My children came and sat next to me, right as this lecture was summing up. Right as Ian Dunbar was making the connection between how we raise dogs and how we raise children. I did not put my face in my hands and sob from guilt. But tears did roll quietly down my cheeks. And, of course, he ends up covering most of our working homeschool philosophy of what is real and important in elementary education.
Ian Dunbar On Dog Training
5 comments:
I just wanted to tell you that you have no reason for guilt. Or for tears, unless they are tears of astounding epiphany. One of my favorite phrases applies here: Once your awareness is raised, it can't be lowered again. Having seen this, become really aware and processed it all, you can't go back to doing things the way you've done them before without having it cross your mind again.
I'm thankful for the little things I learn here and there that make me truly see myself, because they help me to be better. Life is about making mistakes and learning. Thanks for helping me learn something today.
I really enjoyed this speech. Thank you for posting it. It is good to have his words of gentle wisdom in my head for days when my own logic is out of whack. The angry face thing was really eye opening to me.
Time stamping - every five minutes - feedback. Basically, in the time I watched that video I should have given my girls feedback 3 times. Hmmm. Powerful idea, that.
I am easily moved these days. Some of that is probably just hormones or craziness. But when my children were born, what I had learned as a nanny flew, temporarily, out the window. I reverted to what I had been taught as a child. That simple truth, being exactly what Mr. Dunbar was saying, reduced me to tears. As a child I was taught to be invisible, to have no needs, to eat silently, to obey without thought, that my opinion did not matter, and that adults were wildly unpredictable and unhelpful. (I was taught other, nicer, things as well. It was not all bad.) But, as if it was written in my dna, as if I HAD NO CHOICE, when my babies were born I became my parents, in profound and important ways. Not only did I become them, I became the version of them that existed when I WAS A CHILD. (Which is different, in some ways, from who they are now.) This was not good. It was very bad for my children.
So that message of the lecture reduced me to tears. It is true, we teach what we were taught. Times one thousand billion repeated all over the planet to infinity. Does it not make you gasp?
Then of course, the simple fact that I was cruel, at times, to my children is horrid to bear. And made worse by the fact that I can still, at times, lose it. I still, at times, make mistakes with them. We all do. No one is perfect. But I've hurt my children. What mother wouldn't cry?
Also, imagine most children and the abuse they endure everyday. Not to mention the punitive nature of school. I suppose, really, its the weight of the UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLY HORRID communication skills of humans that just pressed on my for a moment. Oh, I could go on and on. But I should probably medicated. Who thinks like this? Nut jobs. But I liked that man. I wish he had been my dad. I want to go crush rocks by the river and have my dog bring me a note that its dinner time. THAT was just too cool. :)
AND the whole notion that training is required.
Because the opposite reaction of not actually raising the children, but sort of shucking them off in myriad ways, is just as bad. Y'all know what I'm talking about? Those parents who can't set boundaries, can't say no affectively, who are powerless before their children, who mimic parenting without actually engaging. JUST. AS. BAD. That is called Brat Training, how to raise a brat 101. And its almost just as much of a disservice to the children as abusive dominance.
Wow, this lecture really got to me.
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