Hello!
I wonder what you most want for your child?
To be deeply connected with themselves? To trust themselves? To know their own life journey? To be compassionate and respectful to themselves and others? To be safe from being overpowered or persuaded by others?”
I believe that one of the ways that we can do that is honour their willingness.
You may have read my article last week about willingness.
I love what Leah wrote in A Week of Willingness:
“So, when we as parents encourage or even force our children to share (their toys, their food, etc…) with others when they are clearly not wanting or willing to (and I see this all the time at parks and at play dates, through them either voicing that they don’t want to or clinching tighter to the thing they are being asked to share, or perhaps beginning to whine or cry at the thought of having to give something up) we are taking so much power from them! We are teaching them that they have to do things against feeling willing to do so. Yikes! I wonder what that feels like when the person they trust the most (usually us) is asking them to ignore that innate feeling of wanting or not wanting and willing or not willing to do something?:(“
Leah
I love her question ~ to wonder how we might feel.
I love putting ourselves into our children’s shoes.
Do you remember how it felt to do things against your willingness?
Most of us had very many experiences like this – as we’ve grown up in the behaviourism paradigm, which certainly doesn’t take willingness into account.
On my Facebook page the other day, I wrote this,
“Since doing A Week of Willingness, I’ve come back to very clearly WAITING UNTIL THEY’RE WILLING – with ‘my kids’.
I’ve been aiming to do this for the last 15 and a half years, but I’m so grateful that this is back in the forefront of my consciousness again. I think it is SO important.
For example, my son’s hair is very knotty. We’ve been through so many phases of this over the years. When he was little, his willingness to have his hair brushed was correlated with how many feelings he was holding inside. The fewer big feelings he was holding inside, the more he was willing to cooperate.
As he’s got older, other factors have come in.
At times we’ve done attachment play, we’ve found strategies to meet both our needs, and at times one or other of us has got upset.
Yesterday I asked him if he was willing for me to brush his hair. Not one single part of me was trying to persuade him.
I was just listening to his willingness, and what was going on with any fears he might have and any reassurance he might need
(He has told me that he WANTS to keep it long and he DOESN’T WANT dreadlocks – which means some brushing required!).
He was willing for me to brush it for about 15 minutes.
Then he wanted me to stop.
I told him that one side was more brushed than the other. He said,
“I don’t care what my hair looks like.”
And THIS IS WHAT I LOVE. HE DOESN’T CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK OF HIM.
I’m quite tearful even thinking that!
I remember Aletha Solter differentiating between a conflict of needs and a conflict of values.
I went a bit of a different route with NVC, but nowadays I am really seeing what she says.
My son having knotty and felted hair would be seen as a conflict of values.
He doesn’t care what it looks like.
I care because I value beauty!
AND because I fear others judging me after they see his hair!!!!!
My son keeps helping me heal all the parts of me who are afraid when they imagine being judged.
I WANT MY LOVELIES to go out into the world free to be themselves.
I’m so glad that they don’t care what other people think of their appearance.
I’m so glad that they’ve retained their deep sense of self-connection.
And I’m so glad that I get to keep on practicing this whole willingness thing.
And this whole healing old hurts around being judged thing.
Because many times I did keep brushing when he asked me to stop.
And I love that I’m getting to discern, at a deeper level, that willingness has such a PROFOUND impact on all areas of our lives.”
And I want to send ALL of us parents so much loving compassion over this willingness thing.
Most of us grew up, as I said before, in a culture that didn’t value willingness.
Most of us learnt to over-ride, to some degree or another, our own internal barometer of willingness.
We learnt that we “should” give a toy to others even if we hadn’t finished playing with it – and then we internalised that should, which means we learnt to do things to avoid feeling guilty.
We were told that we “had to” learn things that we had no interest in, and wouldn’t use in our lives – and again we internalised that “have-to”, and continued doing it to ourselves, doing things that we weren’t willing to do but believed that we had to.
We were told that we were “naughty” or “bad” if we didn’t “do what we were told – and we internalised judgment and the corresponding feeling of shame and thus learnt to force ourselves to do things that weren’t in alignment with our true barometer.
WILLINGNESS IS ALIVENESS>
The more we do things because of these internalised shoulds, have-to’s, shame, guilt, self-punishment, the less life energy we feel.
The more likely we are to feel heavy when we are doing something.
The more likely we’re going to need to force ourselves to do something.
AND I want to acknowledge how HARD it can be to honour our children’s willingness.
Why can it sometimes be so hard?
1. Modern culture makes it harder to value each person’s willingness. If we lived in a compassionate multigenerational tribe, if we wanted to go out and do something, and our child wasn’t willing, they’d be free to do something they were willing to do with all the other people left there.
2. Nuclear families means that often we have chronic unmet needs for autonomy and choice as parents, which leads to resentment and frustration.
3. When we see our children listening to their own willingness and unwillingness, we can feel even more resentment and frustration if we didn’t get to do that as children. We may want it for them, but our inner children may feel jealous, sad and enraged that they didn’t get to do that – and seem to not to get to do that themselves.
4. We may be listening to our child’s willingness and unwillingness, but meanwhile shoulding, shaming, have-to ing and ignoring our own wants and willingness….
5. Our own hurts around our willingness not being honoured as children can come up to be heard when our children stay true to their willingness or unwillingness.
6. Sometimes children aren’t free to be willing because of pent up painful feelings, particularly around powerlessness. That might mean they are very rarely willing to cooperate, which can be painful for us if our needs for cooperation are being chronically unmet.
What can we do to help ourselves, given these challenges?
1. Keep reminding ourselves of the gift that we give our children when we respect their willingness – how it is helping them stay connected with their own inner barometer, and helping them to be free to be willing if that feels true for them.
2. Lots and lots of self empathy for how hard it can be to live in a nuclear family culture and be wanting to respect everyone’s willingness.
3. To see if you can gradually free yourself from internally coercing yourself through shoulds, have-to’s, self-judgment, and ignoring.
4. Receive empathy from our outer loving crew or inner loving crew when we don’t listen to our child’s willingness. (and set loving limits with self-judgment!)
What can we do to help our children to be free to be willing?
1. Wherever possible, give them choices.
2. Give them notice about when you are going to be wanting them to do something.
3. Make requests rather than demands – that includes the words you’re using (avoid should and have to), and the tone you’re using.
4. If you’re wanting cooperation for them to do something, see if you can make it playful and fun, e.g. “Shall we go to the car singing Mary Poppins or shall we pretend we’re jungle animals discovering a car for the first time?”
5. If they seem to never be willing, check the above, and see if you can listen to more tears and tantrums and do plenty of Present Time and power reversal games. Past feelings of powerlessness can accumulate and block the willingness channel. Listening to their tears and tantrums and laughter will help free up their willingness channel.
6. If you are in a position where you do need to use power over them, tell them why, be clear, and listen to their feelings with loving compassion. They may need to cry and rage about it. I also recommend power-reversal games afterwards.
I wonder how you feel, having read this? How would you like to respect your own willingness and your child/ren’s willingness more?
If you want to explore this more, my free Intro to Power and Powerlessness in Parenting is here:
http://www.powerandpowerlessnessinparenting.com/
I also have 20% off my Power and Powerlessness in Parenting 4 module course!
Click HERE or on the image below to find out more!
Love,
Marion xxx