When you are little you think you know everything about yourself and the world around you.
Boy does that change when you become a parent. Your life becomes so much more than just YOU and you begin to uncover a world full of knowledge you never knew existed.
Something I just recently discovered is there is more to life than conventional education, a spiritual education you can’t even get at Catholic school (Yes I said it and I went to catholic school). There is a part of you that you come to discover through life it’s self, through the act of living.
So how can kids learn this at an early age, outside of conventional education?
Interesting question isn’t it? The simple answer is… it’s through living that they learn, not something they are told. It’s through connecting with our kids on a deeper level that we are able to teach them the fundamental parts of who we are as spiritual beings. They are more than their report cards, they are more than their teacher’s opinion, they are more than peers judgements.
They are spiritual beings having a human experience (just like us).
Check out this list I found while reading a really cool article (I apologize but I can not recall where I got it from).
12 things your kids are not taught in school about themselves (which often follow us into our adult years).
1) You are creative. The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not.
2. Creative thinking is work. You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then you must have patience to persevere against all adversity (judgement, pressure to “be” different, ect..)
3. You must go through the motions of being creative. When you are producing ideas, you are replenishing neurotransmitters linked to genes that are being turned on and off in response to what your brain is doing, which in turn is responding to challenges. When you go through the motions of trying to come up with new ideas, you are energizing your brain by increasing the number of contacts between neurons.
4. Your brain is not a computer. Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves its patterns of activity rather than computes them like a computer. It thrives on the creative energy of feedback from experiences real or fictional. You can synthesize experience; literally create it in your own imagination. The human brain cannot tell the difference between an “actual” experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail. This discovery is what enabled Albert Einstein to create his thought experiments with imaginary scenarios that led to his revolutionary ideas about space and time. One day, for example, he imagined falling in love. Then he imagined meeting the woman he fell in love with two weeks after he fell in love. This led to his theory of acausality. The same process of synthesizing experience allowed Walt Disney to bring his fantasies to life.
5. There is no one right answer. Reality is ambiguous. The only certainty in life is uncertainty. When trying to get ideas, do not censor or evaluate them as they occur. Nothing kills creativity faster than self-censorship of ideas while generating them. Think of all your ideas as possibilities and generate as many as you can before you decide which ones to select. The world is not black or white. It is grey.
7. Expect the experts to be negative. The more expert and specialized a person becomes, the more their mindset becomes narrowed and the more fixated they become on confirming what they believe to be absolute. Consequently, when confronted with new and different ideas, their focus will be on conformity. Does it conform with what I know is right? If not, experts will spend all their time showing and explaining why it can’t be done and why it can’t work. They will not look for ways to make it work or get it done because this might demonstrate that what they regarded as absolute is not absolute at all.
8. Trust your instincts. Don’t allow yourself to get discouraged.
Albert Einstein was expelled from school because his attitude had a negative effect on serious students; he failed his university entrance exam and had to attend a trade school for one year before finally being admitted; and was the only one in his graduating class who did not get a teaching position because no professor would recommend him. One professor said Einstein was “the laziest dog” the university ever had.
Beethoven’s parents were told he was too stupid to be a music composer.
Charles Darwin’s colleagues called him a fool and what he was doing “fool’s experiments” when he worked on his theory of biological evolution.
Walt Disney was fired from his first job on a newspaper because “he lacked imagination.”
Thomas Edison had only two years of formal schooling, was totally deaf in one ear and was hard of hearing in the other, was fired from his first job as a newsboy and later fired from his job as a telegrapher; and still he became the most famous inventor in the history of the U.S.
9. There is no such thing as failure. Whenever you try to do something and do not succeed, you do not fail. You have learned something that does not work. Always ask “What have I learned about what doesn’t work?”, “Can this explain something that I didn’t set out to explain?”, and “What have I discovered that I didn’t set out to discover?” Whenever someone tells you that they have never made a mistake, you are talking to someone who has never tried anything new.
10. You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are. Interpret your own experiences. All experiences are neutral. They have no meaning. You give them meaning by the way you choose to interpret them. If you are a priest, you see evidence of God everywhere. If you are an atheist, you see the absence of God everywhere.
11. Always approach a problem on its own terms. Do not trust your first perspective of a problem as it will be too biased toward your usual way of thinking. Always look at your problem from multiple perspectives. Always remember that genius is finding a perspective no one else has taken.
12. Learn to think unconventionally. Creative geniuses do not think analytically and logically. Conventional, logical, analytical thinkers are exclusive thinkers which means they exclude all information that is not related to the problem. They look for ways to eliminate possibilities. Creative geniuses are inclusive thinkers which mean they look for ways to include everything, including things that are dissimilar and totally unrelated.
So I ask you now, if you could go back in time what would you change about your childhood? What would you want to know that you know now?
Wouldn’t it be amazing to teach your children how to find their own inner genius, trust their instincts, think outside the box and become successful beyond their wildest dreams? If your saying “yes, yes, yes” then check out this video I made for you.
Don’t forget to enter your name and email for a change to reserve a spot in my upcoming
FREE Webinar, where I will be talking about these myths and giving you clear action steps to start feeling amazing as a parent, while giving your kids the essential skills to a
waken their confidence along the way.
Leave me a comment below, which of the “12 things” above spoke to you?
Love and Gratitude,
I feel______ and the temperature in the room is _______.
What I enjoyed best working with Heather is seeing the change in my son's behavior. Heather helped him discover the confidence in himself to handle life's surprises.
