Hey Shawn......really good questions here!!!! Wish I had some answers for you!! I need some answers to these myself!!!! 
I am a professional childcare worker...and this is one subject that I have always had difficult with!! How to expalin life after death to a child.......some children really need to have some answers right away.....sometimes because they have lost a loved one in their family. You never mentioned how old your child is....that makes it a little harder to try to provide some advice.....from my past experience with my own children....thru my training and work related experience...and just from plain old wisdom...at my old age of 44!!!!!!....I would tell you right now, that a parent only knows their children and what their child is capable of understanding....so, age and cognitive development is what you should be considering. I would also suggest that you never say things to a child in such a way that gives them a distorted idea of what life after is all about. I'm not sure how to explain this to you....you don't want to give them false ideas like, mom or dad will walk them there and stay there with them until they feel better......that kind of stuff. You also have to be very careful of not creating fear into them.....dying, the after life...Heaven, is something that they should never be afraid of. Which all comes back to their age and mental development and capabilities of understanding. I have a 4 year old granddaughter....and she has asked me questions about my mom and dad who have passed away years ago. I have always told her that they are angels in Heaven......now she is beginning to ask me more details on that!!! Last night for example: she asked me why we can't just go to Heaven to have a visit and then come back home!!! I didn't know quite what to say to her.....I ended up telling her that we live here on earth and have a body.....skin, bones......hair.......but when we go to Heaven, we don't have those things anymore...we become angels.....and can float about, rather than walk......so we can't just go to Heaven for a visit, because we have a different kind of body. She is a very smart little girl, very curious....and I know that my answer isn't going to satisfy her for long!! So...I think I am in the same boat as you!! I need some helpful answers here to from the more experienced members of this place!!!!   
Sandy

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I didn't know what to do with my kids Shawn when I raised them as a single mom. they just didn't come with instructions! They are 32 yr old twin girls now. I did learn what not to do from  watching my own mother. for instance, it's the little things that matter. mother never took notice of little things, like complimenting a child on a fine coloring job for instance. so when I became a mother, I was forever oogling over my kids little creative works as if it were Michaelangelo work. this works to boost their confidence level only until they become teens; then only prayer works. not to scare you, they just need an authority figure to butt up against then. naturally, I was that. as you say you are teaching an open mind is a good thing to have, I taught something similar. I once took them at age 12 to a positive thinking class for kids called "I can." I couldn't find them and looked outside; they were climbing the church roof....lol. I sorta gave up making them into my image at that. I was so embarrassed as one of the ministers persuaded them to come off the roof. ahhh, as I said, they don't come with instructions. now, they are adults and they have persuaded me I did do a good job and since they are basically honest girls, I guess I must have. all I know is I don't think I could have come here and been happy without my kids. love, alysia

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This is such a nice statement.

It really rings true in my heart, when i see my daughter smile when she learns somthing.

thank you for the replies !

take care,
-Shawn

Hi Shawn

I think this is one of those questions we don't have a good handle on so we all just muddle through. Part of the "problem" is that you don't know what the kid is bringing to the table, so to speak, and how that will interact with what the culture throws on him/her.

One factor that is unknown is how much affect the culture is having on the kid. You can't isolate the kid, wouldn't want to, but, to paraphrase a well-known saying, the village raises the child whether you want it to or not. Choosing the village can be difficult.

I didn't let my kid watch alot of tv when he was very young but then he got into Ninja Turtles. He was in home day care and the older kids there were enthusiastic about the Turtles. I was dismayed. But that's what taught me that you can't control all that your kid learns. Well there are worse role models than the Turtles...and they had a spiritual teacher (a rat). (lol!). Then it was Power Rangers. That was an interesting show, esp. in the early days....if you bothered to listen. Then I let too much tv in, but that is another story..

The real stressor was that I didn't want to do the Santa Claus thing. Even in kindergarten, I told him that the parents brought the toys.

We had the culture wars going on then. The kindergarten teacher pulled him aside and told him it was a secret and not to tell the other kids. And they raised their eyebrows at me. Strangers would ask him what Santa was bringing him. The Santa thing really gets pushed. (we live in a region settled by Protestants but with alot of Catholics due to immigration ...years ago). The next year he was in a Montessori school for first grade, and this stuff happened again..only worse. ne teacher was apparently appalled when he told her he helped wrp his presents.

