Educate: Educate yourself first
When it comes to our children, we often think we know best, but do we? You especially notice that you find this when someone says something to you along the lines of: "Parenting is how you do it." That then feels a bit like an attack, because what is that person interfering with
When it comes to our children, we think we know best ourselves.
I saw an interesting video by Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who has also written a book. He says the following: Imagine, your dog gets sick, you take it to the vet. The vet then gives you medicine that you have to give the dog 3 times a day. You most likely get those medications for your dog and give them to him neatly three times a day. You just do that, you don't go against that. You do that for your animal and don't think about it any further.
But, when it comes to yourself now you question things much more quickly. At least that's how I am, I don't know how it is with you. A lot of people then are like, 'Is it really? Do I have to take those medications three times a day?' You also forget about them from time to time. When it comes to your dog, you're more involved in that regard than you are with yourself.
The same money with raising children, in which you are more involved than taking care of yourself.
Parenting begins with yourself
Raising your children also starts with yourself. Educate yourself; know what you’re doing. But do people really know that about themselves? Are you on the right track? Are you achieving success in the areas where you want it?
So do you?
When you look at your relationship, is it going well? Is work going well? Is your health in good shape? Are your emotions in check?
In various contexts, you can see that people are really struggling. Millions of Dutch people use antidepressants.
11 Million Dutch people are on medication. That's quite a lot, if we're talking about health. Are you moving enough, eating right? 50 percent of people are overweight and 70 percent don't like their jobs. The numbers are not very good so there is a pretty good chance that you are not doing well in one of those contexts.
Then you may be thinking, "You must be doing it absolutely perfectly. Well, then let me reassure you: no, neither do I! I also fail quite a bit, and often!
As a human being, you try things, you fail, you succeed, and then you run into things again that make you think you still haven't learned.
Then you think, "Young boy, haven't I learned yet? It's really not that it's one and only perfection, if that could be possible at all. I don't believe in that anyway, that it's very good at all things. It may be that it is different with you, maybe you have a higher standard. Then fitness and health, for example, means something completely different to you. It's just how you deal with that.
It's not that everything is perfect; that's almost impossible, too.
It would be pretty cool if everything always worked out everywhere.
What you do you pass on
In any case, the bottom line is to pass these things along to your children.
If you don’t enjoy your job, your children might come to think that it’s normal to have a job you don’t like. They might even believe that striving for a job you enjoy is unimportant—that it’s not a necessity.
If you see your coworkers more often than your partner, you’d better make sure that your job and your coworkers are enjoyable.
When it comes to relationships, things are very different today than they used to be. In some elementary schools, children of divorced parents are already more common than children of parents who are still together. What message do you convey to them? That relationships aren’t sustainable anyway?
Of course, we could argue about that again, but I'm not into that at all. In any case, you can see a difference. It used to be exceptional if there was a child in the class with divorced parents, now it's the other way around. It seems like an upside-down world. I'm not saying one is better than the other, it's just interesting to see how that goes and that's what you go along with as a parent.
How are things going with money? Are you talking about money?
There are many things in which you may fail, and that's okay, because do you really have to be top notch in everything? That's very difficult. There really are people who score high marks in every area, but I know more people who don't.
Imagine you get a puppy and sign up for puppy training classes. You’ll be given all sorts of rules on how to raise that puppy. There are plenty of courses like that. Something similar would be helpful for raising children, too. Of course, it’s not exactly the same thing.
But for the parts of life where you think "others can do that better than me" such a course would be helpful.
What should be included in a parenting course?
Imagine there is a course, what would I want in it? Just hypothetically, because I'm not the best educator either. But my 4 children are still alive and they are happy from time to time, too, so I've done pretty okay. I think that is an accomplishment in itself.
But of course, I'm not the best at a lot of things either.
I would put the rule from the 18th century right in, which is: rest, regularity and cleanliness.
When I look at children today—at how little routine and calm there is—I think this is definitely a shortcoming. Children sleep and eat poorly. This may also be because children eat very irregularly, so if that were addressed first—eating regularly, at the table, going to bed on time, and less screen time before bed—I think that would solve a lot of problems.
I also believe—given the insights we have today—that more attention should be paid to personal development. Very few people are consciously engaged in this. Most people don’t listen to a podcast about personal development or read a blog about it. But you’re reading this, working on yourself, and are aware of these things. But how many people actually do this?
How many people realize that you pass on everything you do to your children? So that you know that if you start working on yourself, you will see this back in your children?
These are two rules - structure and regularity - and working on yourself as a parent should be in such a course. You see this immediately in your children.
I also submitted this question on social media and received many nice responses such as:
- Respect
- Love
- Hug
- Letting children be themselves
Yet a course is not necessarily required when you have your first child. When I had my first son, the Maxi-Cosi was filled and the next day the maternity care would only come. But I really wondered for a while how that first night would go and what I should do. According to the doctors, everything worked out fine and we indeed survived that night.
But I still would have liked the first few years to know what I know now.
Interestingly, while many people attend puppy training, there is no "child training."
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1240493-opvoeden-dat-doe-je-zo
Then I'll just give a quick start
A few helpful scientific tips to keep an eye on.
There are a number of things that are important in the first few years of your child's life. For example, according to Jordan Peterson, your child must be able to be somewhat social by the time they are four to ensure that social development continues throughout the rest of their lives[1].
With toddlers, it is important to also teach them more about emotions, such as while reading books aloud. By asking children questions about the emotions in the books - and what causes them - children are also more likely to start helping and sharing things with others[2]. This is very helpful if you want to make friends.
Fathers should play with their children because this helps children figure out what is fun play and what hurts. Fathers often play a little rougher with their children than mothers, but this also helps for your child to figure out that it is not helpful if he sticks his finger in your eye. That he too can hurt another person. By playing with dad, the child learns the boundaries of what is fun play and what hurts (so yes, as a father, sometimes you have to take a finger in your eye)[3].
Now, due to a variety of experiences in your own life, you may find it difficult to talk about emotions or play with your child so he knows where the boundaries of pleasure and pain are.
In that case, hypnosis can help you figure out why you find this difficult and encourage you to do just that.
For example, you can use hypnosis to resolve certain traumas[4]. Through regression, you can change beliefs that prevent you from playing with your child. You go back to the moment when such a belief first arose. The hypnotherapist then helps you interpret that moment differently, causing the belief to vanish like snow in the sun.
In addition, knowledge of hypnosis is also very useful in raising children by providing the right suggestions to empower your child. So it is useful for your own development and for raising your child.
Would you like to learn more about the basics of hypnosis? Then come to a hypnosis workshop.
Would you like to see hypnotherapy in action, such as in resolving trauma? Then come to a hypnosis seminar.
Would you like to get started right away with hypnosis techniques to help yourself or others? Then sign up for one of the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
[1] 12 Rules of Life, Jordan Peterson.
[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00125.x
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfCa3J0Aal0
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207144.2015.1099402