as being intelligent I will know where my leanings are.

What is often not recognized is the child’s ability to relate to others. I am not talking about a child who has a tendency towards aggression and bulldozes his way into a room demanding that his needs be met immediately, but also the quiet child, the pleasing child who does everything that is asked of him or her without question. I used to think if only I had one like that.

The child’s ability to relate may not be on the pecking order. All skills are important and need to be learned but I cannot teach a child something I do not know myself. If I am not great at dealing with conflict in relationship I will not be able to pass this skill to my child. 

Hindsight is wonderful. Very few my age group was taught relationship skills. Compliance was the order of the day and only the very brave ventured forth to question authority.

Relationship skills are vitally important in dealing with life’s happenings and we have to begin with ourselves so that we can pass our experience to the younger generations. We pass on what we know and if we are semi deficient in problem solving and strategies for dealing with challenging situations we cannot expect our children to pick them up from the ground.

To be able to master this skill is crucial to our development. Not many people see this correlation. What society embraces are communication skills in relation to business,but these skills collapse under pressure in the home environment. It is only when your inner feelings match your outer expression, that will you know whether you are coping honestly.

Most people are unaware of what they bring to the drama in their lives. They are out of touch with their feelings and if asked about certain situations and how it personally affects them they will generally give an answer that describes the perpetrator of their discomfort. They are unaware of what they bring to the table. Even your silence is an action. Doing nothing gives another permission to continue. We are all clear on when we are frustrated but generally see the external factors that caused the frustration. This or that person annoyed me, made my life a misery. If only this or that person went away, my life would be happy, being unaware that once that person is gone another will come. What will not change is what is lying dormant within you, unrecognized feelings that allowed this situation come to a head.

Working with children will demand the best from you and you need to be in the whole of your health. They will out you and push you to the limit,and if you are aware of what it is they are showing you, you will benefit. Children are honest brokers. They give it to you straight. They challenge your ideas on conflict, push you into accepting your leadership role, demonstrate unconditional love, more than any of the people you might call friends.

They mirror you. If a child has a low tolerance level and you have a high tolerance level you will not understand their position as he will not understand yours. Seeing that sometimes your high tolerance level can cause trouble for you because you have needed to voice important matters in the past and didn’t, this understanding, this awareness will help you find a balance. The child’s low tolerance will push you into doing something about it.  High is the polarity of low, neither is either good or bad, though high tolerance is seen as being a virtue and encouraged.

In our lives we wear many caps. In each role we will feel different. In some roles we feel confident and assured; in others we are quite vulnerable. It is for this reason you can find the most successful people in business floundering when a small child takes an almighty tantrum in a shop. Different skills in different environments! Sometimes it is easier to run a business than stay at home for one day with three small children.

Many years ago a single friend was giving advice on parenting. She was very clear as to what she felt was acceptable behaviour. There was no way she would tolerate the behaviours of my young daughter and I felt extremely inadequate. I had always appeared prior to motherhood, to be a very capable person, now under this scrutiny my image was up for review. The worm will turn is an old saying and I had the privilege of witnessing it squirm. Mind you I had to wait a few years before I could experience the joy of seeing this same person skipping down the road with her three year old daughter. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing because I knew she was never one to indulge herself in any form of exercise. I wound down the car window and asked her “what are you doing”. She looked at me and laughed “It is the only way I can get her to the shops” She openly admitted that parenthood stretched her to her limits.

Children are insightful and will know when there is a crack in the system. They will find the weakest link and play that card. They know the three person game. One in the group will weaken and will rescue,if you can play the game correctly. They do this time and again when they see that one parent will give in. They will test you on consistency. Do you really mean what you say? They will push you to screaming point until you experience guilt at your behaviours. This they can do from a very early age. Knowingly, they can at two years of age look to the other as if to say “I‘ve won. You might think “the little monster” but that little monster is giving you, your first lesson in authority. Where are our values as parents? Are we working on the same sheet here? So when one parent says I won’t allow this and the other says “sure he is only a baby” you know you are starting trouble.