Not everyone shoved this on him. Some people have alot of joy in their celebration but don't feel compelled to push the concepts on others. Then there are the ones who come from other traditions. We have evolved to be politically correct with other traditions. I can see how difficult this would have been for someone Jewish or Muslim or whatever when I was a kid. Now, those kids would not be so harrassed. The situation with me is that I am an ex-Christian, so I can't claim haven in another belief system that the general person will "accept".  This was realy a diificult time as a kid reacts very strongly to what others are doing. This continues through grade school but fades over time as you move through the grades.

The point of telling you this is to warn you that you can teach your kid something different but watch out for the community you live in. Little kids repeat what the parents say and there can be repurcussions. So if you, for instance, were to teach your kid that it is OK to talk to spirits, you might mention that it isn't OK to tell others you are doing this. Of course, it depends on what talents your kid brings to the table. My kid never indicated he "saw" anyone else. He didn't have alot of imaginary friends that I recall. And I was quite willing to accept them! I could go on about this because there are many people who are willing to intrude on how you are raising your child and you need to be prepared for the possibility of having to deal with them.

if your child does have any 'special' talents ..psychic...that manifest young, there may be another set of problems. Be prepared to defend the kid. I was thinking of the one visit I made to a Spiritualist church. It was a small group (is that redundant? are there any large Spiritualist churches?) and the featured speaker/reader that day was a woman who talked of having this ability as a child and how her (Catholic) family wouldn't accept her abilities either then or now, and what joy she had found in this group that accepted her and helped her develop her talent.

So there are problems if you either have a special talent or you have beliefs that don't follow the norm for the community. Then when they hit the teens they can sometimes try out ideas on their own. But the problem is that some of the things we accept here are not accepted by the general public. Maybe the best thing you can do is provide a safe environment for the kid and teach by example. Stuff is going to happen and you can't always control it. You might think about how to teach the kid how to successfully be different.

My kid is a teenager now and highly involved in school (academics) and band and sports and computers and this stuff is really on the fringe to him. He doesn't pop out of his body or see spirits and his thoughts on the meaning of the universe are often his own. He always had a strong moral sense. This age is not the time for the average kid to be concerned with these philosophical issues. (we do watch "Medium"...but we also watch "House"...)

The other night we were driving some places. It was 10 or 11 PM and we were trying to sing something. He plays an instrument but he can't sing! So he was trying "The First Noel". He is bass, I am alto/second soprano range, and he is trying to sing an octave below me. So out of nowhere I silently imagine that he has a young daughter (we have joked about 'when he has kids' but he is no longer a kid and I am beginning to understand why people want grandchildren!) and that she is also singing with us, a high soprano. So we continue singing and as we head for home he mentions that he hears a high voice singing. We listen to see if there is a car radio blaring anywhere and ther is not. I hear nothing. When we pull into the driveway, he says it won't stop, he still hears it. I laughing tell him what I have been thinking, that it is his daughter and that I earlier imagined her there with us, and he says, Stop! you are freaking me out!

I don't know how to teach him to interpret the singing he heard but at least he knows I don't think he is odd for it. Now it is something that just sits there to be a reference point for the next odd thing that happens.

Shawn yes these are difficult things to deal with, you don't want to cut your family off but families certainly can be exasperating. But your child will still learn from your loving example.

It would be nice to have something concrete to do to teach the kid. After I read your post, I found a piece in the local paper that illustrates what we would like to be able to do in a group setting. The storu was in "Chicken Soup for th Soul" column, so I thought I might find it on the web.

I did. This version credits "Chicken Soup..":

http://www.unilecture.com/chicken.asp?sCode=18&iNmbr=110&iPage=28&sSrchType=x&sS...

If the characters won't show on your screen, here is another copy:

http://marshallteachers.sandi.net/teacher_sites/mcquillan/Fun_stories/AllThingsG...

Being me I want to know if this is a true story (there is a Joan Bramsch who is a professional writer/educator )but it does illustrate what I would have liked to be able to do with my kid.

(btw, there is another story at the Mcquillan site that I knew from elsewhere that I think is funny...it is off-topic but hey, we can all use a smile...here's the link, hope you know the other name for DHMO):
http://marshallteachers.sandi.net/teacher_sites/mcquillan/Fun_stories/Ban_Dihydr...

