PARENTS AS GUIDES
The baby's greatest guide for learning is not what we teach them, but who we are and what we do. Everything we do, how we do it and say it, is an example to them, which they soak up like little sponges. They are imitators. Children learn to stand, walk and speak by imitation. They live wholly through their senses, and are very attuned to each sense. They learn to move, act and speak by imitating what they see, hear, touch and sense with all their senses.
And so it seems that our greatest teaching task lies in being and acting ourselves as we wish our children to be and act, even when the baby is very young. As much as possible, try to avoid negative emotions and arguing around the baby, even though they don't understand: it creates stress for them that may, if it is a regular occurrence, have psychological or physical consequences later in life. The more we can wield and transform our negative emotions and bring ourselves to be loving, grateful, kind, moral, diligent, responsive people, the more will our children have those values to follow.
Mother and child
by William Adolphe Bouguereau
ARTICLES
Baldwin Dancy, Rahima - About conscious parenting in our modern age.htm
Baldwin Dancy, Rahima - Conscious parenting - what can help us on the way?.htm
[1] Steiner, Rudolf. The Education of the Child Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, N.Y. 1996
Madonna by Brenda Joysmith
Two “magic” words indicate how children enter into relationship with their environment. These words are imitation and example. The Greek philosopher Aristotle called human beings the most imitative of creatures. For no age in life is this truer than for the first age of childhood, before the change of teeth. Children imitate what happens in their physical environment. […] “Physical environment” must, however be understood in the widest sense imaginable. It includes not just what happens around children in the material sense, but everything that occurs in their environment – everything that can be perceived by their senses, that can work on the inner forces of children from the surrounding physical space. This includes all moral or immoral actions, all wise or foolish actions that children see. Rudolf Steiner [1]
Conscious Parenting Guide www.consciousparentingguide.com 2009
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Copyright © Julie Le Gal Brodeur 2009 Updated July 28, 2010