Teach children how to identify the "Line" through life's obstacles. Love your children and show them what the line FEELS like. They will learn to be happy, and then they can reflexively avoid all the behaviors, thoughts, words, and people that would detract from the joy of their adventure. They make choices instead of only reacting to pain. They become genuinely powerful.
Timestamps:
00:00 Telling children not to behave is not enough.
01:14 Canoe metaphor and “the line”.
02:53 The futility of trying to tell children about every danger in life.
03:40 How to identify “the line”.
05:35 Testimony of a teenage girl.
06:19 Testimony of a mom with a teasing child.
Transcript:
Children Need a "Line" to Follow
We parents spend a great deal of time and effort telling our children how NOT to behave:
“Stop that.”
“Don’t interrupt.”
“Get off your video game.”
“Stop fighting with your brother.”
“Stop whining.”
And we’ve all experienced the ineffectiveness—no, the futility—of this approach. We’ve seen them briefly stop their “bad” behavior, only to quickly and creatively discover new ways to be difficult, to ignore our instructions, and to defy our attempts to stop them.
We must begin to recognize that simply telling them how NOT to behave is not enough. They don’t know what it means to feel loved, and to be loving and responsible, so if they just stop one unproductive behavior, mostly they’re left with choosing another one that is equally unproductive.
Finding the Line When Paddling a Canoe
Over the years I have paddled my canoe down many very swift and treacherous whitewater rapids. It’s every bit as difficult as it looks, especially in a large open canoe, rather than in a small, more maneuverable kayak.
The obstacles involved in some of these rapids are very formidable. You encounter enormous boulders, logs, violently turbulent water, whirlpools, eddies, curlers, holes, siphons, and more—all of which can crack open your head or drown you or both.
In order to successfully navigate treacherous waters, the key is not so much to avoid all the obstacles. Using that approach, you’d avoid one danger only to encounter the next one immediately adjacent, which might be worse than the first.
No, the key is to find the flow that will carry you safely through the obstacles. Sometimes this is referred to as the “line” through the hazards. It’s much easier to focus on that single line than to analyze, prioritize, and avoid a dozen different potential disasters every few seconds. I referred to this line or flow in a written answer on this parenting site, called Find the Flow, here.
Help Your Children Identify the Line Through Life
Every day our children are running the whitewater rapids of life. They are surrounded by an astonishing variety and abundance of potential dangers, often overwhelming to them. You could tell them about each obstacle, but there are too many, and they come too fast, and you can’t be there while they encounter each of them.
Yes, it’s still wise to identify some individual dangers to them, so they can be aware of the ones that otherwise might sneak up on them and throw them into the violent waters. But it’s so much more effective to help them identify the line through all the obstacles.
How? How can they identify the line? Your responsibility is to love them and teach them, and to help them learn how to feel loved, and how to be loving and responsible. As you do that, they will find the lifesaving flow through the rapids.
Instead of frenetically identifying every danger, they need only become familiar with the feelings of love and responsibility, which consistently yield a sense of peace and joy. In that condition, every approaching object can be quickly identified as consistent or inconsistent with happiness.
At the end of a journey, an experienced kayaker won’t be able to tell you every hazard he encountered, but he’ll remember the beautiful lines he followed. He’ll know the feeling of exhilaration that came from the adventure, aware only peripherally that the dangers simply passed him by as he stayed in the flow.
We drive down the road in a similar way. We don’t identify every single car, curb, house, store, person, and tree that could cause a crash. We focus mostly on the road ahead, peripherally aware that each of those potential obstacles simply is not the road we want to be on.
Testimonials of a Teenage Girl and a Mom
A teenage girl wrote to me: “I was so discouraged. No matter what I did, it was wrong. I would try not to do bad things, but then I only did other wrong things. I couldn’t find any way to be happy. Then my mother learned how to love me, and as I trusted her, I learned from her. She taught me how to feel loved. She taught me to love other people and to be responsible. Then I didn’t feel crazy afraid of making mistakes anymore. I just clung to happiness, and it became natural to stay away from anything that might take me away from that feeling.”
A mother told me about her son, who was constantly interrupting people and teasing them. On one occasion when he was bothering someone, she said, "What are you doing?"
Now, notice my tone. Not (angrily) "What are you doing?" No, she said, "What are you doing?" in a calm voice. It was a real question. He said, almost predictably, "Nothing. I was just playing around." So innocent.
Mom said, "Do you feel loving towards your sister right now?" — the one he was teasing. "Are you focused on HER happiness? Are you feeling peaceful yourself? Maybe you were just playing around? But are you feeling peaceful and loving?"
There was a long pause from him, so Mom said, "And there's your answer. What you're doing is not contributing to your happiness or your sister's. Now, you get to decide what to do next." This is brilliant on the part of Mom—teaching, giving choices.
Immediately he stopped the teasing, and within minutes he and his sister, who he was teasing, we're playing together.
Love your children and teach them how to follow the line. Allow them to feel the line. Show them what the line FEELS like. They will learn to be happy.
And then they can reflexively avoid all of the behaviors, thoughts, words—and sometimes people—that would detract from the joy of their adventure. They make choices, instead of only reacting to pain. They become genuinely powerful.
