The Parental Toolkit

“I am a drop in the ocean, but I’m also the ocean. I’m a drop in America, but I’m also America. Every pain, every confusion, every good and every bad and ugly of America is in me. And as I transform myself and heal and take care of myself, I’m very conscious that I’m healing and transforming and taking care of America.” Zen Buddhist teacher Dr. Larry Ward

The year 2020 has lived up to being a time for reflection. Which is a good teacher and motivator. The realization of perspectives and how they impact relationships between people, I commit to understand. I didn’t comprehensively understand how prolific and unique they are, like fingerprints. Everyone has a unique pattern.

Life experiences create unique patterns. This is neither good nor bad, successful or unsuccessful; they shape who we are. In early childhood we speak of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). We tend to ascribe adversity to some experiences based on our lens; situations like being raised in poverty, not having a two-parent family, low educational attainment in the family, etc. In some instances, it has been deemed adverse to not have the English language spoken as the prevalent language in the home. My perspective is that if you have sufficient financial resources and two parents with education as a focus in the home, it is an advantage.

People who have above average resources start out ahead of people who do not. In contrast, simply being exposed to ACEs doesn’t have to limit development and ultimate attainment of advantages that allows a person to work towards and enjoy a life of their choosing. It can be the beginning of building resilience – our unique fingerprint.

In the interest of moving ahead, we should acknowledge there are structures in place that promote keeping things the way they have been – maintaining the status quo. We should examine educational funding and what we choose to teach as part of the educational curriculum. Perhaps we consider changing (or adding) what’s not in the curriculum; maybe we chose to defend or selectively remove historical facts so that the truth remains hidden.

Are we living in a household where hate is unintentionally taught? Is capitalism over altruism modeled? Is a legacy of taking advantage of others, versus teaching that success is based on a legacy of how you contribute to improving the environment around you such that people have the ability to become the best version of themselves are really ACEs? We can contribute to the list that identify tools that advances children and their development in these areas.

We know that role modeling is important for early childhood development. We talk about reading to babies, encouraging creative play as a way of learning and developing the brain. We teach parents how to be their children’s first teacher; perhaps we should expand the tool kits to include parental self-development so they have the tools to walk away from being focused on self-promotion and aid them in becoming individuals who self-reflect so they too can improve while learning to teach their children to thrive.

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