Children who have no clear boundaries continue to test limits. They don’t personally choose to be angry or difficult. Something is going on within them and they don’t have the skills to communicate it properly. They don’t have the language or the processing skills to let you know what it is they really want in appropriate ways. The pause button is broken. The terrible twos will challenge you to be clear. They are at a stage where the world around them is impacting on their lives. Perhaps another child is on the way and our parenting skills go a bit awry thinking that this new situation could be difficult for them. Our reaction to the new situation, our interpretation of how it might impact can lead to fuzzy parenting. Times you would need to be a mind reader.

Six weeks after my second child was born I desperately needed to get out of the house. I had cabin fever. I thought, bless my innocence, that it would be nice to go to town to do some shopping. Having parked the car we went into a well known store at the time called Switzers. I needed retail therapy. I was sick of maternity clothes. They were not as stylish as today. My near three years old offspring did not want to be in a shop. We got to the top of the escalator when she lay on the floor and had an almighty tantrum. Her dad knowing that he would not win in this case scarpered. “I am not staying for this” he said. She lay there kicking and screaming and I stood there with a six week old baby in arms trying to cajole her. Nothing that I could see started this episode. That is how tantrums start. The more I tried to cajole her the worse it got. A sales assistant came over to coo coo and demanded “what did you do to upset this little girl”. I was shocked and near to tears. The much maligned child suddenly stopped crying, stood up and with an authority I envied said “don’t you talk to my mums like dat, dat my mums”. The lady looked at me and said “God help you with a child like that”. She marched off indignantly. We continued shopping. I needed some of this child’s qualities in expressing how I truly felt.

I wish I had the insight to see exactly what was being shown to me. To have had someone to say “can I look at how you are emotionally in relation to developing your authority”. Do you and your husband have a strategy for dealing with conflict? The answer was a resounding no. We didn’t even have an understanding that we had no strategy. I fell to pieces in relation to strong authority and my child was pushing me to develop those skills. It would be a while before I could see it like that.

Clear boundaries and relating skillfully was not part of my brief. This is life’s journey, to learn what we need to know.

I could not teach my children what I did not know. Hail the child because he or she is our true  teacher.

On his way to work, Paul McCartney had to wait for some pedestrians at a famous white- striped crossing. They gathered together, cameras in hand, blocking the street. He had been through this situation many times. Here he was looking at people trying to catch a moment in time. They were taking pictures of themselves crossing Abbey Road.

 He felt like jumping out so that they could take a photo of him on the zebra crossing, but thought twice about it. What if they were longing for an experience of a past memory and he spoiled it by living longer than John Lennon or George Harrison.

There is a wonderful metaphor here!

The chatter in my head seems real to me. My interpretation of events and relationships seems logical. Then why is my seeing different from the person beside me. We are both witnessing life and interpreting it through the filter of our experiences. So what is reality?

We continue to live in this way, sometimes changing our minds as we see that the lens we are looking through is outdated. Living our lives today based on past interpretations is like flying an airplane with last years weather chart. It is destined to cause trouble for us.

As life moves on, I am more aware of the extraordinary contribution women make to creating a better world. It is especially significant in education. Recently I witnessed a young boy spiral out of control in the classroom. He was quite happily working in his group when, for no particular reason that we could see, he darted across the room and looked in his school bag. The reaction, when he opened the bag was similar to a volcanic eruption. He kicked tables and chairs, flung books in every direction and eventually threw himself on the floor and wailed. I observed his teacher. She noticed instinctively that the strong reaction came after he checked his school bag. As he lay on the ground screaming and kicking, she placed her hand gently on his chest and asked him what happened.  He pointed in the direction of his school bag as he sobbed. He had no lunch. A promise made to him was not kept and as his life was built around broken promises, he hadn’t the means to cope with the disappointment, yet again.

