John Gray - Children Are from Heaven - Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

Besides being born innocent and good, every child comes into this world with his or her own unique problems. As parents, our role is to help children face their unique challenges. I grew up in a family of seven children and, although we had the same parents and the same opportunities, all seven children turned out completely different. I now have three daughters ages twenty-five, twenty-two, and thirteen.

Each one is, and has always been, completely different, with a different set of strengths and weaknesses.

As parents, we can help our children, but we cannot take away their unique problems and challenges. With this insight, we can worry less, instead of focusing on changing them or solving their problems. Trusting more helps the parent as well as the child. We can let our children be themselves and focus more on helping them grow in reaction to life’s challenges.

When parents respond to their children from a more relaxed and trusting place, children have a greater opportunity to trust in themselves, their parents, and the unknown future.

Each child has his or her own personal destiny. Accepting this reality reassures parents and helps them to relax and not take responsibility for every problem a child has. Too much time and energy is wasted trying to figure out what we could have done wrong or what our children should have done instead of accepting that all children have issues, problems, and challenges. Our job as parents is to help our children face and cope with them successfully. Always remember that our children have their own set of challenges and gifts, and there is nothing we can do to alter who they are. Yet we can make sure that we give them the opportunities to become the best they can be.

Children have their own set of challenges and

gifts, and there is nothing we can do to alter

who they are.

At difficult times, when we begin to think something is wrong with our children, we must come back to remembering that they are from heaven. They are perfect the way they are and have their own unique challenges in life. They not only need our compassion and help, but they also need their challenges. Their unique obstacles to overcome are actually necessary for them to become all that they can become. The problems they face will assist them in finding the support they need and in developing their special character.

Children need compassion and help, but they

also need their unique challenges to grow.

For every child, the healthy process of growing up means there will be challenging times. By learning to accept and embrace the limitations imposed by their parents and the world, children can learn such essential life skills as forgiveness, delayed gratification, acceptance, cooperation, creativity, compassion, courage, persistence, self-correction, self-esteem, self-sufficiency, and self-direction. For example:

• Children cannot learn to be forgiving unless there is someone to forgive.

• Children cannot develop patience or learn to delay gratification if everything comes their way when they want it.

• Children cannot learn to accept their own imperfections if everyone around them is perfect.

• Children cannot learn to cooperate if everything always goes their way.

• Children cannot learn to be creative if everything is done for them.

• Children cannot learn compassion and respect unless they also feel pain and loss.

• Children cannot learn courage and optimism unless they are faced with adversity.

• Children cannot develop persistence and strength if everything is easy.

• Children cannot learn to self-correct unless they experience difficulty, failure, or mistakes.

• Children cannot feel self-esteem or healthy pride unless they overcome obstacles to achieve something.

• Children cannot develop self-sufficiency unless they experience exclusion or rejection.

• Children cannot be self-directed unless they have opportunities to resist authority and/or not get what they want.

In a variety of ways, challenge and growing pains are not only inevitable, but also necessary. As parents, our job is not to protect our children from life’s challenges but to help them successfully overcome them and grow. Throughout Children Are from Heaven you will learn new positive parenting skills to assist your children in responding to life’s challenges and setbacks. If you are always solving their problems, they do not find within themselves their innate abilities and skills.

Life’s obstacles can occur to strengthen your children in unique ways and draw out the best in them. When a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, there is a great struggle. If you were to cut open the cocoon in order to spare the new butterfly this struggle, it would soon die. The struggle to get out is needed to build the wing muscles. Without the struggle, the butterfly will never fly, but will die instead. In a similar way, for our children to grow strong and fly free in this world, they need particular kinds of struggle and a particular kind of support.

To overcome their unique challenges, every child needs a particular kind of love and support. Without this support, their problems will become magnified and distorted, sometimes to the point of mental disease and criminal behavior.

Our job as parents is to support our children in special ways so that our children become stronger and healthier. If we interfere and make it too easy, we weaken children, but, if we make it too tough and don’t help enough, then we deprive them of what they need to grow. Children cannot do it alone. A child cannot grow up and develop all the skills for successful living without the help of their parents.

There are five important positive messages to help your children find within themselves the power to meet life’s challenges and develop their full inner potential. Throughout Children Are from Heaven , we will explore a variety of new parenting skills based on communicating each of these five messages. The five messages are:

1.It’s okay to be different.

2.It’s okay to make mistakes.

3.It’s okay to express negative emotions.

4.It’s okay to want more.

5.It’s okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses.

Let’s explore each of these messages in greater detail.

1. It’s okay to be different.All children are unique. They have their own special gifts, challenges, and needs. As parents, our job is to be able to recognize what their special needs are and to nurture them. Boys in general will have special needs that are not as important for girls. Likewise, girls will have needs that may not be that important for boys. In addition, every child regardless of gender has special needs associated with his or her particular challenges and gifts.

Children are also different in the way they learn. It is essential for parents to understand this difference, otherwise they may begin comparing children and become unnecessarily frustrated. When it comes to learning a task, there are three kinds of children: runners, walkers, and jumpers. Runners learn very quickly. Walkers learn in a steady manner and give clear feedback that they are making progress. Finally, there are the jumpers. Jumpers tend to be more difficult to raise. They don’t seem to be learning anything or making any progress, and then one day they make one jump and have it. Jumpers are like late bloomers. Learning takes more time for them.

Parents learn the importance of expressing love in gender-specific ways. For example, girls often need more caring, but too much caring can make a boy feel as if you don’t trust him.