When I was a child, my mom told me that I could be anything that I wanted to be when I grew up.  When I finally did grow up, I wondered why I doubted it.

I was never quite confident enough in my ability to ‘do anything that I wanted’ because of the foundation upon which my internal operating system was built.  Threads of self-doubt comprised a substantial portion of this underlying framework within which my brain operates.  My mother is not to be blamed.  It was her responsibility as my parent to keep me safe while I learned how to function, manage, and relate to life.  Along with many other adults who were vested in my upbringing, my parents did what they thought was best for me.

Most of us grew up under a similar protection plan.  This plan included inundating us with a continuous stream of information on how to avoid trouble.  “Don’t do this, don’t do that” were repeated reminders throughout our early childhood.  These directives were customarily reinforced with subsequent warnings, such as “you’ll break your neck” and “you’ll put your eye out.”  All the necessary rules that we needed to follow were given to us on a daily basis for the purpose of keeping us safe from harm.

Of course we should provide our children with instructions that will help them to avoid dangerous situations.  As a parent myself, I have first-hand experience with the instinctive nature to protect my children from pain.  While I naturally want to keep them from harm, I believe that the method  for teaching children how to avoid harmful situations requires an equal dose of how to attempt innocuous ones.

A constant barrage of prevention measures that do not include suggestions of what kids CAN do is the blueprint for a framework of avoidance.  Unbalanced patterns of avoidance promote the tendency toward self-doubt.   Any adult has the option to reconstruct a mental framework that was fashioned with more threads of doubt than confidence.  Remodeling an internal operating system can be done during any stage of life.  In my experience, this rebuilding process is well worth it, but often quite arduous.  Once I became a parent myself, I thought I might save the small Beans the trouble by providing them with a confident foundation to operate upon right from the start.

It is really just a simple matter of proportion.  For every directive that contained the words “you can’t,”  I would try to be mindful of offering another statement that contained the words “you can.”  My objective was to supply their developing mindset with at least an equal amount of ‘capability’ threads to balance all the threads of  ‘powerlessness’ that they had been accumulating.  Eventually supplying the young Beans with more “cans” than “can’ts” would be even better.

Initiating this practice was a real eye-opener for me.  It was startling just how often I used the word “can’t.”  My first attempts at offering counter-directives felt a bit clumsy, too.  I used some really stupid and far-fetched edicts, such as “you can’t touch the knobs on the stove because it’s dangerous, but you CAN hold this spoon.”  (What?! What the hell does that mean?!)

Eventually I recognized that the kids were not at all miffed by my awkward associations, and that they actually absorbed the underlying messages quite easily.  Their comprehension of danger was acknowledged with a furrowed brow and a frown.  This expression was immediately followed by bright eyes and a smile while holding the stupid spoon.  This felt like parenting magic at its best.

With time and practice I have improved my relative associations between the cans and cannots.  Some twenty years or so later, it is now automatic to tell my two-year-old niece that she CANNOT walk down the front porch steps by herself, but she CAN hold my hand and count with me while we walk down the steps together.  If I can help my sister Evie construct Caroline’s developing framework to promote more confidence than avoidance, we may save Caroline the trouble of having to undertake a complete remodeling project later in life.

Since it appears that the three Beans are now self-assured young adults who meet situations more often than they avoid them, I am certain that this is one indication that the cans are continuing to dominate the cannots within their mental framework.  Although it does seem rather peculiar that they still smile while holding a spoon:)

Tags: child rearing, confident ability, developing mindset, early childhood, instinctive nature, internal operating system, mental framework, parenting, parenting magic