Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kem Jon Paine. This week we're going to be talking about the broad theme of how to anticipate the struggles that will come up for kids. It comes under this broad sort of heading of you can't prevent your kids going through stuff as they grow up.
You can't prevent the darkness, but you can grow the light. And the light is a steadily growing thing through many, many years of raising kids to know that it's a beautiful world and to know they're beautiful. Before we dig a little more into that, this is the last reminder, I hope this is not annoying, of our Care Professionals training coming up January 25, 26.
As I mentioned in the last podcast, if you know of a care professional who might be interested in furthering their training to help parents balance and simplify their lives, let them know. You might know. You might know someone or you might be interested yourself if you're an educator care professional.
It's three hours on the Saturday and on the Sunday, and I personally lead the course. We have a whole bunch of people who gather around live online from all around the world, some very bleary eyed from all sorts of time zones, and we get together and figure out how to support parents in this too much, too soon, too sexy world that we're raising our kids in and how to sensibly dial it back. Okay, so that's that.
You can see a link right below to that. And look, if you're listening to this after this January thing, it'll come around again next January. Don't worry about it.
It'll come around again. And all you got to do is just click on the interest list and we'll be sure to send you the details. All right.
So this theme of raising children in the light, raising them in a sense to know that it's a beautiful world, there are beautiful people. It doesn't mean they won't experience darkness in their life, that they won't go through really challenging times because they will. It's almost guaranteed that at various stages through their lives, they'll go through their long dark nights of their soul.
They will. We have. As adults, they will too.
But what is the difference between staying in that dark place for long, long periods of time and developing a sort of feeling somewhat desperate when that happens and the isolation goes on for far too long? But what gives kids the mojo to be able to come through that darkness? Now, I've watched this over the decades of having the privilege of working with families and children, and I've seen many children and particularly teenagers and kids in their early 20s go through really difficult stuff, go through things that are extremely challenging. If we can raise kids simply, if we can raise them without too much external frippery, then when they get into that stage where the world is feeling like it's not supporting them, then if we've raised them simply without too much stuff, without too many activities, without too many toys, without too many clothes, without too many screens, too many TV shows, too many choices, if we've just kept it simple, then when they're at that rock-bottom place in that darkness, they are much more self-reliant. They're not reliant on the outer stuff.
Do you see what I mean? They're not reliant on an external loci. They've, over the years of having lived simply, they've developed that ability to have an internal loci. They haven't chased the magnetic north of toxic pop culture.
They've had time and space and the grace in their lives to develop their inner true north, not the magnetic north, not the one that moves around all over the place, but their own true north. But that needs space and time, and when we give our kids that space and time, when they're in those dark places, they won't be panicked to near the same extent that the world isn't supporting them, because they're much more self-reliant. They have much more agency over their lives.
They're used to it, but they're used to it in a good way. They're used to it in a way when they were little kids when they were playing, when they're older kids when they're coming to decisions. In whatever way we dial life back to a sensible, digestible way of living, when they get in those moments, there's not the anxiety or just the sheer panic of not feeling supported, because that little kid has built that tree house when they were nine years old, and they figured it out, and it fell down, and they figured it out again, and then the rain came, and it got all wet, so they figured out how to put a roof on that didn't leak on their clubhouse, and they did it when they were nine, ten, eleven years old, and now they're nineteen, and now they're in a dark place.
But now they've got to figure out on a whole different level what to do, but they've developed that ability to be able to not rely always on other people to do it for them. They haven't been over-scheduled. They haven't been stuck in little league teams playing adult rules in games.
They haven't been given, like, this is how you play. They've developed their own play. They've developed their own negotiation.
They've developed their own way of finding their way through things, and what I've noticed over decades of doing this is how these young people, particularly in the late teens, early twenties, can hit that darkness, that rock bottom, and move up slowly, gently, move up, and not continue to go down, to not huddle in a dark corner emotionally away from the world, but to know that there is light. Now, I know it's a cliche, but there is light drawing me forward at the end of that tunnel, and it's no fun being in a dark tunnel, but if we provide the light of simplicity, the light of self-agency, and the time and the space and the grace that kids have to develop that, they will have light to move towards. This is just so, well, what is it? It's almost all we can do, right? There's not a lot else we can do.
We can just raise our kids in the best way we can, not reliant on all this outer stuff, knowing that they will go through this, and just hoping, you know, like hoping almost beyond hope, but hoping and knowing that this will serve them well when times are dark. All right, I sure hope that's helpful. Bye-bye for now.
