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Watch a Video interview with Spanish translation about the book.

A friend on our island put this paragraph on his Facebook page on his 83rd’s birthday.

“Well here it is again. as I start my 83rd trip around the sun,I

am so lucky to be here. From a bad orphanage to a worse

foster home to all the things it took to get here. I have survived

5 broken bones, 2 concussions and somewhere over 100 stitches,

cancer and heart surgery, and various operations from appendectomy to vasectomy.. still have some of my hair and teeth, have glasses and hearing aids...Somehow I got thru it all, and so it seems to me that God in greater wisdom forgives my humanity. Onward…"

Why am I quoting it on a parenting page? For perspective. Witnessing someone picture of a full length life can help us see our children with more calm and trust.

Child's Aggression

This old message I have just found on facebook sums up one of the solutions to siblings' aggression with amazing clarity:

"Hi Naomi, its me,Stephanie, one of your clients! I've been applying your advice to simply remove my baby Michael when his brother Steven pushes, hits, etc. Just now Steven dumped a shovel full of sand on Michael's head, laughing, and Michael simply removed himself from the unpleasant nature phenomena, no tears, no drama! :-) Thanks!"

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How a child forms a “self”, or, does she/he?

By Naomi Aldort

Author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

If you love yourself, then whatever your child becomes will be to your taste and joy. Any rejection of your child’s nature is a rejection of your own (either parent.)

But how does a child become, within their nature, the specific accumulations of habits, behaviors and what we call “character?” Is the child born with some entity called “self”, or are her traits a combination of innate possibilities and mirroring of us?

The big riddle is: What does it mean letting the child be free, be herself, be rooted inside? What “self?” Is there such a “thing” outside of the creation through thought and habits?

My current observation of this endless theme is that ultimately there is no “self” other than the accumulation of thoughts comprised of the impressions of life, parents first and others and all of life over time. And that the child’s “hard drive” has innate ways of absorbing the world trends, thoughts and habits.

I think about this a lot because I find myself knowing less and less. Most adults who are joyful, powerful and take life with appreciation, humor and astonishment, come from parents who fit this description (at least one of them does), REGARDLESS OF PARENTING STYLE.

This does not mean that we throw learning and growing out the window. On the contrary. We may want to focus even more on raising ourselves and less on what we do with the child; while, the stories about the child is our teacher because it is our mirror.

The child becomes your offspring whether home schooled or not, whether co-sleep, breastfed… or not. Even authoritarian or not does not make as great an impact as who you are and what your relationship with your spouse is. The child may be a reaction against you, but that too is shaped by your being. There is no way out; just like physical genetics, the psychological make up of a person is formed from the “womb” of living with parents. 20 or so years “gestation.”

With this confusion in mind, how do I know if my young child is being herself or mirroring me? How do I know her way of being is innate and not formed by my ways with her? After all, a baby comes into our lives with no frame of reference from which to form a way of being. Children who grew up with animals and have animal like traits see themselves as being free to be themselves.

Our job ends up removing ourselves from the equation. And it tells us that the best thing we can do for a child, is: Raise ourselves and get out of the way. Animals push their offsprings away. Birds push them off the nest when ready to fly.

Knowing that the child is ready to fly is complicated for some of us because we confuse the child’s attempt to fit in with our expectations - with who they are.

This blog is not an answer, but an opening. My child is free and this is how he is… may not be ultimately or fully true. You can be a total attachment parenting mom and dad and allow the child to find herself within but what is she finding without your thoughts? You can also do the same external parenting care and not allow the child his own self-awareness and be fooled to think the child is being free.

Perhaps one reason parents love taking the family intensive retreat, sessions via Skype, and attend the 3 days workshops, is that in working on themselves they regain the ability to see and to distinguish the child’s nature from the child’s fitting in with their program.

However you choose to help yourself, it is crucial to your child that you wake you up to reality for his own ability to form a “self” that is sustainable. Dependency and fitting into your story is not sustainable.

With love,

Naomi

The question is in Czech and the translation is in print bellow.
The answer starts at 1 minute.

Here is the translation of the question:

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Me too

My sense is that practically every woman today has been at least sexually harassed and only those who were abused by someone well known are speaking up in public. My heart goes out to both, the abused women, and the accused men, (yes to the men too, in the same way I feel for the child who is the aggressor.)

What is missing is the quieter and much less spoken of abuse of almost every woman in terms of the freedom to be oneself and to be the mother each one of us wants to be. The fathers too often don’t seem to do their 50% in parenting, and may even get in the way of mothering as part of unconscious patriarchy.

Women’s liberation will only be complete when both, women and men relinquish the old imposed gender image cultivated over thousands of years.

(Since the agricultural revolution mostly, as a result of work and possession of land that created hierarchy, wars and sickness.)

Once men are free of the old image that thwart their inner freedom to feel and connect, they will naturally do their full share of parenting including nurturing, and learning. At the same time, for women to be free, they too must relinquish the passivity, dependency and sometimes inability to assert as equals that results from the same old indoctrination. The feminine and masculine images are supposed roles are simply an invention, not a natural phenomenon.

Amongst you, there are more and more couple who actually are equal partners, allowing us to witness the transformation that occurs when old images don’t grip us any longer. In such families I see tender and nurturing men and women raising human being without injecting any concepts about gender; I see qualities of strength and leadership in both girls and boys, as well as tenderness, emotionality, and creativity. This delightful evolution is the inspiration for generations to come.

At the same time, most of you mothers and fathers are still playing the game of patriarchy to some degree. Until you stop, the next generation will not be free of inequality. It is your job as parents to take life on as human beings and raise human beings who value each other as united equals; without teaching them division. It means modeling such equality as well as avoiding all stereotyping (gender, race, religion, nationality... anything.) Males and females will stay males and females, only without the added limiting imposed character traits and the burden of specific duties.

The way to create peace is by abolishing domination and hierarchy at all levels and with every human being. This will also stop the raping of our planet. Destroying the planet can only be perceived as correct by a culture of dominance that sees one being as more important than another, one gender, race, nation, creature above anything and above the earth. In reality inclusiveness is the way towards peace and including women and children in sharing life as equal members is the beginning that can bring to an end all dominations and exclusions. When we do that, we know the earth too is part of us. Division is a mind invented concept that is the source of most struggles on this miraculous planet.

Keep Eckhart Tolle’s words in mind: “Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.” Egos (mind, thoughts) create the illusion of division and therefore of hierarchy and domination. I invite you to make a conscious commitment to model to your children how to be conscious humans. That means being inclusive of all beings, life and humans with no “us and them” or any attitude of being better or worse than anyone else. Believe it or not, this includes not pumping the children’s heads with a sense of being special. The child is a miracle and so is everyone else. When children grow up seeing the miracle in themselves and in everyone, they will create a society that celebrates all humans with awe and love, with no distinctions of rights or roles based on gender or any other concept.

I will start with me: Traveling and speaking I often encounter people who wish to “pin” me to nationality and other specific attributes. I always say: “I am a human being from planet earth.” By not identifying as anything other than a human being, I invite connection and inclusiveness. I am saying that I am part of you, us, the planet.

Raise children whose identity does not create division of me and you, us and the others; raise them to feel one with all humans and the planet/universe. No family, group, religion, country, nationality... Just like John Lennon’s timely song, Imagine. Although they kept John’s lyrics unchanged, saying in the masculine, “brotherhood of men” they staged and sing the song so clearly in the spirit of unity that I recommend you not only listen but also watch: