<br><h2>CHAPTER 1</h2><p><b>Learn from Your Baby</b></p><br><p>Oops! Suddenly, you're the parent of a tiny being who is a completemystery to you, someone for whom you feel so much love and on whomyou have no grip whatsoever.</p><p>Welcome to the world of parenting—to your new life as a parent.Forget about all the parenting books, websites, and blogs that you haveread so far. Forget all the well-meant advice given by your parents,grandparents, colleagues, and neighbors.</p><p>Your child has one message for you, and it goes as follows: "It'sbetween you and me now, buddy!" In other words, "We are now bothin unfamiliar territory," meaning that your child will be using you andyour partner as guinea pigs and for target practice in developing his orher unique genetic and karmic package (or character, if you will).</p><p>Furthermore, your child will mirror you to an extent that will be quitedisconcerting and, of course, amusing and endearing, as well. He or shewill mirror all that you are repressing (i.e., all your unconscious behavior).These are the things you had long forgotten, including your own hiddenchildhood traumas and discomforts and all emotional matters that youmanage to rationalize for yourself. Why? Because, for the baby, there isonly the here and now—a world of feeling and eternal <i>now</i>.</p><p>If babies could somehow communicate how the world looks and feelsto them, and how they interact with the world, it might go somethinglike this:</p><p>No thinking. No worrying. No insincere behavior. Nofaking. An ocean of bliss.</p><p>What I feel is what I feel, and that is what I share in mypurest and most virtuous form.</p><p>And furthermore, I sense and suffer all that you feeland/or suppress. I am who I am. No compromising(yet). I am either happy or unhappy, or I am in thatdelightful, pure now, where things simply are.</p><p>So there is no need for you to distract me or foryou to entertain me. My cognitive abilities and mydevelopment will start up by themselves, because mybrain is programmed to develop at lightning speed.</p><br><p>As loving parents with only the best of intentions, we all tend tomake serious mistakes that may have huge consequences at a later stage.The biggest mistake is projecting our perception of reality onto our babyor child. This will lead to a smorgasbord of problems later in life.</p><p>Because each generation of new souls on this planet—and each newbaby—has his or her own "program" to follow, the less we interfere, themore successfully it can unfold. Parenting is all about facilitating andbeing a good example.</p><p>In contrast to most adults, a baby's world is one big party. Babiesare learning about the world all the time, and they do this without anyoutside help.</p><br><p>>> Live now! Do this by emptying your head. Be more like yourbaby. Just <i>be</i>. Observe, feel, and listen.</p><p>>> Be yourself. Work on yourself. Strive to be at peace.</p><p>>> Babies do not need to be entertained.</p><p>>> Learn from your baby.</p><h2>CHAPTER 2</h2><p><b>Let Your Baby Play and Dream</p><br><p>Nowadays, we are inundated by</b> thousands of books on parenting andhundreds of magazines and websites, all of which overemphasize theearly cognitive development of children. In doing so, these resources(perhaps inadvertently) ignore the most important aspect of beinghuman: the fact that we are already whole at birth. Our soul and itswisdom are present and available.</p><p>I do not wish to imply that the brain has no need to develop andtrain itself. Of course it does. Furthermore, all kinds of talents need tobe developed so that they reach maturation and perfection.</p><p>Due to pseudoscientific research (and mostly due to vestedcommercial interests), we as parents are overloaded with "educational"games for our babies. On all fronts, we are advised to start with theirdevelopment as quickly as possible.</p><p>I am not in favor of this. It is unnecessary, and experience shows thatthe longer babies can play, the quicker and better they develop later on.This focus on early development does have some positive aspects.</p><p>When the development of the intelligence of a baby is started at a veryyoung age and applied diligently, the child will be years ahead of theirpeers later on at school and in college.</p><p>However, during a baby's first years, a loving and safe environmentis the most important thing because it allows the baby to be himself, tohave lots of time to play, and to enjoy and relax.. That is the best approachand also how the baby will learn the most—yes, just by playing.</p><p>Many geniuses stress the importance of playing and daydreamingin their childhood, and they continue to doo so as adults.</p><p>"Play is the highest form of research."(the great) Albert Einstein</p><br><p>As parents, we need to be highly alert when it comes to interactingwith our babies. For exampleeee, if my baby is stressed and unhappy, Ishould check to see if I and/or my partner are unhappy or stressed. If weboth relax, the baby will relax. (Of course, as parents, it is hard to relaxbecause we are biologically programmed to be alert around babies.)</p><p>Almost every mother knows the nights of light and restless sleepbecause one ear is listening to every sound her baby is making.</p><p>Fathers are much less burdened with that instinct, though of course,they can be extraprotective. With fathers, the difficulty in relaxing canmanifest itself as wanting to take care of the family by protecting thenest financially through too much hard work.</p><p>But is all of the above enough when we are asked to be "highly alert"in our interaction with our children? Yes and no, though mostly no.In many cases, most (if not all) of the educating or upbringing is quitestraightforward. However, in far too many instances, many things gohorribly wrong due to a lack of knowledge on the part of the parent.You understandably do not know what you should be alert about.