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JohnD
USA
371 Posts |
 Posted - 07/18/2007 : 07:53:54
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This is something that I think about from time to time and wanted to get everyone's ideas about different things that parents can do to help their children be TMS free.
Here are a few of my ideas:
1. Be emotionally available to your children, and encourage and allow them to have and express their feelings (this may be the most important because it is such a good preventative medicine against TMS)
2. Be an active role model -without ever saying a word about TMS - parents can model how strong the body is by being active and encouraging your children to do the same. Most of the kids I grew up with who had active parents have had pretty good health so far in their adult life
3. Let your children be children - don't expect them to be the next anything - whether it is a great baseball player, or a straight A student. Expect them to do their best and let that always be good enough.
4. Take any and all conversations about various adult concerns, and issues to a place where your children can't hear, or be exposed to them
I could sit here all day and think of ways to help the next generation be TMS free for life, but am also interested in what everyone else thinks. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2007 : 12:41:31
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Regarding #3:
There is a great paragraph in one of the later chapters of TDM (by Andrea Leonard-Siegel, I believe) that talks about how it is impossible to always do your best, and exhausting and painful to constantly try. Because by definition, your best is something you only do occasionally.
Reading this paragraph was such a release for me. It was a profound change in how I viewed the effort I was putting forth in my life.
If you want TMS-free kids, don't expect or tell them to always do their best. Your best is something you work up to and aim for.
These days I tell myself to put forth a genuine, solid effort to do a good job. Unless I really DO want to do my best!
--
Wherever you go, there you are. |
Edited by - armchairlinguist on 07/18/2007 12:41:50 |
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2007 : 15:14:33
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnD
1. Be emotionally available to your children, and encourage and allow them to have and express their feelings (this may be the most important because it is such a good preventative medicine against TMS)
This is an admirable goal but difficult to do if the parents haven't healed their own emotional wounds. As Bradshaw says "It's unintentional and unconscious the manipulation of children by parents". When parents heal their own wounds they connect with their own vulnerability and therefore are not threatened by the various feelings of their own children. Also they stop looking, unconsciously, for something from their children that they should have gotten from their own parents. Instead they find ways of getting those needs met through their own resources. Then the kids can be kids and live their own lives. |
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JohnD
USA
371 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2007 : 17:49:10
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| OK we are on a roll here. TMSers at their best - finding whats wrong with something instead of whats right. How about 2 more people can find whats wrong/impossible/not practical with #2 and #4- you can even just fixate on 1 or 2 words and totally lose the main point - the point is to just find whats wrong. Do we have anyone up for the challenge? |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2007 : 01:50:34
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3a: Let your children be what they want to be, not what you want them to be. (Difficult, I guess.)
Btw I recommend Marshall Rosenberg's book "Nonviolent Communication" - it's about communicating by expressing your feelings and recognising those of the person you are communicating with. I think if we all learned to communicate in this way we wouldn't have TMS. It fits in with 1.
Hilary N |
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Raising TMS-free children
