Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Day 82: Mysophobia & The Inconvenience of Life – Part 2 | From Farm Life to City Life

In my previous blog, Day 80: Mysophobia & The Inconvenience of Life – Part 1 | From Farm Life to City Life; I shared some of my experiences and observations which happened around ‘sand’ whilst staying in Belgium.
I ended off with ‘Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.’

Another incident which illustrated this point nicely, was when we were at the playground and a child came running very happy and excitedly to have arrived at the playground – where he for a moment was so caught up in his excitement that he fell but was able to stop the fall by putting his hands to the ground. I thought it was rather quick thinking on the child’s part – but the mother who was walking a bit behind let out a big, massive sigh and then loudly scolded the child, complaining that they would now ‘have to go and wash his hands AGAIN’.

From all the variables which took place in that single moment, the one that had caught her attention was that ‘now his hands are dirty again’.

This just blew my mind, to see and realise how far removed we can get ourselves from reality. How we place such specific filters in our mind which define everything we see and experience in our world. In terms of filters active towards children, the biggest ones were money and relationships (/status). I mean, in any given situation, there’s a myriad of ways we can decide to respond to a given situation. But when we have filters in place, such as the things we value and give importance to, this limits our scope of how we see we can responds to a situation; to the point that we believe that there is only ‘one way’ which is the way we end up responding.

This is something I have seen so many times over within myself when working through memories within the DIP Pro course – and it was quite interesting and entertaining (in a scientific kind of way lol) to see it play out in front of my eyes.

There are so many ways to explore and experience childhood, yet within stubbornly holding on to values which set the parameters of how we see things and so respond to our environment, we force children to only live and experience life within very limited dimensions.
Monday, June 15, 2015

Day 81: Gifts from Animals: How Animals Taught me to be a Better Parent


I am going to be opening up a new series, on – as you may have guessed from the title – how animals taught me to be a better parent. I will still be writing about my Euro-trip experience so the two topics will be posted on and off.

I was actually first looking at the various gifts as insights into my life that I have received over the years with the various animals I’ve walked with on the farm.

Each relationship with the animals carries a story, a story of my personal process. When I was looking more into each specific ‘gift’ I had learnt and received from the animals; I noticed how each on of those gifts had come into play when working and walking with Cesar. Some I applied naturally and didn’t even notice where it came from, others I specifically implemented to see if they would assist with my relationship with Cesar as well as with my relationship with myself. So when this point opened up within myself of looking at what I have learnt from the animals, it really hit me to what extent my participation with them influenced me and assisted me to become who I am today, and still assist me in my personal development.

We often take animals and our relationship to animals for granted, so with these blogs I would like to highlight the ‘special’ part they can play in one’s life and how one can utilise animals in one’s environment to assist yourself in overcoming your own limitations and get more out of life.

So stay tuned to read all about the experiences and lessons I have learnt from walking with dogs, birds, parrots and horses – and how I have been able to apply these lessons walking with my toddler.
Saturday, June 6, 2015

Day 80: Mysophobia & The Inconvenience of Life – Part 1 | From Farm Life to City Life

Continuing from my previous blog: Day 79: From Farm Life to City Life | Don’t Touch the Walls

Within my previous blog we already established that the inside of the house was not a very pleasant environment to be; not so much because of the physical features but the mental limitations that were imposed within and unto the space.

So – whenever we could; we would go outside to one of the parks so Cesar could walk and play on the playground.

The one would we would go to the most was the bigger one which was furthest away. It had a nice playground which was also covered in sand that kids could play in.

Cesar loved sitting in the sand and picking up sand and placing bits of sand on random places and spots on all the various playground stations. He liked stirring sand with sticks, digging holes, finding little pebbles or rocks or just sitting and watching, observing other children play.

For us, this was natural. On the farm, we sit on the ground outside, we play in the sandpit, he plays with dirt, he plays with dogs – being outside, interacting with ‘the elements’ = you get dirty.

Being at the playground almost everyday, we noticed that the way we were playing and behaving at the playground wasn’t the norm.

The first thing we noticed, was that even though the playground was covered with sand – it was not something children were playing with. The second thing we noticed, was that adults/parents stayed away from the actual playground stations and left the children to play on their own. This isn’t that noteworthy for older children, but did get our attention for toddlers.

In terms of the sand, what became clear was that there was a general agreement that sand is very undesirable and should be avoided at all cost. Do not play with the sand, try not to touch it and dare not to sit in it. Other parents’ eyes actually became big as they saw us and Cesar sit with our bums in the sand, as if we were committing some type of sacrilege (didn’t we know we were gonna get sand all over our bums and maybe even in-between our clothes!!!!) as well as the realisation of fear that our (bad) example may tempt their children into disobedience.

The one time as we went into a shop and some sand from our playground trip had found itself on the shop’s floor; the owner had a fit of rage at the sight of a little bit of sand as this was simply ‘unacceptable’ and was convinced we were deliberate evil-doers.

Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.

The fact that children thoroughly enjoy sand and are able to do so much with it – completely bypasses parents’ minds. The only part which gets registered is how much ‘they suffer’ at the hand of sand-play and how they’re just not bothered to go there.

To be continued

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