Our Children Are Our Greatest Teachers

Our millennial children are asking more questions than any generation that came before them. I think that many adults may look at all of their questioning as a sort of defiance, a disrespect or them simply not listening to their elders. So many adults still have the attitude that children should be seen and not heard or that they should just always do as they are told. I choose to look at children as my greatest teachers, especially my own four. Sometimes we get sucked into the trap of thinking it is our job as parents or the older generation to teach them everything. What would happen if we if we actually listened to them? What would it look like if we answered their questions honestly and we learned from each other? How would it shift us as spiritual beings living a human experience if we listened to the newer spirits? I learned a long time ago that each of my four children are different, each one here to fulfill their own journey and each one here to teach me something new. In the last 23 years of parenting I have learned more and more from each of them everyday. There are days when they reflect back to me exactly what I need to learn, usually about myself. Here are a couple of examples. My youngest daughter has always been very independent, which is not usually very common for the youngest child. She is very determined, courageous and confident in who she is. She does things in her own time and in her own way. She teaches me daily, when I forget to be patient and try to rush her she not only questions me but refuses to do what I have asked her to do or not to do as is sometimes the case. She is teaching me that it is okay to be confident in who you are mom, it is okay to want things to be the way you want them to be, it is okay to wear the clothes that feel comfortable on your own body. Oh and hey mom guess what else, it is absolutely okay for me to be me and for you to be you. It is okay to not care what anyone else thinks of me or you, and it is more than okay for me to do it all in my own time and for you in your own time. What if I had chosen a path of unconscious parenting? Would I have ever learned these valuable life lessons my baby girl has taught me over the last twelve years of her life? Maybe or maybe not. I happen to be very grateful those lessons came from my beautiful, green eyed, curly haired girl. My oldest daughter(the teenager) who happens to be child number 3 following two big brothers teaches me so many things daily that I could never write them all down. Every Sunday my minister recites the four core beliefs of our church and the one I strive to remember to live by daily is this; "Everything is either a call for love or an expression of love, NO EXCEPTIONS." Sometimes those calls come gracefully and sometimes they come down right clumsy and ugly. My oldest daughter approaches these two lessons in love, full out everyday. I get the honor of truly striving to stay conscious and learn. She is my one child I can never let my spiritual guard down with because she catches me every time I do. There are times I catch it when its happening and I am fully present in the moment and the lesson she is teaching me. Then there are times I learn the lesson at 4:45 in the morning when I wake up for it to hit me square in the forehead and what I hear is this "Ummmm hello there lady she was trying to teach you something, why weren't you paying attention?" The other day she had what I refer to as a nuclear meltdown (a call for love) and I missed it while it was happening. It was a meltdown that left both of us spiritually, emotionally and physically drained. It was not one of my finer moments in motherhood. I was venting via text message (as we moms do for survival) with a dear friend who is also a conscious mother of a teenage girl who likes to teach her mom life lessons also. It must have been something in the air that night because my friend shared that she too was having a rough evening with her daughter as well. This is what she said to me just before I went to bed, that I believe caused a shift in my energy about the situation with my daughter as I slept on it. "She is showing me how to treat myself better, I think we need to turn that love inward. Our daughters know that they have it going on, because we taught them.They are showing us, get it together mama's. Love your damn selves." She was right, that was exactly the lesson. For my daughter it was also a cry for help, a call for love as she was struggling with some very serious stuff. We worked through all of it together. Then I sat in gratitude for the grace that is my gorgeous daughter, gratitude for the questions she asks, gratitude for the lessons she teaches my spirit and gratitude for the calls for love and expressions of love that she brings forth each day.

When my children were christened a passage was read which became one of my all time favorites. The passage is from the book The Prophet By: Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) he was a poet, philosopher and artist. I shall share the passage with you. "And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come not through you but from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but do not seek to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves the bow that is stable." This passage is so powerful and profound to me. My favorite line being, "They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself." Wow just Wow! So my graceful friends please listen to the questions your children and the children of the world ask. Please be open to learning the lessons they have to teach us and please please please listen to their calls for love and their expressions of love, NO EXCEPTIONS!

P.S. I will share with you soon some of the lessons my wonderful sons have taught me.

Grace & Love

Nic :)

xo

Graceful Children

Nicole Davis

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