 “Don’t you know I would never leave you without lunch” she said. He screamed “what happens at big break”. “The two of us will go to the parent’s room and I will get you a really nice lunch”. No moralizing, just acceptance that behind this behaviour was a trigger. Slowly he came out of the spiral. He still wasn’t giving in. She held out her hand and helped him up and took him over to his group. He moved his tiny chair to be nearer to her. It was this movement that moved me. This child is not the only one in her class to be on the receiving end of her understanding, her skill and love.

Tony de Mello speaks of the need for us to become human beings, to actively live out the message that Jesus did his best to teach us. “We are so busy with the demands of life that we have become human doings” he clarified. I witness women be what he teaches on a daily basis. I witness them living what he spoke about.

My question is this. When it comes to gurus why are men predominantly the enlightened ones. The list is endless. Where are the women? Are they too busy living out those teachings and do not have the time to write or preach about them, or are we still caught up with the idea that only men can be enlightened?

Tony de Mello stressed understanding. No true healing could happen until one understood a situation. I do not believe he wanted us to merely understand, but to see clearly and from that clarity act.

In conversation over dinner recently we discussed de Mello. A story was told how understanding can change a situation. It went like this.

There was bereavement in a family. It was twelve months since the lady died. Their family dog being attached to the lady was barking incessantly during the day.Other members of family were out at work and couldn’t attend to him until they came home.

The discussion centred on how being neighbours and knowing the circumstances they empathized with the family.Over the year they no longer heard the barking.The dog meant so much to this family as he was now old and had come through the general ups and downs of their lives.The people who lived some distance away were being driven demented with the noise.The neighbours felt that if they understood the circumstances, they too would understand and so change their attitude.

Another incident! A little boy from an extremely dysfunctional family comes to school in a rage. He kicks the wall, pushes chairs and shouts at any child who as much as looks in his direction. All teachers and Principal understand his pain, but is understanding enough? Will that help him?

I doubt if Tony de Mello wanted anyone to do nothing in either circumstance. I feel he would do his best to understand that situation and from there and with clarity do something about it that would be helpful.

An old Irish saying! Would that it were true! The only thing separating us from our hearts is courage. The longest journey we will take in our lives is from our heads to our hearts. Not being in tune, or being in tune and not listening is commonplace. Who or what prevents us from taking that leap of faith.

I believed I was my own person until that fateful day when I heard myself say to my daughter “Where do you think you are going at this hour of night”? I brushed the thought that I was becoming my mother aside until I said “you needn’t think you are going out that door in that garb”.

 Who Am I was the question I asked myself? Am I just an amalgam of quotes from my mother? Do I have one conscious thought in my head or am I on automatic pilot dishing out exactly what was served to me?

The process of emptying began. Not all needed to go but the parts that were causing upheaval in my relationships. The quotes that caused problems between the two of us so many years previously I knew could not serve my relationship with my own children.

Only when that happened was I capable of truly loving my mother.

Compassion begins with self. Happiness follows. Happy people share their happiness freely.

If you wish to know how spiritually strong you are then see yourself in relationship.Observe your reactions.Allow yourself feel and own the feeling. That feeling is so important as it gives you a true insight into what is actually happening within you.The strength of the emotion will inform you of a belief, a perception you have of yourself.Your ability to respond maturely to challenge in  relationship, can only be seen in the light of what happens to you.Has someone the power to make you feel small. If your automatic response is to please, you are on the road to nowhere. Seeing yourself as small in relationship can only harm that relationship.The more you try to please the less you please. It is the law of diminishing returns.Only if you allow it happen, does it become true.

As Paul Brady says in his insightful song  Don’t try to please me ” If you see yourself as small, that’s how tall you will be.

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” Muhammad Ali was fully aware of his actions. His goal in the boxing ring was to make his opponent emotional. Once his opponent was fired up he was certain to lose contact with his skills. You lose your effectiveness when your actions are governed by strong emotions.

Observing two colleagues arguing I noticed that as each one spoke the other reacted as if stung. The stronger the reaction the more lethal the response and so the dance continued.

Detachment does not mean losing contact with emotions. It means to be in control of them so that all your faculties are available to you.  Be clear and your response will be on target.