</p><p>And, on the other hand, you are too busy to have enough energy leftto be highly alert. Modern life is, after all, unbelievably fast-paced andoverwhelming.</p><p>In fact, the pace of our modern culture is opposite to that of anewborn and preschooler. To begin with, they live in a world that iscompletely defined by food and sleep. Meanwhile, their minds are eagerto the point of being anxious and are ready to develop.</p><p>However, in order to develop effectively, a nurturing environmentof love and peace are essential. In fact, this is much more essential thanthe use of constant images and learning experiences the salesmen ofcomputers would have you believe are necessary.</p><p>Here is a small example from my practice that illustrates thecomplexity of the early years as I have shared above.</p><p>A wonderful, charming, and successful couple came to my practice.Their daughter, age four, had the most violent temper tantrums. To thehorror of the parents, she would go about head bashing. Then, as if thatwas not bad enough, when the mother served dinner, she had a habitof taking a plateful of hot food and launching the food (as well as theplate) across the room. Imagine your favorite cream-colored new sofasand rugs covered in spaghetti sauce!</p><p>The parents understandably had no idea what to do, and as headbashing can be psychiatric in nature, they were terrified of seeing theschool psychologist.</p><p>I decided to work with the parents on their own issues: confidence,strength, loving authority, and so on. A few weeks later, I had a sobbingmother on the line, joyfully exclaiming, "I have my sweet little girlback." It was very touching. No more head bashing, no more throwingaround dinner plates!</p><p>It is not enough to create a safe place and evaluate our own stresslevels to be successful in our parenting.</p><p>If you think I might be biased or overly negative, think again. Iam basing my statement that "very often many things go wrong inparenting" on an endless stream of expensive and, for the most part,useless reports that have been published on this matter over the last threedecades in The Netherlands and most northern European countries.</p><p>I value and appreciate all the reports and data that have beengenerated worldwide by concerned education research, be it academic orinvestigative in nature. I call them useless because they are very costly,and they keep coming up with many similar conclusions: there is anincrease of violence at school and at home, more and more children aredropping out, and there is a decline in grades and in basic skills, suchas reading, writing, math, and common knowledge.</p><p>Schools and colleges are swamped with increased governmentdemands on all kinds of control systems. And yet basically very littlechanges. The rapid change of our societies over the last five decadeshas had the most impact on the family. So families struggle and haveproblems coping. The result of this is that every nation has more troubledfamilies than is necessary, not to mention the harm that is done.</p><p>Experts tell us (and I concur, obviously) that stress among parentsis directly responsible for all manner of behavioral problems: sleepdisorders, ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder), ODD(oppositional defiant disorder), learning problems, addictions, and soon. And certainly the above mentioned problems can also have geneticand environmental causes as well. It is usually a cocktail of manydifferent factors.</p><p>Help is available. There are numerous parenting courses (includingsupport groups), therapists and counselors who specialize in parentingissues, as well as educational psychologists—the latter are to be foundin most, if not all schools. At the first hint of problem behavior in yourchild, you should immediately contact these professionals who can helpyou set things straight before matters get worse and slowly spiral out ofcontrol.</p><p>Parental discomfort or embarrassment can lead to the question thatmany marriage therapists as well as educators know only too well: Whydid you wait so long before seeking professional help?</p><br><p><b>Tips from Chapter 2</b></p><p>>> Review how you as a child experienced your own parents.</p><p>>> What role models have you integrated into your ownparenting?</p><p>>> To what extent is there peace in your life and in your home?</p><p>>> How can you make your life more "baby friendly"?</p><h2>CHAPTER 3</h2><p><b>Focus on What You Can Control</p><br><p>Informative/educational TV tells us that</b> the undesirable behaviors ofbabies and children are the direct and irrefutable consequence of a lackof awareness on the part of parents, as well as an inability to cope withtheir own problems.</p><p>I also strongly argue against the cliché of "quality time versusquantity time," which is a gimmick used by way too many educators,magazines, websites, and authors to sell a new "trick" to parents. Forbabies and young children, there is only <i>time</i>, not this flash of so-called"quality" time! They just want your time and attention!</p><p>Furthermore, parenting requires listening and taking time insteadof criticizing and correcting. The two former aspects require lots oftime, and the latter are often the result of being rushed or unclear aboutrules and boundaries. We will go into this later on.</p><p>It is either that lack of awareness and self-knowledge or the stress ofnegative parenting practices that are the root cause of so many so-called"problem families." This knowledge is confirmed by many case studies,and it is also known to most, if not all educational psychologists.