Yabby Creek Adventure, Kids checking out rocks and insects, 12 March, 2014
I am beginning to look at what I am teaching through my actions. Not what I say or what I want to believe. All that is meaningless in comparison to my true feelings and the actions I take. My actions are what do the teaching. If what I say does not match up with what I do I am being hypocritical.
I often ask myself: ‘What am I demonstrating right now through my actions?’ Am I honoring Love and Truth or am I way off with that?
And if the kids are around I ask myself: ‘What are they being taught right now through what I am doing and feeling, or not doing and not feeling?’
I feel being truthful is so important – both personal truth and sharing what you know about God’s Truth or The Truth (Universal Truth – If you don’t know anything, don’t pretend you do).
I often feel parents are reluctant and often fear being truthful about their feelings and about most things with children. Particularly in regards to what we class as ‘grown up issues’, example: divorce, sexual abuse, sexuality, and anything else parents deem ‘inappropriate for children’.
I feel that withholding the truth or lying to kids is so damaging. It is also really condescending as we we don’t believe children can ‘handle’ the truth, I often hear people minimizing, justifying or watering down answers to very frankly asked questions from children.
Kids can handle Truth, often better than adults. It is us as adults who find the truth challenging and we put this onto kids rather than allowing them to feel about the truth and feel what they feel. I notice this so often when children just come out and say things and the adults around them freak out, dismiss them, get condescending or brush them aside, particularly in public. I reckon this would feel terrible for a child.
When we feel this way and are untruthful with children we are teaching them to do the same. We undermine their feelings and teach them to distrust themselves and their experiences, this is very damaging.
I don’t agree with dumping emotions or incestuously sharing or involving children in a parents/adults emotional processes, issues or relationships, this is damaging and not being loving or truthful either. Being truthful is answering children’s questions directly and being honest with what is going on, particularly when it is happening to them or around them.
When children ask questions is the perfect time to share information because they* are demonstrating a desire to know.
I cannot agree that the truth is damaging, I feel untruths are damaging! Being Truthful may cause emotional responses and I have heard, if these are let to fully run their course and flow out then there will be no emotional damage left in the end.
The Truth is always loving and has huge potential to heal when delivered with love.
I often think about how we re-name body parts or bodily functions as anything but their real names, or about death and how parents/adults lie and make up stuff to tell children that is not true, it is dishonest and about the parents fears not about the best interests of the child. Also most often parents have been mis-educated about death and have not experienced it – yet – so they have no idea and cannot actually tell a child what happens because they do not know.
Children are generally much more open than adults and in my experience if things are logically explained they accept them, ask lots of questions (many of which we don’t know and can’t answer, which we also need to be honest about) or feel through them without much resistance if there is not opposition from the parents emotional stance.
Our reluctance to be truthful with children is hypocritical. If we are lying to our children we can not expect them to be honest with us or themselves. How can we expect this if we are unwilling to be emotionally honest with ourselves and others? Our actions are hypocritical when we expect others to do what we are not willing to do ourselves.
If we desire others to be truthful with us, we also need to be truthful with ourselves and others.
We cannot ask our children to do what we are unprepared to do ourselves.
Being truthful is loving. When a child can trust you to be truthful with them they are more likely to be truthful with you. They are also more likely to come to you and ask advice and actually listen to you because they know you will stand up for (God’s) Truth and Love – this is a very powerful thing!
If they know you lie or withhold truth (a form of lying) they will also reflect this and we are responsible for creating children who also lie and withhold the truth. If a child is lying I feel it is about us not wanting to hear the truth, or them feeling unsafe to tell the truth, or it could be manipulating which they would have learnt from us also – either that they can do so because we are open to being manipulated, and/or because we manipulate so they learn to do so (it could be other reasons too). Either way they are reflecting back to us our stuff – which is pretty awesome when I think about it, as it gives us an opportunity to see ourselves ‘warts and all’ and the opportunity to change and grow in a positive direction.
Parents I notice like to blame kids and make what is happening with children about the child/ren rather than taking personal responsibility for what they, as the parent/caregiver, have created and taught the kids. In my opinion kids reflect their environment, which includes parents and then learn to be what they become – which is most cases is taught by their parents.
I feel parent’s get afraid of what is going to happen if they are truthful or that it will reflect badly on them or something, really I reckon it is about adults wanting to protect their feelings and avoid their own emotions.
As a kid you feel what is going on around you all the time and when personal truth is told it confirms the feelings you are having and honors your experience rather than feeling that you must be wrong because mum and dad are saying the opposite to what you feel and/or what is being experiencing is untrue. The lack of truth and love causes a lot of sadness in children.
If you can share how to discover God’s Truth and how God’s Laws work with children, I feel this is super powerful because then they learn about Truth and Love for themselves and know that personal truth is not necessarily in harmony with God’s Truth and what God views as loving.
Knowing the truth and knowing that your parent is truthful with you builds trust and enables you to make decisions based on your own feelings and assessments and experiences, this actually builds sense of self in a positive way.
My parents withheld the truth and it has been very damaging. They didn’t want to be truthful themselves and it is devastating to find out later that you were lied too and your parents didn’t love you enough to honor Love and Truth and the principle of the thing, particularly in abusive situations.
I encourage you to be truthful with yourself and others! To be brave and to stand up for Love and God’s/universal Truth!
* When children are heavily spirit influenced, mediumistic, overcloaked, they can become a channel for spirits to ask questions. I mention this as there was a time when our kids were very out of body and often spirits would ask questions through the kids – (this attraction was due to Pete and my fears about spirits and our unhealed emotions which left the kids unprotected and totally open to spirit influence). This feels different to most of the questions they ask now, which I feel reflect their desires more rather than spirits who were/are with them.
DEAR GOD... 