Nurturing vs Modelling

Nurturing vs Modelling

Recently I've seen an increase in people posting about the need for a separate class teaching children all about mental health.

I'm curious about that notion, I've got teenage kids, and I think they've never been more educated than they are now about mental health and all of the options available to them.

There's room for improvement no doubt, but after reading these posts, I was like, hang on,

Is this just another example of us trying to outsource our own stuff?!

You can teach children all you want, but if you stay stuck as a parent or as a role model, even if you're not a parent, and projecting that out, then they will end up modelling that behaviour.

They learn so much more from what you do, than what you say.

It's who you need to be and who you are that's going to have the greatest impact.

Instead of focusing on only teaching children, it always starts with asking yourself the questions.

If you're feeling a frustration around your own children or other people's children, and they've got different conditions that are causing them anxiety or depression or some other health challenge, then my questions to you are,

What are you doing for that challenge yourself? What classes are you doing?

Because there are many classes out there for adults to deal with their challenges.

There are many people out there who help in this space.

You've only got to search online for a minute you can find the answer, it's just whether you're prepared to take that action.

Yes, children need nurturing.

More than that, they need modelling.

They need people in their life who are going to show them the way by who they are.

When you change who you are, everything around you changes and becomes more positive.

I've walked this path myself.

I've had many times over the years as a really angry and frustrated parent, bringing that home from work, then bringing more of that through for my children and they end up reacting the same way.

Interesting, right?

I was also creating more problems for them by how I was dealing with different things…..or NOT dealing with things.

I'm by no means a perfect parent, I get plenty of things wrong.

I'm still making heaps of parenting mistakes, no doubt, but the better I become at dealing with me, at regulating my mental state, my emotional state and my spiritual connection, the better my children become.

Your physical wellbeing comes into it too because that has such a massive impact on your mental health and therefore the impact on your child's mental health.

So how are you fuelling yourself? Are you exercising regularly, eating well, doing all the different things that you know are going to have a positive impact on your mental health?

And if you find yourself stuck in different patterns, what are you doing to break those patterns?

Are you speaking to someone?

Are you learning all you can to be able to break these patterns yourself, to go through a self-healing process?

There are so many different options out there to be the model that the next generation need. That the next generation actually want.

They don't necessarily want a best friend in their parents.

They do want and are crying out for clear boundaries. Who would have thought right?! They may react negatively but not only do they need boundaries, they want them.

They don't want to be left to their own devices and have everything outsourced to school to learn all these things.

They want to learn from us.

They want to see that we're human, that we show all our frailties, all the things that we don't get 100% right and to be able to share all that we've learned.

To come from a human perspective of not perfect, and to be able to help them go through whatever they're going through.

I really like a quote I saw recently, it was along the lines of….“I'm not gonna try and make sure my children don't get exposed to challenges. I want them to have as many challenges as they possibly can so that I can help guide them through because that's how they will learn.”

Sure there are some elements that children of a certain age will need our protection from. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about letting them have a human experience, going out, taking risks, making mistakes and exploring the world…..with clear boundaries.

Letting go of controlling your children so they can do whatever they need to do to learn and give them guidance before and afterwards.

It really does come back to personal responsibility.

If every single person in this world took full responsibility for what they had going on, we would remove all of the pain, all of the suffering in an instant,

Because a person who is taking full responsibility can then bring so many other things to the table.

And you get you power back, you take back your personal power and become the model of the sort of person that you want to be.

You will make mistakes too, but there are also plenty of opportunities out there for you to learn and to grow and to continue to be better in whichever area that you want to be and know you need to be better.

Don’t get caught in being over nurturing to the point of trying to control but actually come back to being a role model for the sort of people that we want to see in this world.

Because if we all do that it'll be a so much happier place.

If you feel called and are ready to step up, message me and we can arrange a time to chat, what's the worst that could happen?!