disciplined people come from disciplined parents (and disciplined people progress human consciousness). Good parents bless their children the qualities of love and perspective, which are, in my view, the two nurtured qualities of discipline (they also teach them to protect themselves from everyday hazards)
patience
- parents are more successful when they try to truly understand why their children don’t want to do something and then take the time to explain to them the benefits of the activity.
Santa Klaus and the Tooth Fairy
- Neil deGrasse Tyson has a great workaround for the ethical dilemma of lying to your kids about Santa Klaus and the Tooth Fairy
time
- time is everything to kids
- listen to your kids, repeat back what they say. When you listen to them you bond, and when they bond they often pick your values
finding the right place to live
use material (tangible) richness like money and influence to buy into intangible richness (community, space, peacefulness).
- near an elementary school (preferably private)
- young children must be able to walk to school
- near a natural border (edge of town / near a protected wildlife zone)
- this includes not being close to major roads with fast cars
- there should be a natural escape route where you can walk in a direction outside your general neighborhood and continue indefinitely without encountering human traffic
- has an established participatory community (avoids suburban-style consumerism and no-trespass escapism)
- only a community that offers it’s hand at mutual aid is capable of instilling the positive values in children. Otherwise, the job rests entirely on the parents, who are flawed
the stages of life
What do these 6 things look like at every stage of development? (infancy, toddler, young child, older child, preteen, teen, old teen, young adult)
Pre-infancy
before being born
Infancy
0 to 1-2
Toddler
the terrible twos. Toddlers learn the joy of disobedience
Child
probably 4 to 10. Important stage because a person’s self-esteem is built in the first 7 years of life”
Pre-teen
10 to 12-13?
Teen
worst time in the timeline
Young adult
hopefully we don’t have a drinking problem here