Hi Guys,

The question posed, is off the track of learning retrievals—or is it?(Thanks Shawn). My story is this:  About a hundred years ago (actually in 1970), when I had son #1 and he was about three years old, I enjoyed him most---when he was asleep.  It was not because of him but because I saw my role as his  teacher and trainer, “Pick up your toys, pick up your toys, pick up your toys, nag, nag, nag, orders, orders, orders” (I still apologize to son # 1 for my ignorance and insensitivity). Sort of like the meeting with my boss this past week, “I will not tolerate non-compliance with my orders-you get the idea”.  Fortunately the next two meetings were spent giving the “Grand Apology”-jeeez-what a week .  To continue, son # 2 was born November 1973 and he cried most of the time.  Parenthood for me became a real pain even though I loved them dearly.  Christmas of that year, the father of my sons gave me a gift of Gordon’s, Parent Effectiveness Training with the comment, “Here’s another book to shut you up”.  At that time, I was also beside myself with concern about my relationship with my husband because we were coming from very different places as individuals, as you can tell by the afore mentioned comment, so I was studying Carl Rogers and loved his humanistic approach to working with others.  This was long before I seriously started studying all things metaphysical. 

Anyhow, with the gift of the P.E.T. within 24 hours I did a 180-degree turnabout in my attitude about children, (including the crying situation) myself, and other people.  To make a looooong story short, I went on to become a P.E.T. instructor (1974), used Gordon’s open ended suggestions in fostering a very upset teen (1978) and am able to pretty much accept anyone from their where their at.  I don’t necessarily mean totally agreeing with them, but realizing that if I were in their shoes, I might be coming from the same position, including my ex-husband.  Then when I did a past life with a hypnotherapist (1997), I discovered that my speedy conversion to P.E.T. might have come from an earlier Native American life where the whole community had Gordon’s attitude towards children.  Meanwhile, in preparing for a social work class (2001), I came across The Carl Roger’s Reader, and discovered that he was a friend of Thomas Gordon’s.  Who’d a thunk it? But the most amazing thing in Roger’s last book was the fact that he had visited with RAM at the Monroe Institute and was very impressed.  (mystic_dreamer-but many of us on the board are visiting “Heaven” even though we have a different kind of body-or least we’re in training to do so and Shawn, we working on decreasing “life being a mystery” through direct experience using Bruce’s, RAM’s or other established healthy methods of altering consciousness and accessing the afterlife). 

So-if any of you out there need more than just tuning into your gut and following your heart to raise your children, which is really the best way, (refer to Vicky, Lucy, and Dave—So much thought and so much Love!) because you have been raised pretty lousy, then I recommend Gordon’s P.E.T.  I found that I had to learn to be a good parent, especially to myself, and Gordon sure did help me to do that.  Plus, because I don’t believe in accidents and “When the student is ready…”,  I truly believe that I was guided to this material and as far as I’m concerned, it has enabled me to continue to have a loving relationship with each of my three sons, in spite of a very difficult situation, to enjoy all 80+ of my clients, the beautiful individuals on this board.  And I want to add that I’m with Alysia in that I doubt that “…I could have come here and been happy without my kids…”either.  In fact, when I do Bruce’s love energy step for the retrieval exercises, I start with number # 1 son’s love and loving and then when that runs down, I move on to #2, etc. and PUL becomes a “piece of cake”.  (The numbering bit comes from their dad’s and my love of the old Charley Chan movies.)  Anyhow, that’s my story and I’m sticken’ to it!!!LOL


Have Fun with your children!!! And if you’re not, reach out for help (Gordon’s P.E.T. may not be for you because it demands a lot of trust, introspection, and assuming self-responsibility) or be receptive to the help that’s around you.

Good Luck and Lots of Love, especially to all you new parents out there.
   
Jean   

Alysia,


"she also went thru a bout of hearing voices which she had the good sense to call a halt to. I also knew what she was going thru so this is where my advice came in handy. I just told her stop messing around with them if they bothered her. she did, and it stopped. hearing indiscrimate voices is different than listening to guidance."

When I read this, I remembered a deam that I woke up Thursday morning, which involved my middle brother sleeping and me leaning down and hearing random voices from his head.  I called my mother over (she died in '85) to listen to them too and as she did, I could also hear what she was listening to.  There was even a bit of music before they resumed their (?) random statements.  I felt very yucky when I woke up for it was a very gray dismal dream.  At the time, I wondered what it was all about but when I read your responce, I started thinking about my many clients who hear the yucky voices and thought that wouldn't it be wonderfull if other parents (and the doctors also) were able to support their children who hear the yucky voices (I don't mean the guidence and support ones from guides, relatives, or hs's-just the yucky ones) as you were able to do instead of the current lst line of defenses being to deny that the child really hears them, label the child as mentally ill, or worse yet, put them immediatly on meds?

What do you guys think?   Jean