Hot Tempered Child.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
I would like to ask your advice on how to raise a boy (4) who comes from a family of hot tempered and impatient people. He emulates everything he sees and is easily distracted. However he is a quick learner! My concern is…he is already being a bully towards his mum and grandmother and has a bad temper. A lot of his behaviour is his environment at home I know this. I realise that raising a child is not only nature but how we nurture them but then how can I teach an “old dog new tricks?” with my family including me? I would like for him to approach life with peace and calm….
Response:
The key to parenting is ultimately about being able to model the behavior you want the child to learn. Your concern that the family all have hot tempers and that the boy is also developing a temper is an understandable concern. Since it is unlikely that the family as a whole is going to change their temperaments, you can instead focus on modeling to the young boy how to express strong feelings without raising one’s voice and without being disrespectful of others. He needs to see from his family that he doesn’t need to exaggerate his behavior and raise his voice to be noticed. And it is important that he understands that there are appropriate boundaries for expressing whatever he needs to say that are more satisfying and more effective than what he is currently doing.
You can show him through your interaction with your partner, how even if one expresses very intense feelings, it is possible to settle back down again quickly and thoroughly without any lingering resentments or hard feelings.
If some of these behaviors do not come naturally for you or your other family members, then take this child-rearing challenge as a signal from Nature that this is the time to learn them, for your sake as well as for the boy’s sake. Any book on non-violent communication would help you with this.
Love,
Deepak
