Spanking.  Time out.  Take away.  Belittle.

Criticism, instead of encouragement.

And those are just the legal ways to hurt innocent children.  Children are still abused and tortured in this day and age.  Although illegal, our cultural leaders don’t appear concerned about the vast numbers of children that disappear every year!  Which is weird, because our leaders have dropped bombs on nations to protect oil.  Or control oil.  Or money?  I honestly don’t know how it works.

I’m pretty sure that I understand how kids work though.

We are all born helpless.  Innocent.  Movement and curiosity…exploration…is the next step.  Adults should treat these children like an Alien.  Observe.  Oh look, he’s crawling to the light socket.  Protect.  (Show the ouchy sign)  “Stop, ouchy!”  Nicely, as if you are teaching an alien-being which foods are safe and what not to eat.

Aliens understand emotion.  They have already felt pain, so just show them an ouchy expression of pain.

Teach them how to get what they want.  Don’t say no, tell me how I CAN!  I gifted my twins this concept, and declared my commitment to being Super Dad.

They are innocent children until you set a boundary and don’t teach them WHY.  Then waffle on boundaries, and negotiate on boundaries, and not hold the boundaries today because you are stressed out.  Testing boundaries is how we learn.  “Can I touch that?  Can I do this?”

Adults teach children that their boundaries are negotiable, until one day, the adult is aggravated and the adult takes the child’s innocence with punishment.

Adults teach children that people will hurt you.  Trusted people.

The child is confused and scared.  “You are my protector and you hurt me.”  If you repeat this betrayal, the alien will attack.  Fight back.  Do exactly what they are told not to.  Because they RESENT you for taking their innocence away, and placing them in a dangerous world, where you are hurt for testing boundaries.  Innocently testing, with no intent to harm.

I call that First Blood.

Some kids rebel.  Some learn to not test boundaries, which means frozen in fear.

I did all those things too.  Thats what was demonstrated and taught to me.  And I did contribute to Savannah’s anxiety. But I did my best to take it away.

She felt tiny and annoying, like a bug, and this video shows how I brought her back to Gift From God.  And Sleeping soundly.

When she was 9, I sincerely apologized to her for the first 9 years.  “I didn’t know any better.”  And she said, “It’s ok dad.  Everyone loses their temper.  You have to just let go of it.  If you don’t let go of it you get stuck in the past, and you miss the present.  And if you miss the present, you miss the present.”

My Gift from God.  Savannah Stone.

I still punished them if they wouldn’t hold a boundary I reminded them of.  (And I wasn’t perfect at holding solid all the time, either.)  I would take a privilege away.  No movie tonight.  But I would let them work it off after they processed their upset, if they wanted to.  And they almost always wanted to.

I hope I didn’t create a negative association to work.  Hard work!  Lol.

It took a few more years to reach Mary Poppins.  No yelling.  Just calm, clear instructions, and gentle but firm boundaries.  The way children like.

After I agreed to not raise my voice, the boys were fighting in the back seat.  I said, “boys, if you don’t want me to raise my voice, you will have to listen to my calm voice.”  Amory looked at me and said, “I can see why you yell at them dad.”

Then we did our best to teach all parents not to yell.

The final punishment I gave up was “veiled hostility.”  I asked the girls for help and Savannah said no.  I said, “fine, then when we buy our farm mansion, you can sleep in the garage.”  Disguised as joking, but hurtful, and clearly expressing disapproval.

I felt her hurt.  I don’t want to hurt an honest answer, and I don’t want to hurt my Gift from God.  So I approached them, and said, “I promise to you, that I will never respond hurtfully to your honest answer, and if I want a different answer, I will influence your answer with significance or exchange.”

Thats how I taught them to get what they want from others.  Offer significance.  “I would greatly appreciate if you…”  Or exchange.  “I’ll play your game if you play mine.”

The next day I asked Sacred to help me with something, and she said no.  I started to say, “What…”  And she said, Dad, you promised.  I kept my promise.

They all had regular chores or jobs to do, but if I asked more, I would have to influence.  Create value for them or show them how doing what I wanted was a value to them.  But if it was just for me, I would have to offer exchange.  Or significance.  That actually works pretty well with people who you are nice to.

I’ve never thought perfection was realistic, maybe from the teachings of Faith.  I wanted to be good, I wanted to love them without hurting them.  I didn’t make many hurtful mistakes more than once with them.  And they all seemed very attracted to me.  It felt very good.  Great!

Meaning our relationships were wanting more of each other and not less!