Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting, Soul of Discipline, and soon the new book, Being at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst. That's in with the publisher right now, finally finished the manuscript of that, and they're working on it probably, no kidding, as we speak actually, and so looking forward to that one. I'll let you know more about that later.
So this week I've been thinking about kids' destinies, as big a picture as that sounds, really specifically how kids seem to come to us with their own mission, right? They seem to be born, and it's like, I don't know, like when my daughter was born, I was waiting for the harps and the golden light and these sort of beautiful, gentle moments, and I guess some of that happened, but what really struck me was she was born looking me right in the eye, and I swear if she had had sleeves to roll up, she would have, and she looked me right in the eye and just sort of seemed to say, Are you ready for me? I've got stuff to do. Are you going to help me? I was so struck by the gaze in her eye being so direct, and that kind of feeling I've spoken about over the years to various parents, and they say, Oh my, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is just the feeling that our little one had when he or she was born as well. You know, that feeling that kids come into the world, and in a sense, we are like midwives to their intention, like how do we birth them physically? That's one birth, but the next birth, which happens over 18, 19, 20 years is birthing their intention.
It's a lot longer birth canal, but contractions are sure there around two years of age, two-year-old tantrums and all that, around seven, again at nine, when they start challenging us, waking up to the world, and you know, little kids anymore, and it can get a bit difficult, and 14, 15, a bit difficult again, 18, 19 sometimes has its own challenges. There are these birth contractions of intention at various ages of our kids, and then there are times when it just sort of settles down in between the contractions. The metaphor I used in the Soul of Discipline book, right at the beginning of that book, was that it came right from the biography of Michelangelo.
I was reading this book as I was preparing once when I was going to teach a block on the Renaissance to a group of seventh graders, and I was reading this Agony and Ecstasy, right? There's this famous passage, you might know about this, when Michelangelo was asked how did he possibly carve the Statue of David, and he answered that he didn't carve the Statue of David, and people around him were surprised to hear that because this had been his masterpiece, and they'd watched him work on it. And he again insisted he didn't carve the Statue of David, what he did, what he said is, I took away that which was not of David. Now, that's quite a well-known quote now.
What he did is he took away what didn't conform to his image within the stone. So he had this image of David, this beautiful, magnificent carving, and each day he would come to work on it, and he wouldn't be creating the image, he would be taking away the barriers to what that image actually was within him. And in the Soul of Discipline book, I use that metaphor for trying to give an example of our family values, right? So we have our family values, and every time a child does something and says something that doesn't really jibe with our family values, doesn't seem to line up with the way we want our family to be.
It might be values around cooperation, it might be values around respectfulness, it might be values around just being considerate, and that doesn't go so well. We remind our child, hey, hey, hey, that's really inconsiderate of you to talk to your brother or sister that way. That's just not what we do in our family.
We try so hard not to do that. What's up? Right? And then we explore what's going on, but we're moved into action by that pushing against and cutting across, perhaps, is a better image of the value that we have for our family. Now, that image, I think, holds true, but when it comes to our kids' own innate destiny, their character that they need to carry out what they've come to do, to carry out what they feel passionate about, there's another aspect of that image which has grown within me since I wrote the Soul of Discipline book, and that's the question of what about the grain of the marble? So, there's the image you want to make within the marble, sure enough, but the marble has its own will as well.
The marble has its own grain. It's literally called grain, just like it is wood grain. This is the grain of the marble, and you can shape that, but you've got to go with it.
You can't just hack away at it, right? Otherwise, you perhaps are creating this arm or head or leg or whatever it is that you're carving metaphorically or really as a stone carver, and you can't just ignore the flow within the stone. And just like we can't really ignore the flow within our child's temperament, our child's character. So, these two things are always being held like in a dynamic balance.
Perhaps your value, as I mentioned a moment ago, is that of being considerate, but then you have a really choleric child, a really fiery one who's really angry a lot of the time, flares up in anger and then calms on down just as quickly. Well, that's his or her temperament. That's just who he is.
That's maybe what he's going to need to do what he's come to do in this lifetime. So, there it is. You've got a fiery child or you've got a stubborn child, and yet your value is that of, let's say, consideration.
Now, both stubbornness and fieriness don't seem to line up with consideration. So, how do you deal with that? Those two things, in a sense, that's the art of parenting. Right there is what we're looking at and what we deal with on a daily basis.
So, with the fiery child, for example, one just learns to, for example, never to take a kid on when they're in a full-blown firestorm. You just know that you wait five, ten, twenty minutes, let the adrenaline drain down, and you talk to her a little bit later on. And you ask her, I say, hey, what's going on? That was really harsh, the way you spoke to your sister.
You're a helpful, kind girl. And you know what? In our family, we really, really value consideration. And those words were harsh.
They didn't seem to be very considerate at all. What's going on? What was bugging you? Do you see? It might be a very stubborn child. They just simply won't hurry up in the morning.
And you need to get out to the car or to the bus, and they're dragging their heels, and it's really starting to frustrate everyone. And yet your value as a parent is that of, let's just say, with consideration. And what do you do in that kind of situation? Because you've got their character, which moves a little slower, right? And it just is.
They move slower. They're deeper thinkers. Maybe they get distracted a little bit more.
Who knows? But all that stubbornness, on one hand, will be the stick-to-it-ness, on the other, that your child is going to benefit from over the years. The difficult side is stubbornness, but the helpful and, in fact, essential side of that is stick-to-it-ness, is being methodical. The fiery, argumentative side of the cleric, you know, the fiery child, blasts through objects and is a real mover and shaker in the world.
And that's maybe what she or he needs to accomplish what he's come to do as well. And so how does that line up? Because on one hand, you could go too far, way too far, into the character and temperament of a child and not have that meet a family value. And in that case, you actually don't give the child any limits.
You don't give the child any direction. And so that's a child that is really at risk of suffering from a real false sense of entitlement, of a boundary-less life, and not being a team player, and frankly, not succeeding. So on one hand, to succeed in life, they need your limits and boundaries, don't they? But on the other hand, they need you to be able to take into account what their natural tendencies are.
Because if we go too far, just with, this is our family value, and you will not speak like that young man over and over. We're just really harsh without being, it's what I think of as inquisitive as opposed to being accusative. Then we've gone too far into just having rigid family values.
And so much of the art of parenting and so much of particularly what the Soul of Discipline book addresses, and it's right in the sweet spot of this next book of being at your best when your kids are at their worst, that for me has become a very, very keen interest. So over these weeks, have another look at your child's character, temperament, what are they trying to do in the world, and then what are your values? And just watch, because they're the things that when they meet together, will actually form this true spirit midwifing of a child's intent, their deeper spirit, their deeper soul, whatever word we're comfortable with there. But out of the dynamic tension between a child's temperament and the values that are alive in a home, that's how a child's deeper character is formed.
Okay, hope that was helpful. Bye bye for now.