</p><p>Family dynamics is a complex issue, and it would take a wholebook to explain the intricacies. Suffice it to say that when becoming aparent, you subconsciously dredge up all your own negative and positiveparenting experiences as well as all your interactions with authorityfigures.</p><p>As soon as you become a parent, issues of power and control (andthe lack of them) come up. These are often reinforced if you have apartner and/or are raising your children with others. All kinds of murkyfeelings related to lack of control, fear, and powerlessness pop up. Babiesand young children sense this, and they do not like it! Before you knowit you, your baby or child, and your partner are involved in subconsciousand unconscious power struggles, fears, and games, all of which limityour effectiveness as a parent.</p><p>Now, please realize, there is no judgment in this statement. Thisstuff just happens to many parents! You love your baby/child, and youread all you could before they were born and then suddenly you feelhelpless and lost because nothing prepared you for all these feelings andissues. I totally understand that and empathize with you! This is why Iplace enormous emphasis on building awareness, self-knowledge, andlove! This counteracts the above-mentioned negativity.</p><p>To paraphrase Mr. Miyagi, "No bad children, only 'bad' parents." I putthe word <i>bad</i> in quotation marks because I do not believe there is such athing as bad parents. Parents have problems because of a lack of awareness,which is mostly due to a lack of information or knowledge because no onetells us how to prepare for this most important life event.</p><p>Please believe me when I say that on my part there is no judgmentof you as a parent. When we become parents, we've had little or notraining for parenting, and the knowledge that we do have is madeup of a large assortment of mostly contradictory advice found on theInternet, offered by friends and parents, and read in magazines, books,and so on.</p><p>Imagine wanting to build a bridge and hiring an architect and someengineers whose qualifications consisted of some weekend courses inarchitecture or engineering. Would you hire these guys? The strangething is that we are trained for everything in life except for the mostimportant task that exists: parenting. With this task, we are expectedto "make do."</p><p>And make no bones about it—parenting is, unquestionably, ourmost important task. This is because it has such a large-scale, societal,moral dimension. The quality of your parenting today will determinethe quality of your nation in the future—no more, no less.</p><p>For now, though, you are on your own. As I explained before, thehome "arena" is a place in which you will need to find your own way ofcoping with parenting.</p><p>Our world as parents consists mostly of meetings, traffic jams, ourweekly planner, our greed, our stress, our moods, and being "busy,busy, busy." We have no time for the delays, the nagging, or the complexproblems that raising a baby or preschooler can entail.</p><p>The following story is an example of the failure of many parents toengage with their children. Instead, those parents criticize that behavioror attempt to correct it—interactions that can be devastating to thechildren.</p><p>It was a radiant spring day, and I was walking back from the beach.Up ahead of me, I heard a dad calling out to his adorable, fairylike youngdaughters. He was apparently visiting them on the beach, wearing abusiness suit and carrying a briefcase. They had understandably beenclamoring for their father's attention, and he responded by saying, "Andnow, it is time for you to stop whining." These sweethearts were tryingto tell Daddy what they had been doing that day! Ouch!</p><p>My guess is that they were three or four years old, and they onlywanted to do one thing: share their joy and enthusiasm with Dad, whomthey had missed all day.</p><p>By responding as he did, we do not create children, we create neuroticmonsters. Their shocked, sad, and confused faces remained etched onmy retina all the way home. The scene broke my heart as he broke theirswith his shouting and lack of love.</p><p>Little souls who are full of love have only one reference point and thatis Mommy and Daddy. Their parents are God for them. Everything intheir lives, certainly in the first years, will be decided by these "gods."</p><p>Children are wired with certain beliefs about their parents'interactions with them. Here is one of these:</p><p>When Daddy or Mommy criticize my natural andloving behavior, then there must be something wrongwith me.</p><br><p>That is how little children think (and how these girls reacted), andhow you and I responded when we were small.</p><p>Children have two other unusual and illogical types of programmingthat determine their entire being:</p><p>If Mommy or Daddy has a problem, then I need to fixit, and (even worse) it is also my fault if they quarrel orfight.</p><br><p>Please take this to heart and let it be a serious warning to keep asmany of your problems as possible out of your children's lives, sincechildren have a natural antenna for those problems.</p><p>There are several ways that parents can accomplish this. For instance,you can learn to breathe again. Just the simple act of taking a few deepbreaths can be enough to get your heart rate and adrenaline down aftera long and tiresome drive home. You can curb your urge or desire toimmediately react to a problem with your partner and agree to use acertain prearranged signal that you will both address the problem later.This approach shows that the two of you will act as one and that you areunited in your common parenting goal. This should not be too hard,because you love your children!
