The Smart Parenting Revolution: A Powerful New Approach to Unleashing Your Child's Greatness

Chapter One Blaming the Victim: Disconnecting Children from Their Own Future "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." Socrates When we hold an infant in our arms, we all feel itthat gaping awe and amazement as we look at the prints at the ends of those tiny fingers. At that moment, it is as if a door inside our hearts openswe feel a wave of wonder at the miracle of this child's uniqueness and potential. My grandmother would have said that we are recognizing their spot of grace. Before you read further, I'd like to invite you to pause and bring that moment alive againthe sensations, smells, sounds. Where were you? Who else was there? What time of year was it? What was your deepest wish in that moment? If you could have given that child a blessing, what would it have been? What did you dream for that infant? What was your commitment as a parent? And those who stand behind yougrandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparentswhat do you imagine were their dreams and prayers for this tiny bundle of possibility? In that first moment and a thousand times since, you've probably asked yourself how you could best cultivate this being so that he or she could blossom as fully as possible. You are not alone. Parents and guardians throughout history have felt what you felt. They have whispered fiercely, tenderly, lovingly, "I want my child to succeed, to be who he or she is meant to be in this world, to be happy, to know he or she makes a difference. I want to give my child the best I possibly can." How does the door close? How do we all forget? Rather than cherishing all that potential, we come to see Martin as "hyperactive" instead of energetic. We think of Sally as "inattentive" instead of imaginative. We label George "oppositional" rather than independent. How do we develop a handicap of trust that limits our perception of the unique island of brilliance on which each child stands? How does our attention shift from what might be natural resources that need to be developed to what could be deficits that need to be fixed? How do we learn to limit what could be possible for our children instead of learning to champion their innate gifts? This happens gradually, but as they go through school, we shift our focus to what's wrong with them and how it can be fixed. This is not unique to parents. As a culture, we are experiencing a crisis of understanding that results from the way we have learned to think about our children and the challenges they face. When I was in graduate school studying clinical psychology, I was meticulously trained in the history of pathology. I could sit down with anyone and within thirty minutes, while carrying on a polite conversation, diagnose their particular neurosis down to the numerical classification code. (No wonder, at cocktail parties, when I told people I was a psychologist, they quickly moved away!) After several years, although proficient in categorizing what was wrong with every person I met, I found myself skilled in knowing how to help someone become sick or crazy. I also found myself feeling removed, remote, and isolated from the very children I wanted to help. My supervisors commended my "professional objectivity." I was not atypical. Since 1947, more than $30 billion has been invested in research that follows this deficit model. "The neurochemistry of depression is much better known than that of happiness, mostly because the former has been studied more intensively and for much longer." As author Dacher Keltner said in the January 17, 2005, issue of TiMarkova, Dawna is the author of 'The Smart Parenting Revolution: A Powerful New Approach to Unleashing Your Child's Greatness' with ISBN 9780345482457 and ISBN 034548245X.