Pushing children | Day 157 of my 2023 Journal

I find it hilarious how adults obsess about drawing lines for children, making rules, and setting “boundaries” so that they understand = obey.

I find it hilarious because adults don’t respect the boundaries of the children.

The contrast between the respect wanted and claimed, and the respect given is enormous.

Adults even brag about how great they are at breaking the children's boundaries, making them do stuff or not do stuff.

It is seen as a parental success to make kids do things they don’t want to do. They push and pull and shame and start over until they “win”.

When Children say “no!” “This is not for me” or “I don’t want to” Adults very often do not just accept it but start the whole process of persuasion, negotiation, and knowing better.

It is a crazy contrast in I demand your respect, but I do not offer you mine.

And the disclaimer again: I know everyone wants the best for their children and do what they do whit the best intentions. But let’s face it. It is crazy.

Recently I was in a beautiful forest in Denmark, looking at my children doing tree-top climbing when one of them hit a mental wall or just reached his limit. It took half an hour. The boy wanted and did not want to overcome the obstacle. It was a mental dance for him and us. Do you want to do it, or do you want to do something else?

I seriously trust my children to know when to say stop, and my job was to help him feel good about whatever decision, not to force him to make one or the other.

The most important time in our life we learned this was when our oldest son decided not to go to school. It took some weeks for us, the parents, but once we trusted him to know better, it opened a great new adventure for our family, and I am forever grateful he felt that so strongly.

After the climbing, we went to the tower in the forest, a very tall metal construction lifting us high above the treetops. It was BEAUTIFUL.

We spent the day with Inas' family, and 3 in the group decided to stay near the ground. In this bunch of people, there is no ageism, and I am not going to share the ages of those who did not go up, but I am going to say I was not one of them.

I love to climb to the top of buildings, mountains, and towers to see the view.

What I love even more is my freedom to decide whether I want it or not, and I am not going to restrict that same freedom for anyone else.

No push. No pull. Game over.

Love and light

Cecilie Conrad

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